This report argues that the federal Conservatives' proposal for a $2,000 child tax deduction "is a retrograde and regressive idea...resurrected from the graveyard of Canadian public policy." It would pay its highest benefit to high-income families. It would divert precious resources to wealthy families, for whom child benefits are a drop in the bucket &em; money that is desperately needed to improve child benefits for poor and modest-income families. It would re-introduce horizontal inequity into the child benefits system. And it would hit the provinces and territories with reduced revenues from their own income tax systems and health premiums, along with increased costs for their child benefit programs and refundable tax credits.