Hands OFF! The Baby Bonus

This letter is in support of the Hands OFF Campaign. We support the efforts by the Income Security Advocacy Centre and others across Ontario & Canada to stop this senseless act. End the clawback of the National Child Benefit Supplement from families on social assistance, now! Fund the reinvestment programs that work for low-income families out of other provincial and federal revenues. Families on social assistance are among the poorest families in our communities. Clawing back the NCBS from these families, just because they are on social assistance, is unfair and discriminatory. Clawing back the NCBS leaves these parents struggling to meet the basic needs of their families. No parent should have to make the difficult choices that families on social assistance have to make every month in order to survive. This is one promise that You Premier McGuinty have to keep! During the last Ontario election, Mr Dalton McGuinty you agreed that the clawback was wrong and promised to end it in your first mandate, if you were elected Premier. In April 2004, you and the new Liberal government announced that, instead of ending the clawback, you would "cap" it at the July 2003 level while you conducted a review of the program. To date there has been no action on ending the clawback altogether and the "cap" puts less than $50 a year, per child in the pockets of needy families - while the Province still claws back over $1,400. HANDS OFF! STOP TAKING THE BABY BONUS Sincerely,