Action To Promote Social Justice

Investing In Personal Self-Reliance

With an annualized investment of $2 million, we will increase the Low Income Tax Reduction threshold from $12,000 to $13,000 for individuals and from $19,000 to $21,000 for families, effective January 1, 2007.

With an annualized investment of $4.2 million, we will increase the Low Income Seniors’ Benefit threshold for senior couples by about $10,000 to ensure more seniors can avail of the program. Some 3,800 senior couples will receive a cheque for $768 as a result of this initiative.

Our government’s Poverty Reduction Strategy has been hailed across the country as a model that others should follow. In introducing the strategy in last year’s budget, we provided annualized funding of more than $60 million for a suite of initiatives to alleviate and prevent poverty, and we are determined to continue leading the country in efforts to reduce poverty. To that end, we are increasing our investment this year by an additional $28.9 million to support new initiatives to help our most vulnerable citizens rise from poverty to achieve a greater measure of self-reliance. Our combined $91 million commitment to the Poverty Reduction Strategy this year supports a broad mix of policies and programs that will result in improved access to services, a stronger social safety net, improved earned incomes, a strong focus on the needs of children and families, and a better educated population.

Through an investment of $9.8 million, we will increase supports to enable persons with disabilities to participate fully in society. Adults with disabilities who reside with their own family members will begin receiving board and lodging supplements totaling $362 a month or $4,344 a year that until now were available only to those lodging with non-relatives. We will also increase labour market participation of persons with disabilities, increase their access to student summer employment, provide disability related supports in the workplace, and extend our Opening Doors Program to Crown corporations to provide more opportunities for persons with disabilities within our public service.

We will also help low income families by increasing the Newfoundland and Labrador Child Tax Benefit rate by $5 a month, increasing the Mother Baby Nutrition Supplement rate by $15 a month, and increasing the private child care allowance to $400 for the first child and to $200 for additional children, giving parents greater freedom to secure employment. We will develop an enhanced home visiting model, built on the Healthy Beginnings Program currently provided by public health nurses, to give additional support for parenting and early childhood development.

To advance the status of women in poverty, we will improve access to legal services particularly for family law matters, increase grants to the province’s eight women’s centres, and research ways of increasing access to employment supports for victims of violence.

We will expand the Community Youth Network to six new areas of the province and increase funding for existing centres, support an Adult Alternative Justice Program emphasizing offender accountability and victim needs, and enable Newfoundland Labrador Housing to provide lower rental rates for senior tenants and to increase support for eight Community Centres providing tenants with social, health and career development opportunities.

Over the next year, we will also increase the province’s minimum wage to $8.00 an hour in two increments: by 50 cents an hour on October 1 and by another 50 cents an hour on April 1 of next year. With the implementation of these increases, Newfoundland and Labrador will be on par with Atlantic Canada and other Canadian jurisdictions with respect to the minimum wage. Our government also recognizes the need to plan for future increases in a predictable and incremental manner and provide stakeholders with the time necessary to prepare. That is why our government will undertake consultations with stakeholders to review the minimum wage in the province and to have it concluded early in 2008.

Another way we can promote self-reliance is through our investments in housing. In this budget, we are making an unprecedented additional investment in housing programs and projects and giving housing a higher priority than it has been given in decades.

We are ready to announce two early initiatives flowing from the Social Housing Review Study. The first is the development of a provincial housing strategy. Over the coming weeks a work plan will be formed, and consultations in support of the strategy development process will be launched in the coming months. In addition, we will be making significant increases to Housing’s Modernization and Improvement Program. Over the past fifteen years, the Newfoundland Labrador Housing Modernization and Improvement Program has not received adequate funding to maintain the Crown corporation’s aging and deteriorating properties, which to be frank is a shame. As a property owner, the province has a financial obligation to protect its investment in these properties and a moral obligation to ensure its tenants have decent accommodations. Over the next five years, we will increase funding for the Modernization and Improvement Program by $27.5 million, more than doubling the resources available to modernize and improve the social housing stock we currently have throughout our province. This is a sound investment in social housing that is long overdue.

Another initiative, the Provincial Home Repair Program, formerly known as RRAP, has since 1976 helped over 45,000 private low-income homeowners throughout our province to remain in their homes by providing funding to help with repairs and maintenance for their dwellings. Over the course of the next six years, we will be increasing the provincial contribution by another $24 million, thereby doubling the provincial contribution for this program. This funding commitment will help us address the 4,000 applications now on the wait list.

Under the existing federal-provincial Affordable Housing Agreement, Newfoundland Labrador Housing is currently considering proposals submitted by both private and non-profit sector groups that could potentially construct an additional 150 rental housing units throughout the province. Under the new Housing Trust Fund, $6.8 million will be allocated to develop a series of housing initiatives within the province during 2007-08. Approximately $4.3 million of these funds will develop an additional 90 accessible, supportive or senior housing units primarily in rural areas, bringing the total new affordable housing units in our province to 240. Other projects under the Affordable Housing Trust include six new two-bedroom units in Stephenville to offset property losses in last year’s flood and up to ten two-bedroom units in St. John’s.

I am also delighted to announce that we will be constructing a new Newfoundland Labrador Housing regional office building in Corner Brook to bring the administrative and maintenance functions that are now separated in leased spaces at a significant distance from each other to a common site under one roof, thereby streamlining operations and enhancing client services in the Corner Brook region.