Ontario is making life a little bit easier for new parents, becoming the first province to bundle an Education Savings Referral service for parents with newborn birth certificate and Social Insurance Number registration.
Tracy MacCharles, Minister of Government and Consumer Services, made the announcement at The Baby Show in Toronto today, and was joined by Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, MP for Beaches-East York.
Parents now have the choice to be contacted by a participating Registered Education Savings Plan (RESP) provider to start the process of opening an RESP for their newborn and requesting education savings incentives, including the Canada Education Savings Grant and the Canada Learning Bond.
The expanded service increases access to education savings incentives by creating a new user-friendly referral within the 5-in-1 Newborn Bundle to support early and long-term savings for a child's post-secondary education.
Parents living in Ontario can access the features of the 5-in-1 Newborn Bundle by visiting Ontario.ca/newborn, where they can:
- Register their child's birth
- Request a birth certificate or birth certificate with parental information
- Apply for a Social Insurance Number (SIN)
- Sign up for Canada child benefits (including Ontario child benefits).
Also new to the bundle is the option to order a birth certificate that includes parental information, which will make it easier for parents to apply for products for their children that require proof of parentage, such as a child's passport application.
Ontario's plan to support care, create opportunity and make life more affordable during this period of rapid economic change includes a higher minimum wage and better working conditions, free tuition for hundreds of thousands of students, easier access to affordable child care, and free prescription drugs for everyone under 25, and over 65, through the biggest expansion of medicare in a generation.
Quick Facts
- Since inception in 2004, the Government of Canada has deposited over $1 billion in Canada Learning Bond payments into RESPs, helping more than 1 million Canadian children from low-income families save for their post-secondary education.
- In 2016, approximately 2.7 million children received over $880 million in Canada Education Savings Grants.
- Over 1.3 million births have been registered through the 4-in-1 Newborn Bundle since the application was launched in 2006.
- 98 per cent of all births registrations in Ontario are submitted online through ServiceOntario.
- Recent changes to the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) mean that RESP savings do not reduce the amount of financial assistance provided to students through OSAP. So far this year, more than 235,000 college and university students are receiving free tuition. Additionally almost 160,000 college and university students are also receiving grants and/or loans through OSAP.
