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Dear John,
In 2016, the federal government replaced two existing child benefit programs with the Canada Child Benefit (CCB), which provides tax-free payments to eligible families with children under the age of 18.
One of the stated goals of the CCB was to help lift children out of poverty – but most of the households that benefit from this new program compared to the previous ones were never living in poverty in the first place.
A new Fraser Institute essay out today finds that the CCB program did not target truly low-income families with children and instead deliberately prioritized the middle class. As a result, despite spending an additional $5.6 billion in 2019-20 the new CCB only moved an estimated 90,900 children above Statistics Canada’s Low-Income Cut-Off.
Dig into the numbers by checking out the full essay here, and be sure to share it with your friends and colleagues.
Stay safe,
Niels Veldhuis
President
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