Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today and also to split my time with my colleague from Mission-Coquitlam. My colleague and I share some of the same community. Certainly that community like other communities across Canada is very much affected by the decisions of this House and the priorities it sets. The topic of today is how government priorities affect children and parents, indeed all people of this nation.
Today, one day after national child day, we want to highlight the Reform Party's proposal make tax relief for Canadian families a priority in government policy.
The proposal I will elaborate on today reflects a recognition of the importance of family units and the importance of choices for parents in public policy. The greatness of our country today is a reflection of the legacy of the greatness of the families which have built it, families both from abroad and those that are Canadian born. Today we must not forfeit the source of our success as a country.
Existing government priorities seem only too eager to ignore the family unit. For instance, there is but a single reference to the word family in the Liberal red book. This certainly illustrates the reality of government neglect of this important institution. The years of sowing the seeds of neglect of the family in public policy are now yielding a whirlwind of social, economic and judicial consequences. Our homes, our streets and even the statistics on youth crime, youth suicide and teen pregnancy all give too great evidence that government priorities and policies must change in this area.
What are the government's priorities and policies? What is the Liberal vision of government? Today I would like to remind the House that we have a government that is wedded to big spending, high taxes and big government. The Liberal government is addicted to expenditures exceeding $150 billion a year and it has shown no sign of changing that philosophy.
The deficit reduction that has been accomplished has been accomplished on the backs on the Canadian taxpayers, the families of this country. The reduced deficit is due only to the increase in revenues.
The Reform vision in contrast is a vision of smaller government, lower taxes and more choices for the Canadians who must pay those taxes. We would like to reduce government expenditures by $15 billion a year. We would like to balance the budget, not just talk about balancing the budget. That would give tax relief to our overtaxed Canadian families.
A major plank of the Reform fresh start program will extend the following child care deduction to all parents, including those who care for their children at home: $5,000 for every preschool child and $3,000 for every child seven to 12 years of age. We will make this as fair as possible for families of all income levels. We will turn the deduction into a tax credit so that everyone will receive the same saving.
The Liberal plan that now exists for the child care deduction is very unfair. It favours parents who choose to have paid child care over those who choose to take care of their own children. It also favours rich parents over poor because it is a tax deduction.
How does it favour parents who choose to have paid child care? The Liberal plan for the child care deduction applies only to receiptable day care expenses. Therefore it denies the value and the choice to care for one's own children. It denies the flexibility of the family to choose to have another family member look after the children or to have some kind of co-operative arrangement within the neighbourhood.
This morning in the Globe and Mail there was an article which described how many children are in step-families. The article stated that in 1994-95, 32.4 per cent of children under 12 years of age were in the care of someone other than the parent. In other words 67.6 per cent were cared for by a parent.
These choices in child care are completely ignored by the Liberal plan for the child care deduction. The government through its plan rewards those who would use outside care. The government discriminates against 67 per cent of parents who want to take care of their own children in their own home.
This government by its policies denies choice to parents. Also it denies the value of parenting.
I mentioned that the tax deduction given by the Liberal government is more valuable for higher income earners. If we look at a quick example, a tax deduction of $5,000 to a person earning more than $100,000 could be worth approximately $2,500 at the end of the tax year. To a struggling Canadian who is making $20,000 a year, that tax deduction would only be worth approximately $1,500. It is a discriminatory practice which works against those who need it most.
For all the puffery of the finance minister, perhaps he would like to admit that he fails to mention that his rich friends benefit the most by the present system of the child care tax deduction. That same minister is also proud of extending day care deductions to 16-year olds from the 12-year old ceiling. These two things illustrate the misplaced priorities of government policy. Is it not those who need it most that should be given the greatest attention in government policy?
Earlier I mentioned that the government has no appreciation of the value of parenting. More and more I see that interest groups, from day care advocates to affirmative action zealots, all ignore parents in order to push their own agenda in government policy. With what this government does and its priority in budgeting, and I noticed something unique in the government's budgets in that it recently tripled the budget for the status of women while other budgets are being cut. What kind of priority does this show to families?
The priorities of government in budgeting and in legislation are predicated on other things, not the priorities of the nation's families. For example, when the finance minister claimed that doubling the working income supplement helps families and also stated that our party did not support the bill, he failed to point out that this provision, that is, the doubling of the working income supplement, was but a small part of the amendments to the Divorce Act.
Bill C-41, like so many bills brought by the government to this House, had some good elements in it. Tragically however the incidence of divorce, the bitterness of the disputes in a divorce and the resulting devastation on the children and families will only escalate given the mindset of the provisions of Bill C-41. It totally ignores essential elements or provisions that should have been put in place, such as mandatory mediation, unified family court and more basically, equal treatment of the parties involved in divorce so that enforcement of access and support are both looked at by government.
Divorce hurts children. Single parenthood and broken families are the surest way to predicate financial needs. It is a cruel joke for the Liberals to increase the working income supplement and in the same legislation fuel the number of families that will need that supplement.
When Reform challenges the Liberal government for its lack of concern for Canadian families, the only answer is a list of programs through which increased funding will be given to targeted groups. The federal government has in place over 25 programs which specifically target at least a portion of its spending to children, over 25 programs costing billions of taxpayer dollars.
Many of these programs have existed for years, yet the government over the last decade has never undertaken a thorough evaluation of them to determine if they are accomplishing the intended outcome. Using the government's own figures, child poverty has risen from 15 to 20 per cent since 1989 despite all of the government spending that took place on behalf of children. Where is the evidence that more spending is going to reduce these figures?
This government is clearly not interested in evidence. It would rather listen to the people who tickle the ears of the Liberals with cries for help. They like to listen to people who see government as their source of funds.
Reform makes families a priority. The well-being of our nation's children cannot be separated from the well-being of our nation's families. A happy child is not the sum of government programs, but it is found in the strength of personal relationships that surround that child. Reform's fresh start seeks to strengthen families with the basic philosophy that a dollar left in the hands of the taxpayer is better than a dollar in the hands of any bureaucrat.