Four National Women's Groups: CCLOW · CFWEC · CRIAW · NOIVMWC

This situation is all the more scandalous because such widespread poverty is completely avoidable in a relatively wealthy and industrialized country such as Canada.

Why are women, and consequently their children, poor?

• Non-payment of child support by non-custodial fathers of the children.
  
• Women's systematic exclusion from the paid labour force (for example, by the absence of adequate childcare services), which forces many women into social assistance programs.
  
• Insufficient income support systems for women who have no other viable options.
  
• For women who do gain entry to the paid labour force, they tend to be concentrated in low-paying, part-time or temporary work.

Women's unpaid work, both in the home and as volunteers in the community, makes an enormous contribution to the economic and social well-being of families, communities and the country as a whole. Surveys have shown that women generally do double the amount of unpaid work that men do. Unfortunately, the Federal Government appears to be planning on loading even more work onto voluntary organizations, expecting them to provide the social programs and services which will be dropped as a result of cuts to social expenditures.

The Green Paper proposes to split responsibility for child poverty. The Federal Government would provide a larger child tax credit, targeted more specifically at lower-income families. However, the Federal Government would provide reduced support for income maintenance programs at the provincial level, through CAP. Less wealthy provinces or those ideologically conservative governments would likely provide income maintenance programs well below those of other provinces, resulting in wider disparities across Canada.

Overall, there is an absence of discussion in the Green Paper about the impact of the proposals on the ability of provinces to deliver adequate social services - an absolutely critical element of social security in Canada.

The proposals to integrate the child benefit portion of social assistance with the Child Tax Benefit appears positive because it means that parents would not have to give up their child benefits if they took a job. However, the government's proposal includes targeting full benefits strictly to families with incomes below $15,000 and reducing rates proportionally as incomes rise. For a large number of women who make up the greatest proportion of lone parent families earning a modest or low income, this proposed change would leave them with inadequate support.