Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Transport about that aspect of the budget which a number of his colleagues have touched on, the rewriting of the Tax Act with respect to custodial payments or payments for child support.
How does he rationalize the change in the Income Tax Act which to me, if he will listen to his logic, appears to be a tax grab because payment now for child support is no longer deductible?
It is acknowledged by the finance minister that there will be extra revenues to the government. It makes it sound like it will really do something with that money in the budget. It will increase the child tax credit.
If in the current system before it made this change the agreement between the couple was taxable, deductible, all that money was within the family.
Now the government has taken this issue and said: "Not all the money that will be shared between the two of you will be within your family. We will make it non-deductible, keep some of it ourselves and help a whole bunch of other people".
I have been trying to speak slowly to clarify my logic. Does that not mean that some of the money that would have been available for the children within that family will now be redistributed to other families?