Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has asked me to comment on the specifics. Let me comment on them as a whole first.
The government has majored on the minors with respect to these programs. It has tinkered with the mechanics of these various programs but it has not addressed the underlying problem which is that we do not have enough money to sustain these programs. That is the underlying problem.
We do not have a particular problem with the direction in which the government has moved with respect to old age security and the guaranteed income supplement. It makes some sense to us. We have applauded the government for that. We have publicly said we agree with that direction.
However to major on the minors gives people the impression that somehow the government is providing some long term sustainability for that program. That is not the case. We are simply going deeper and deeper into debt by not announcing a date by which we
will balance the budget. Therefore these programs ultimately are destined to become unsustainable.
On the question of child support payments, we have a concern about what the government has proposed. I am very concerned that by heavily taxing people who are currently getting a tax deduction for paying child support, we are going to end up driving a lot those people away from making their child support payments.
We support the idea that there should be stronger enforcement measures. There must be stronger enforcement measures. That is where the emphasis should be in our judgment. We also want to see more money end up in the hands of the children. That has got to be the idea behind this.
In what the government is setting out to do I think it is going to end up driving a lot of people who pay child support payments away from doing that. It is going to give them an incentive to skip their child support payments.
With some of the other things the hon. member has mentioned, for instance child tax credits and things like that, again the government has not got to the underlying problem. If we give somebody $120 or $10 more a month or whatever it is, that is peanuts compared to the debt the government is asking them to assume the moment they take on a job. They pay for that debt in the form of higher taxes and weakened social programs down the road. They pay for it in the form of higher interest rates. They pay for it in the form of higher unemployment. It is simply ludicrous to give them $10 in one hand and to take $10,000 from them on the other hand because of the interest on the debt.
Although tinkering around inside the envelope of the programs is fine, unless the government deals with the underlying structural problems then it is really not doing the job it was sent here to do.