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B. Guiding Principles for the National Children's Agenda
Appendix 1 - Summary of actions
Appendix 2 - Members of the National Children's Alliance
The National Children's Alliance (NCA) is a group of national organizations with an interest
in the well-being of children and youth. The group meets monthly to share information, work
co-operatively, devise strategies to promote a national children's agenda and to respond to
concerns and issues affecting children and their families.
The NCA was established in the spring of 1996. Since that time the it has been promoting
discussion of policy issues based on the document "Investing in Children - A Framework for
Action" developed as a result of the November 1996 Canada's Children…Canada's Future
conference.
Growing public awareness and the consequent political interest has increased pressure to
develop a national children's agenda. The NCA has spent the past year meeting members of
the federal Cabinet, MPs from all parties and officials interested in, or responsible for,
children's issues at the federal level. In order to keep children and youth a priority issue,
members of the NCA are working together to identify key components of a national children's
agenda.
Although children and youth in Canada represent our country's future, the NCA is acutely
aware that many children and youth are living in poverty - denied the opportunity to develop
to their full potential because families are not receiving the range of supportive services they
need. Families have the primary responsibility to care for, nurture and guide children
throughout the various stages of development; however, all Canadians have a collective
responsibility to support families in creating opportunities for children to develop and grow.
Guiding principles have been adopted by the NCA to illustrate what we believe should be
used to develop Canada's action plan for children and youth.
Mindful of competing priorities for limited public funds, the NCA is nevertheless confident
that the federal government has the will to breathe life into those key principles and into its
own long-standing and repeated promises with regard to the betterment of children's lives in
Canada. While some of the measures recommended in this submission should be implemented
immediately, others could be part of an incremental process over the next few budgets. May
we stress that all actions in the short-term or long-term must flow from a solid commitment
by the federal government to a specific plan, which needs to address the issues outlined
herein.
Policy directives and initiatives intended to enhance the well-being of children and youth must
balance employment opportunities, income support and social services based on the following
common guiding principles:
Investing in children and youth is the key to a strong
economy and a healthy civic society;
A life-cycle approach to investment must be adopted which responds to the changing
needs of children and youth throughout their development;
Investment in children requires the allocation of additional resources; Strong inter-sectoral partnerships are necessary to ensure that the needs of all children,
youth and families are adequately met;
Equitable, quality and accessible services and supports must be provided in communities
across the country;
As a key partner, the voluntary sector must be strengthened in order to play a central role
in supporting the needs of children and youth;
Building broad public commitment and an open consultative process is critical to a
sustainable children's agenda;
Addressing the needs of children and youth must be based on sustainable commitment and
a long-term plan including targets, benchmarks and outcomes;
Policy and program decisions must be evidence-based and evaluated rigorously and
regularly;
The broad determinants of health must provide the foundation for the national children's
agenda.
A national children's agenda is a recognition of Canada's collective responsibility to support
families in creating opportunities for children to grow and develop to their potential. The time
has come for the federal government, in collaboration with the provincial and territorial
governments, to take a leadership role in making this a reality. As a signatory to the United
Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, Canada has an obligation to address the needs
of our children. The implementation of a national children's agenda will flourish with the
collective action of governments, the voluntary sector, communities and individuals. Through a co-ordinated approach, a national children's agenda can be developed within a
public policy framework to deal with the urgent needs of families in Canada. The children's
agenda must be a collaborative effort by federal and provincial governments. The NCA is
focusing on the components of this agenda where the federal government has the capacity and
the responsibility for leadership. However, we recognize the importance of working
collaboratively with the provinces and territories, both with governments and with
communities. The proposed federal action plan therefore is inclusive of direct income security
measures as well as family support, child development and youth services. The federal government has a key role in ensuring an effective national infrastructure
grounded by a federal policy framework that supports: a national research and social
reporting agenda, building capacity in the voluntary sector, family supportive legislation, a
public engagement strategy and effective coordination mechanisms. The components of the federal action plan, therefore, should include: The federal government, in partnership with governments at all levels, must lead the way in
creating mechanisms to achieve this goal. The NCA is committed to playing a key role in this
process through active partnership with the federal government and by keeping the concerns
of children front and centre at the national level. In order to begin the dialogue, we have
drafted what we perceive as the essential components of a federal action plan.
There are five federal initiatives that could provide a solid basis for a coordinated income
security strategy:
The cornerstone of a strategy to address child poverty is an indexed National Child Benefit. In
the 1998 budget Minister Martin committed $850 million to the National Child Benefit System
(NCBS) over two years, in July 1999 and again in July 2000. We are asking for an acceleration
of the investment timetable so that the amount be doubled to meet the urgent need of
children in poverty ($850M in 1999 and $850M in 2000). This meets an overall investment
target of 2.5 billion by the year 2000. In addition, we are asking that the NCBS be indexed to
inflation.
