Mr. Speaker, I wish to congratulate the hon. Member for Nepean for introducing a bill to amend the Income Tax Act.
Her amendment deals mainly with regulations dating back to 1942, that are 52 years ago, at a time when child support payments were paid to the mother, who generally had custody of the children. It allowed the father to deduct support payments from his taxable income.
As you know, the Divorce Act is administered by the provinces and the amount of child support is determined by provincial court judges.
We also know that, compared to 1942, the number of divorces is very high. This is regrettable, but this is a fact of life in our society.
I have a report from the federal-provincial-territorial family law committee that suggests that if tax implications are to be taken into account there are number of issues to be considered. There is no guidance in the Divorce Act nor provincial or territorial legislation as to how the calculations should be made or how the benefit of the deduction should be shared between the parties.
Reference is made to a Divorce Act evaluation from May 1990 from the Department of Justice that stated: "It is important to consider this issue in the context in which it actually occurs, namely that two-thirds of Canadian women and children live in poverty following divorce".
I am going to take the liberty to read parts of a letter I received from a constituent of mine after getting permission from this person to read extracts. Mrs. Jackie Cloutier wrote to me regarding the taxation of child support. She is proud to give me permission to read these extracts from her letter: "Taxing child support in the hand of the already impoverished parent is wrong. Many women like myself lose up to two-thirds of their child support to income tax. We do not live in fancy homes or drive fancy cars. We do not take lavish vacations. We cannot afford to plan for retirement. We struggle every day to make ends meet, most often living from pay cheque to pay cheque and regularly running out of money at the end of the month. Every year in April we are faced with this unnecessary debt to Revenue Canada".
She concludes, and I jumped some parts of her letter: "The report released by the United Nations on the status of women and children in Canada clearly stated that we are living in poverty. Please take the necessary steps to change this law now. Don't let another year go by where women and children suffer needlessly at the hands of the tax system".
Therefore, I am pleased to support the initiative of my colleague from Nepean and to ask the federal government that it change the Income Tax Act to exempt child support payments from taxation.