Madam Speaker, I appreciate the comments of my hon. colleague from Calgary Centre.
He is quite right. I do not see the logic behind the changes which the government has made. I recognize there is a problem in the area of taxation of child support and the government moved on that. The reality is that the children will be poorer for it. As he correctly pointed out, the money will now flow into government coffers rather than staying in the hands of the children.
While I recognize that Bill C-41 is moving toward setting some base rates for child support so that we will not see it diminish in cases of real need, I believe that the changes which have been made by the government have actually created more of an adversarial approach. That is unfortunate because there is already enough adversary surrounding divorce. It is one of the reasons in many cases that these things drag on for so long. They get tied up in the courts and people get more and more angry with the whole process.
I believe quite strongly that we have to move toward more mediation in these matters. The issue of who would get the tax credit could be decided between the parents and in the best interests of the children. As I said earlier, I am involved in this issue because I feel very strongly in being an advocate for the children, which is why I am speaking against this legislation.
I will quote an expert in the field, Professor Ross Finnie of Carleton University School of Public Administration, on Bill C-41. He calls for Bill C-41 to be revisited by the justice department. He is not a Reformer criticizing the government. I heard an hon. colleague from the other side say a minute ago that nothing is new in that we should be criticizing the government. Part of our role is to criticize the government when we see there are things wrong with what it brings forward. In this case it is not a Reformer making this observation but an acknowledged expert in the field.
In his review, "Good Idea, Bad Execution: The Government's Child Support Package", Professor Finnie comments: "In short, the basic unfairness incorporated in the current guideline proposals might undermine the basic goal of the whole guideline exercise". He argues that overall the package is likely to worsen the child support situation in Canada.
This is an expert in the field making his comments on Bill C-41. It is important to remember that it is not just a few Reformers, people like myself and my colleagues, who are being critical of the government; there are also people with a lot of background knowledge who are calling into question this legislation.