ACTION: Invest an additional $850 million and
index the National Child Benefit
With the current structure of the National Child Benefit System, provinces deduct the entire
amount of the benefit that families on social assistance receive (except Newfoundland and New
Brunswick). We are asking that low-income families with no earned income receive some
financial assistance.
Some social assistance rates force families to live in poverty; their lack of entry into the labour
market is due to lack of sufficient jobs that pay a living wage and lack of programs to support
labour market participation (affordable, quality child care for example). Although some families
may be better off financially by staying on social assistance than accepting low- wage
employment, the solution must be to improve the labour market rather than penalizing the
poorest families (and hence the poorest children) in Canada by not providing them with any
additional income support.
ACTION: Expand the National Child Benefit to
all low-income families
Canada is one of only a few industrialized countries that do not recognize the cost of raising
children in its tax system. Previous income tax provisions such as the tax exemption for families
with children (converted into a non-refundable child tax credit in 1988) and the refundable
child tax credit were eliminated by 1993. A child tax credit recognizes the costs of raising
children for families with a parent at home or in the workforce. In order to support families
with children we are asking for a non-refundable $2,000 tax credit, co-ordinated with the
National Child Benefit, for each child under 18.
ACTION: Invest $2,000 per child through a tax credit
The NCA recognizes the financial challenges involved for families with children with special
needs. At this time we are asking the Finance Minister to review the impact of tax policy for
such and make recommendations for improving fairness within the context of a national
approach to home care to ensure that the needs of these families are considered.
ACTION: Review the impact of tax policy on families with children with special needs
With the introduction of the new Employment Insurance system in 1996, changes to eligibility
regulations have radically reduced the number of workers who can draw on EI maternity and
parental benefits (as well as other EI benefits). Between 1996 and 1997 the number of
maternity and parental beneficiaries fell by 7% compared with a drop in the number of births
of only 2%. Employment Insurance is the only program through which financial support is
available for families with infants and young children, and the 1996 changes further limit the
number who have such access.
The federal government should - at a minimum - restore the pre-1994 conditions of
entitlement, benefit duration, replacement rate, and the maximum insurable earnings level.
ACTION: Immediately restore parental leave to pre-1994 levels
In Canada, statutory rights to unpaid parental leave is provided through provincial and federal
labour legislation. In addition, paid maternity and parental benefits are provided through the
Employment Insurance system.
Currently, women are eligible for 15 weeks of benefits (after a two-week waiting period), and
both parents are eligible for 10 weeks of parental leave. These paid benefits replace 55% of
previous earnings (averaged over a set period of time), up to maximum insurable earnings of
$39,000/year. This is inadequate to ensure the financial needs of families and the developmental
needs of infants in the absence of accessible quality infant child care.
The NCA recommends that targets and timetables be set for the development of a
comprehensive maternity and parental income replacement program to ensure one year of
leave at 75% of previous earnings up to a maximum of insurable earnings.
ACTION: Implement a timetable to increase parental leave to 75% of earnings and one year of eligibility
Families need a range of support services to assist them in enabling their children to reach their
potential. Critical community-based support services which need to be co-ordinated through
the National Children's Agenda must include: A Coordinated National Strategy
Accessibility to a range of community-based social and community services is critical to support
the healthy development of children and youth who may be at risk of not reaching their
potential. Services need to be responsive to family needs and therefore integrated and accessible
within social and health services at the community level. The federal government has
traditionally played and continues to play a critical role in service delivery through funding
Canadian Health and Social Transfer (CHST) and through direct program delivery. A
coordinated national strategy is urgently needed for early childhood care and education, child
welfare services, family support services and youth services.
The Liberal Party acknowledged in the Red Book II Securing our Future Together that youth from
low-income environments face the most formidable challenges in establishing themselves in
the job market. Youth at risk drop out of school at alarming levels; 20% of 20 year-olds drop
out of high school; 40% of those who leave are 16 or younger; 62% have grade 10 or less. The
key issues of youth at risk need to be addressed before they drop out of school. Enabling high-risk youth to successfully make the transition to adulthood requires multi-disciplinary and
multi-sectoral preventative approaches that begin pre-youth to support children and families.
Today, Canada's child welfare system which serves our most at-risk children and youth is in
urgent need of support.
In Securing our Future Together, the challenges facing families today were recognized: "High
unemployment, the changing nature of work and workplaces, and the increasing number of
single- parent families and families with both parents working all contribute to the stress
experienced by modern families." The need for income support was recognized and in addition
"Community-based services play a critical role in helping parents ensure the healthy
development of their children. By helping young children get off to a good start and preventing
problems before they occur, these programs significantly decrease the need for far greater
spending in the future." Canada urgently needs a national child care strategy to address the
needs of children and families today.
