Ed Broadbent is calling on a tax increase to fight child poverty
Broadbent, 73, said increasing their taxes from 29 per cent to 35 per cent would put billions more toward eliminating child poverty, increasing the amount spent by $3.7 billion.
“With just that single move we would double the amount given for the national child benefit supplement and take children out of the devastation of poverty,” he said during a speech at the University of New Brunswick.
He said it makes sense given that in the past decade only the richest in Canada have seen their wages go up beyond the cost of living.
Well first of all I don’t know if a six percent tax increase is the right number and from where I am, I see child poverty as a much more complex problem than doubling the national child benefit supplement but I kind of like Ed’s idea of using a focused tax to fight a specific problem. Of course it never works that way in the end. Our gas taxes don’t go to fixing up roads but go into general revenues. Part of me has often wondered if you could designated a percentage of the GST, let’s say .25% and designate that to fight child poverty in Canada or if you made it broader, fight poverty and homelessness in general. You could also designate a portion of “sin taxes” to it instead. I know it won’t happen as we really aren’t that serious in Canada about fighting child poverty (which is the real issue) but not all taxes are bad and fighting child poverty and homelessness at a young age saves an awful lot amount of money down the road, money that could be used for tax cuts in other areas.
[...] have blogged about this before but I am going to keep bringing this up because it’s a big issue. I don’t know if I see [...]