Mr. Speaker, just following up on the question which I asked a minute ago, which clearly points out the fundamental philosophical difference between members on this side of the House and members on that side of the House, they believe in taxing and spending because Canadians exist to provide money for the government so it can turn around and give it back to whomever it wishes and under whatever basis it feels is appropriate.
This side of the House quite definitely believes that Canadians work for themselves, that Canadians feel that small government is important, that government should not be in their lives any more than it has to be and that they are prepared to pay a small amount of money toward government to ensure that some services and some uniformity of programs across the country are provided.
This is the point. Canadians do not exist to create wealth for the government so the government can turn around and give it back to them in some form or another. That is a fundamental philosophical difference.
When this government uses that type of program spending, as the auditor general pointed out in chapter 19, there is waste, there is mismanagement, there are bureaucrats to be paid, there are all kinds of overhead expenses. As I have said before, a tax cut with no administration cost could be implemented the day it is announced. That is the type of thing that people want. They want to take charge of their lives. Taking charge of their lives means they will pay less tax.
We have laid it out quite clearly in our fresh start program, step one and step two.
This country is in a financial mess. It is $600 billion in debt. We are running at almost a $30 billion deficit for the year ending March 31, 1996. When the Minister of Finance appeared before the finance committee and announced the results of the figures and a budget deficit of $28.9 billion, there was applause from the Liberals on that committee. It was incredible.
It all stems from the philosophy that government should take money from Canadians because they owe it to the government so
that it can turn around and deliver it back in programs. We say the opposite.
Our first point is to balance the budget and stop digging ourselves into a bigger hole. Once we have done that we want to help Canadians by giving them tax cuts. Step one, get the fiscal house in order. Step two, start giving back to Canadians control over their lives.
What are we proposing for families after the budget is balanced? We are proposing to make families our priority and to ensure that government policies and regulations are family friendly. That is from the Reform Party's fresh start booklet published a month ago.
We also said extend the $3,000 to $5,000 child care deduction to all parents including those who care for their children at home. It is a valid point and the essence of the resolution we are debating today. We want to extend the child tax credit of $3,000 to $5,000 which this government is currently giving to families that obtain day care services outside their homes.
We want to give people the choice. We want to give every Canadian parent the ability to make the decision of how they want to raise their child based on their family circumstances and not based on a tax policy imposed on them by the Minister of Finance. There is a fundamental and significant difference.
We want to give parents charge of their lives. We want them to make the choices that are right for their families. We do not want them to have to make a decision based on the tax policy of the Minister of Finance. We do not want him to dictate to families in Canada.
I forgot to inform the Speaker that I will be sharing my time with the member for Medicine Hat. I will take only 10 minutes.
We go on to strengthen families in other ways. From the fresh start program for Canadians, we are going to increase the spousal amount from $5,380 to $7,900 which will level the playing field for parents who choose to stay at home to look after young children. It will help families meet the needs of a more demanding economy.
Is that not a wonderful idea, that we help families to keep one spouse at home to look after the kids? It is better than having a tax policy that says "I am going to put my kids next door with the neighbour, the neighbour will put his kids next door and I will look after them, and if we do a swap we can meet the requirements of the Minister of Finance, but if I want to raise my kids in my house and my neighbour wants to raise his kids in his House, it cannot be done". The tax policy says you cannot do that.
Surely it is an incredible statement that you cannot raise your own kids, you can raise only your neighbours kids. I like to raise my own children. I believe that every family in this country would love to raise their own children. Yet the Minister of Finance by his
own tax policy which he is imposing on these families says "No, you cannot do that. I do not want you to do that. We are going to institutionalize your children and put them in day care. We are going to have them raised by somebody else because we feel that is the way to go".
As Reformers we say that is detrimental to families, that is harmful to families, that causes pressure on families. We have so much marital break-up and we know that marital break-up is horribly painful to children. They are the innocent victims of marital break-up. They are the young and the innocent who are involved in sometimes messy situations. They are pulled and dragged by each side. They are in the courts. People go to court to find out whom the children will be raised by, the mother or the father. It is a horrible situation.
I am sure the House would agree that anything that can be done to protect the family, to remove the tax disincentive, to keep the family together surely must be in the best interests of Canadians.
I cannot stress it strongly enough that we have to help families rather than thinking we are going to introduce all kinds of policies and programs to pick up the broken pieces. Let us work beforehand.
We are not asking for government intervention with a thousand more bureaucrats and programs across the country. We are saying to give back to families control of their own lives by removing the tax policies that want to put the kids somewhere else.
We heard the parliamentary secretary tell us that programs are the way to do it: tax and spend; take the money from Canadians and pass it through to the bureaucrats who try to put it back into this segment or that segment of society. There are programs for widows, programs for single parents, programs for kids and programs for businesses. Bombardier was given $87 million. Name it and there is a program for it. Let us leave people alone and allow them to make their own decisions without having to worry about taxes.
I picked up a pamphlet entitled: "Canadian Families: International Year of the Family, 1994" which was produced by the Vanier Institute of the Family. I am just picking out a few of the quotes. Under the heading "What counts in Canadian Families", it is stated: "The desire to spend more time with the family is unlikely to wane in the years ahead". Another quote: "Although Canadian families experience many problems, for better or worse, the majority of Canadian marriages do last for a lifetime".
It is an interesting little pamphlet about Canadian families. The whole concept behind the pamphlet is to give families the opportunity to look after themselves and they will likely do the best job in raising their kids. They will likely do the best job of looking after their own circumstances.
This is what the Reform Party wants to do. We want to give the control back to the families. This is only a small start in getting bureaucrats out of their hair, getting the taxation policy of the Minister of Finance out of their hair and allowing Canadian families to do what they do best which is to raise their own kids.
We all know that an institution is no substitute for a family. I cannot imagine being raised in an institution. My kids would hate the idea of being raised in an institution. A number of years ago when my son was in grade three or four, we put him in day care for one afternoon. It was tax time and I was busy so we had to put him in day care for a few weeks. We thought he was having a good time because as an older kid he was helping the younger ones. He still remembers that we put him in day care for a number of weeks and he would have preferred to have stayed at home with his mother.
The point is that our motion is concerned about doing something. It has the right idea. It gets bureaucrats out of the families' hair and lets them raise their kids. It lets parents love their own kids. This will help Canadians, Canada and everyone else.