"A true children's budget would leave families with enough money in their pockets to meet their family needs," said the report, Children First. "It would provide much more support for parents trying to make ends meet at the low end of the paid labour force, it would address chronic problems in our labour market, and it would correct the most punitive features of welfare and other income support programs."

"Any budget that lacks the scope, the vision and the hard, cold cash to tackle these issues will be a wasted opportunity - certainly the last wasted opportunity of the millennium and perhaps the last opportunity in many years to translate years of rhetoric about children into reality."

The report contains 29 recommendations for the federal budget speech that is expected to come down at the end of February 2000. Three recommendations are singled out because of their overriding importance: getting rid of the clawback in the Canada Child Tax Benefit, putting plans for a national child care program into place, and getting governments to commit themselves to an integrated family policy rather than piecemeal programs and policies.

The clawback of federal child benefits by most provincial and territorial governments discriminates against families on welfare, who are among the poorest of the poor, the Council said.

"Ottawa should come to its senses now rather than wait until the clawbacks are struck down by the courts as unconstitutional or give Canada another black eye before the United Nations. Any increase in funding for the Canada Child Tax Benefit in the next budget that did not get rid of the clawbacks would not get the support of the National Council of Welfare."

The second major recommendation is for governments to get serious about a national child care program for young children.

"There is overwhelming evidence that high-quality child care benefits preschool children and therefore benefits Canada. There is overwhelming support among parents of young children for a national child care program. With the federal government looking at a surplus of $5 billion or more in the 1999-2000 fiscal year, it would be unconscionable not to devote a large chunk of that surplus to child care, the one remaining gaping hole in social programs for families."

Finally, the report urges an integrated approach to family policy that ensures that all the things governments do on behalf of families with children make sense and do not contradict each other. Quebec adopted an integrated family policy several years ago, but most other governments in Canada have piecemeal policies that are often at odds with each other.

The report is a compendium of the work that the National Council of Welfare has done on families with children since 1989, the year that the House of Commons resolved unanimously to end child poverty by 2000.

The report is organized around the six major themes of the National Children's Agenda, the working agreement between the federal, provincial and territorial governments on issues relating to children.

Families with children have suffered greatly from the deficit-cutting measures imposed by all levels of government during the 1990s. The National Council of Welfare believes the time has come for governments to deliver on past promises and devote the lion's share of the 2000 budget to families with children - tax relief in the form of further increases in the Canada Child Tax Benefit and new programs such as child care that would provide significant help to families trying to juggle their parental and work responsibilities.

"The big question is: will the 2000 budget really make a difference in the lives of families with children or will it be little more than window dressing? The political landscape is already littered with political rhetoric about children, broken promises and token efforts that provide very little real help to families or help only a minuscule number of the families who are in dire straits."

The National Council of Welfare is a citizens' advisory group to the Minister of Human Resources Development.