Charter Challenge of the
National Child Benefit Supplement

December 10, 2004

Today the Income Security Advocacy Centre (ISAC), the Centre for Equality Rights in Accommodation (CERA) and the Charter Committee on Poverty Issues (CCPI), have formally launched a legal challenge to the clawback of the National Child Benefit Supplement from families on social assistance.

The Applicants are three single parents who have been struggling on OW or ODSP to make ends meet, without the benefit of the NCBS. They live in Timmins, Port Colborne and Toronto. Counsel for this application are Kate Stephenson from WeirFoulds and Cynthia Wilkey from ISAC.

Both the Federal Government and the Province of Ontario will be served today with an Application under Rule 14 claiming that the Federal/Provincial/Territorial Agreement to claw back the NCBS and the Regulations that implement the clawback in Ontario violate both s.7 and s.15 of the Charter. We will be relying on the Ontario Court of Appeal decision in Falkiner to argue that the clawback violates s. 15 by discriminating against parents and children because they are in receipt of social assistance. We will also be arguing that the clawback discriminates against women, single mothers, Aboriginal persons, racialized persons and persons with disabilities.

The recently released report by Deb Matthews MPP, Parliamentary Assistant to Minister Sandra Pupatello, on social assistance reform has recommended that the Province of Ontario move towards elimination of the clawback. We are hopeful that this legal challenge will convince the Province that they need to take action immediately to entirely eliminate the clawback and will convince the Federal government that they must work to do the same across Canada.

Read the NCBS Backgrounder