FRANCAIS

April 28, 2003

Families and children will continue to benefit from increased government support for early childhood development and from stronger legislation to make it easier to collect child support payments, Family Services and Housing Minister Drew Caldwell and Attorney General Gord Mackintosh announced today.

This year, the provincial government will increase funding in the following areas, further strengthening supports for vulnerable individuals, families and communities:

• Support for the Child Day Care program will increase by $6 million or 8.6 per cent. In the past four budgets, the Manitoba government has increased funding for child care by over $22 million or 41.5 per cent to improve salaries, provide additional subsidies, increase the number of funded spaces and bring more children with disabilities into the system.
• Funding for children and adults with disabilities will increase by an additional $29 million or 10.2 per cent.
• All families with children under 18 receiving income assistance will receive the full National Child Benefit Supplement (NCBS). The Manitoba government has been restoring the NCBS since 2000 and, when fully implemented, it will result in $13.7 million in additional support.
• Support for the Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA) program will double to $2 million, benefiting all pre-schoolers with autism currently on a waiting list.

"We are committed to supporting the priorities of Manitobans and the value they place on strengthening families and building communities," said Caldwell. "We have made good progress but must continue to help people achieve their fullest potential."

Budget 2003 builds on all of these achievements with increased funding to Healthy Child Manitoba of over $750,000 or 3.6 per cent. In the past four budgets, the province has increased its commitment to early childhood development and families by over $50 million. Of this amount, the Government of Canada transferred $14.8 million in 2002-03 and will contribute $19.4 million in 2003-04.

Additionally, tough, new child support legislation to make it easier to collect outstanding family support payments and compensate those who do not receive payments on time will be introduced today. Automatic paycheque deduction for delinquent payors, interest-like penalties, and recovering of the costs of collection work from payors will form part of the changes.

"Child poverty caused by parents who neglect their legal and moral financial responsibility to their children will continue to be a priority for our government," said Mackintosh.

Also, the possibility of a child support payment recalculation program is being explored to enable the amount of support owing to be updated or indexed on a regular basis when the payer's income changes. This proposed initiative would eliminate the need for contested, time-consuming, complex court proceedings for many families.

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