Ontario should get taxpayers to help reduce poverty.

• Author: Cirtwill, Charles
• Position: Think Tank

With the provincial basic income pilot now a thing of the past, we are left with the question of: what should the province do now? First, a couple doses of reality. The provincial government simply does not have the ability to guarantee a job for every Ontarian. It also can't immediately cure every physical or mental challenge that keeps tens of thousands of Ontarians from working, even part time.

It could, and likely will, make it harder to get benefits. It can, and likely will, increase the incentive to work by enhancing earned income tax benefits and further lowering the "welfare wall" through continued investments in transportation assistance, child care and prescription drug coverage. It could, and may yet, offer relocation assistance to unemployed and underemployed Ontarians who are willing to work and qualify for work that is available, usually at better pay, in other parts of the province, including almost every region in Northern Ontario.

But the very first thing it should do is to make sure every Ontarian is getting every dollar to which they are entitled from the Canadian taxpayer. That means filing their taxes. We have long known that hundreds of millions of dollars to which low income Canadians are entitled go unclaimed

Working or not, low income Ontarians are entitled to considerable help from their fellow Canadians. The GST credit, child tax benefit, child care deductions (including payments you might make to grandparents providing care for your kids), retirement savings grants, and disability credits, to name a few. Tax filing also doesn't just unlock unused federal benefits either. Extended prescription coverage and other provincial benefits are also triggered by the filing of a tax return.

According to a story in the Huffington Post from 2016, the Community Financial Counselling Services managed, in a single year, to put $21 million into the pockets of more than 9,000 low-income Winnipeggers simply by helping them file their taxes. That's about $2,300 per person. A 2017 estimate by the federal Department of Finance calculated that the working poor lost out on more than $175 million in benefits by not filing their taxes. This was an estimate based on the 2014 level of the Working Income Tax Benefit, a support designed to encourage work over welfare, and a benefit that has since been significantly increased. Meaning the working poor are...