ACTION: Develop a National Strategy to address urgent issues of
child care, youth at risk and child welfare.
Social and Community Supports
The NCA is recommending that the federal government develop an integrated approach to
support community services which would, in turn, support community-based programs that
deliver integrated/co-ordinated services to meet the needs of children, youth and families in
their communities. Building on Community Action Program for Children (CAP-C) and Canada
Prenatal Nutrition Program (CPNP), this type of funding model facilitates collaboration
between federal, provincial and territorial governments, and enables communities to deliver
programs and services that have been identified as critical components of the national
children's agenda.
The outcome of supporting flexible delivery systems based on community needs will be an
integrated approach to services at the community level. The types of community-based
program sites that could be eligible to apply for funding to deliver services should include:
family resource programs, family services agencies, child care centers, public health programs,
schools and community organizations in order to build on existing community strengths. The
CAP-C model could be enhanced in order to deliver a range of integrated community-based
support services and to increase accessibility of the programs to children, youth and families.
The national strategy needs to include:
ACTION: Immediately invest in integrated community-based services
to meet the needs of families, children and youth
Accountability depends on our ability to link the outcome measures for children and youth to
policy changes. Information and research are key to monitoring whether the situation for
children and youth in Canada is improving or deteriorating. It is therefore critical that Canada
work towards developing:
National Research Agenda
In Canada today, there is a lack of co-ordination for the diverse research on children's issues
and in some areas an urgent need for Canadian data. It is critical that research gaps be identified
at the national level. There is a critical gap in research and development in the area of policy
and program evaluation for community-based services and psycho-social research. The federal
government is in a unique position to work collaboratively with governments, foundations,
NGOs, universities and the voluntary sector to develop a national research agenda.
ACTION: Develop a collaborative process to
identify a national research agenda on children's issues.
National Mechanism for Reporting and Monitoring of Children's Well-being
ACTION: Develop and implement a federal coordinating mechanism for
national research and monitoring.
As a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, Canada has an
obligation to monitor the health and well-being of Canada's children in order to determine to
what extent the Convention is being implemented. It is therefore critical that Canada develop
a social reporting process to monitor the well-being of children and youth and track actions
taken to improve outcomes. Measures should include health, environment, economic status,
education, learning etc. For this purpose, it is critical to develop and maintain a comprehensive
national data collection system. Current initiatives, such as the National Longitudinal Survey
and Centres of Excellence, should be built on and integrated into a comprehensive national
mechanism.
ACTION: Develop a national reporting and data collection
mechanism to monitor children's health and well-being.
A national children's agenda cannot be implemented without the active participation of the
voluntary sector NGOs at both the national and local levels. In order to facilitate successful
implementation the following national mechanisms are needed:
Collaboration Strategy
The cornerstone of a national children's agenda is the policy framework, which should be based
on the guiding principles. The federal government with provincial/territorial governments and
the voluntary sector can show leadership in the planning and implementation of a policy
framework that balances social services, income support and employment opportunities for all
families.
ACTION: Implement a collaboration mechanism for the development
and implementation of a policy framework for the national children's agenda
Canada has a rich tradition of civic and voluntary activity. The voluntary sector is working at
all levels of society to enhance the well-being of children and youth through community
development initiatives. Governments are recognizing the key role that the voluntary sector
plays in policy development, social service delivery, citizen engagement and healthy
communities. Successful implementation of the national children's agenda will be dependent
upon a vibrant third sector to collaborate in the planning, implementation and evaluation
phases. The voluntary sector's role in national information-sharing is crucial for dissemination
of best practices in program delivery and evaluation.
ACTION: Develop and implement a National Policy and Funding
Strategy to enable capacity-building in the Voluntary Sector
Building Public Commitment
Raising awareness among Canadians about the critical determinants of healthy child
development through public engagement will serve to mobilize individuals and communities.
The success of Campaign 2000 and ParticiPACTION are examples of how educating the public
can inspire positive social change at the individual, community and national levels.
ACTION: Develop an integrated public Education campaign on the
determinants of child health.
The NCA is a consortium of organizations representing many sectors with considerable
expertise in matters affecting the health and well-being of children and youth. We applaud the
Liberal Party platform which was set out in Securing our Future Together in the following terms:
"The federal government welcomes this opportunity to develop a broader more comprehensive
framework for federal, provincial, and territorial children's initiatives. Given the strength of the
current consensus on children's issues, there is every reason to believe that together we can
establish clear national objectives for Canada's children, as well as to achieve them." We now
hope that the federal government will seize the opportunity to provide immediate leadership
in the development and implementation of a national children's agenda. It is time to translate
good intentions into action. The children of Canada deserve no less.
Members of the National Children's Alliance:
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