Mr. Speaker, when there is a debate about the welfare of Canadians, particularly young people, everyone is very interested. I commend my colleague from Shefford for bringing forward her private member's motion which reads:
That, in the opinion of this House, the government should review the level at which the child benefit is indexed.
An amendment has been proposed by the Bloc to bring the level to full indexation.
As we are all aware as Canadians, or at least most of us who have had families, the child benefits payable in Canada have undergone many changes during the past two decades. The 1985 budget, which is about 12 years ago, subjected the entire child benefit system to partial indexing. That is what the member for Shefford is suggesting we need to study.
Benefits increase only if inflation exceeds 3%. Since the Bank of the Canada and the Government of Canada have made a commitment not to allow inflation to go over 3%, what we essentially have is no benefit increases even though there are inflation increases, which means that the value of the benefit is steadily eroding.
This partial deindexing has now been in place for 12 years. It really amounts to an automatic annual tax increase. This is because inflation still erodes the value of the benefit and erodes the value of the threshold at which maximum benefits are paid. There is a double whammy which increases the tax payable for families with children.
Neither the child benefit nor its threshold of $25,921 for maximum payment is fully protected against inflation. The value of the benefit has steadily declined for 12 years.
The Liberal government is doing a lot of breast beating about child poverty and how it will attack it. It is very interesting the government has done nothing about something that has eroded the disposable income in the hands of families who have to look after children.
Unbelievable though it might be, the parliamentary secretary just said “We would like to do things like this but we will oppose the motion because there will be a fiscal cost to this”. He is really saying “We need the tax bucks, so forget it”. This keeps eroding the income of poor families who then produce the poor children the Liberals say they care so much about. