Federal Budget

www.budget.gc.ca/2010/

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Federal budget child-care tax break causes new headache for feds
By Heather Scoffield (CP)
March 9, 2010

OTTAWA — The federal budget’s key anti-poverty measure cures one headache and causes another.

Changes to the tax treatment of the $100-a-month Universal Child Care Benefit to help single-parent families “will create new inequities,” says the Caledon Institute of Social Policy, an Ottawa-based think-tank known for its work on social security.

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Reactions and Responses:

Staying the course: highlights of a no-surprise budget
CBC, March 4, 2010

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Jobs of tomorrow, challenge for today
March 8, 2010
By Karina Roman, CBC

… David Macdonald, an economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA), argues an environment in which jobs are created requires investment in social programs such as education, transit, health and childcare.

“Businesses want well-trained employees. Businesses want their employees to get to work on time and not be stuck in rush hour traffic. And they want access to more employees because [those] employees can get child care.”

Macdonald also says that kind of social spending is just as good at creating jobs as is building bridges and roads.

“What’s interesting is that social infrastructure in terms of ranking on job creation, ranks at the same level as physical infrastructure. So whether you’re paying a child care worker to provide subsidized daycare for a single mother, or whether you’re paying a manufacturing person to go out and run some rail line for light transit, the same number of jobs are created.”

And Macdonald says that both social and physical infrastructure spending ranks much higher than taxes in terms of number of jobs created….

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Conservatives put oil companies before kids
by: New Democratic Party of Canada | Mar 6th, 2010
Canadaviews.ca

OTTAWA –Stephen Harper has made it clear that he plans to once again put oil companies before Canadian children, says New Democrat Children and Childcare Critic Olivia Chow (Trinity—Spadina).

“Yesterday’s budget clearly demonstrates where Stephen Harper’s priorities lie. Billions in corporate tax cuts for oil companies while childcare and childhood nutrition are ignored,” says Chow.

“With no new dollars for early childhood education or child care, this budget continues to fail our children and working parents,” says Chow. “Among OECD countries, Canada is already ranked last for its lack of investment in child care. Harper’s Conservatives are unfortunately continuing with this irresponsible policy of neglecting our children.”…

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CUPE Budget 2010 Fact Sheets: