Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity to speak in support of the motion of my colleague, the member of Parliament for Nepean, and to compliment her on bringing this issue to the House for debate.
In her motion the member is addressing a crucial factor contributing to the poverty of women and children in Canada. That is the tax treatment of support payments in cases of divorce or separation.
Twenty years ago I first heard a woman who had been through the experience deliver the warning that any woman is one husband away from poverty. In 1994 the situation has not changed much. The most recent report of the Vanier Institute confirms that the majority of women who walk out of a marriage walk into poverty. The actual figure is that two-thirds of women whose marriages break up end up in poverty, along with their children.
When Statistics Canada conducted its recent comprehensive survey of women's experience of violence, it learned that 45 per cent of women had experienced violent abuse during a previous marriage; 15 per cent reported being victims of violence in their current marriage. These figures indicate that women do leave abusive marriages in great numbers, but to escape the danger of a violent marriage they must be prepared to accept the abuse of poverty.
When single mothers are poor, their children are poor. Since this Parliament unanimously adopted a resolution to end child poverty by the year 2000 the situation has become worse, not better. At that time one in six Canadian children lived in poverty. Now that ratio has grown to one in five, an increase by 20 per cent of the number of poor children in one of the wealthiest countries in the world.
As we promote better education and training, we ignore the single greatest factor in children dropping out of school: poverty. A poor child is four times as likely to leave before completing high school.
As we try to address the challenge of maintaining a universal, accessible health care system while containing its costs, we are failing to address a significant factor adding to the demands on our health care system: poverty. Poor children are many times more likely to be seriously ill, to have serious accidents and yes, to die than non-poor children.
The treatment of family income on the breakup of a marriage is the significant factor in the poverty of women and children. Report after report has shown the impact of both inadequate support payments, the failure in 75 per cent of cases to pay the support as ordered and finally, the taxation of support payments in the hands of the custodial parent.
Let me mention just a few of these reports from the last few years. The Federal-Provincial-Territorial Family Law Commission and its report on Financial Implications of Child Support Guidelines, May 1992. The Ontario Fair Tax Commission Report on Women and Taxation, November 1992. The Status of Women Canada, Analysis of the Tax Treatment of Child Support Payments, January 1993. Le rapport du Protecteur du citoyen de la province de Quebec on Child Support, Proposals for Reform, November 1993.
All these reports have said the same thing: the tax treatment of child support payments needs to be changed. It is hurting women and it is hurting children. All these reports identify the taxability of child support payments in the hands of the custodial parent as a major contributor to the poverty of women and children. Canada is the only country in the world that taxes child support payments in this way.
Most recently the Thibaudeau court decision has called the tax policy discriminatory on the basis of marital status because tax treatment for a couple supporting children is not the same as for two separated people supporting children. Our government has appealed this case in order to avoid the chaos of cases in the thousands coming before the court to vary orders which were established under the existing law and which some will argue took into consideration the tax treatment of support payments.
The big losers again would be the custodial parents, most of whom are women, and their children. Most of them do not have the resources to ensure their interests are well represented before the courts.
Our government is committed to achieving an orderly transition from the present system to a better way. Our goals generally are to increase the value of child support awards, to simplify the process, and to create a more equitable system.
We realize the vast majority of single mothers in Canada receive no support payments at all for their children and that the vast majority of support orders are not obeyed. This represents not only a burden to that majority of single parent householders in this country, but to all of us as the responsibility for caring for these families is often assumed by our social security system.
Our goal as a government is to achieve concrete results by the end of this year, including reform to the tax system, legislating child support formulas and finding ways of working with the provinces to enforce support orders.
We know there are no easy answers. That is why an important part of this process of finding solutions is listening to the experience of people on the ground. That is why we have set up a task force to consult with Canadians, to consult with those involved with this most unfair system and to find those solutions.
I want to congratulate my colleague from Nepean for bringing forward this issue. With her motion she has ensured that at last Parliament and not the courts will address the inequities of the current tax laws. She will have to her credit what is all too rare in our system: an action by an individual member of Parliament that rights a wrong, that will potentially improve the quality of life and the future prospects of over one million Canadians. I congratulate her.