Madam Speaker, before the Liberal government became involved in the issue of child support payments, the system was that the payer deducted the amount of child support payments and the recipient paid the tax on it. The logic for that was that usually the person who received the child support payments was in a lower income bracket and consequently would be taxed less and would therefore have more money available. Also, the person who was making the payments would be more willing to give the maximum because the payments would be deductible.
The justice minister has changed that system and now child support is non-deductible and non-taxable. The non-deductibility aspect of child support payments will mean that the government will receive an additional $300 million in revenue. The government claims it will put the money into some form of child support subsidy or child care benefit for the Canadian public. We will have to wait and see.
My concern is, with the government having made these changes, eliminating deductibility will encourage those people who have to pay to give less. Ultimately the children will suffer. They will receive less in benefits because less money will be given to them.
I recognize that my colleague does not wish to pick sides on the issue between mother and father, but let us pick on the government a bit. Let us see if in its wisdom the government has actually done a great service or whether it has made it worse with its half measures and tinkering.
I wonder if my colleague has a comment on the effect of the impact of what appears to be another tax grab by the government to generate $300 million in revenue at the expense of children.