Sweetening the Deal: Investing in Our Children’s Future This Halloween

Boosting OAS payments by ten per cent for seniors aged 65 to 74 represents an amount equivalent to roughly $4B annually according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer. As child rights advocates, we wonder: if this kind of budget ambition can be mustered for seniors, what ambition is left for children at the parliamentary table?  

Children's views are rarely heard and rarely considered in political discourse. Children do not vote and do not otherwise take part in political processes.  

What could roughly $4B annually achieve for children and their families?  

It could provide every one of the close to 350,000 infants born or adopted in Canada with adequately paid, protected time with a parent or primary caregiver for the critical first months of life. Today, close to one-third of these new parents have no paid parental leave. This increases the risk that infants will start life in poverty, without adequate nutrition, with less access to health care and more toxic stress and even mental illness in their young families. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Canada’s fertility rate is at an all-time low for the second consecutive year. 

After years of decline, the child poverty rate has climbed for at least two years and close to one in four children lacks enough nutritious food. An annual investment of $4B could lift thousands more out of poverty . It could also bolster their health and development if invested in school food programs – enough so that no child would have to make it through the school day hungry.  

A $4B annual budget boost could also bring children to the front of wait lists for health services. Children’s Healthcare Canada has observed that children now wait longer than adults for many essential medical procedures. Delays in access to surgical interventions, child development support and mental health services alone cost health care systems billions of dollars annually according to the Conference Board of Canada. Costs to families while children wait also add up in forgone employment income, the price of non-insured healthcare interventions, travel to and from medical appointments and additional child care costs. For children, the cost is truncated childhoods: prolonged pain and disability and, for some, life-long impairment.  

Rates of childhood chronic disease, poor mental health and medical complexity have never been higher. Only two years ago, the federal government declared a “pediatric crisis”, announcing $2B available to provinces and territories to address the long backlogs for surgical interventions, increase access to emergency care and implement new programs and services to address the mental health crisis. While two jurisdictions(Ontario and Nova Scotia) have made meaningful investments to bolster capacity to meet the needs of children and youth, eleven have not.  

The overwhelming evidence finds that “front-loading” investments in children’s material security, development and health are dollars invested in our future: they have immediate impacts and pay dividends for decades. In fact, children have the right to a first call on their nation’s resources.  

Measurably improving children’s health and wellbeing while ending the cycle of childhood poverty are ambitious but attainable goals. All it takes is higher political purpose. That would be a nice treat for the kids this Halloween. 
 

This piece was co-authored by Emily Gruenwoldt, President and CEO of Children’s Healthcare Canada, and Lisa Wolf, Director, Policy and Research at UNICEF Canada. Children’s Healthcare Canada and UNICEF Canada are founding members of Inspiring Healthy Futures, a network is focused on improving the health and well-being of children, youth, and families.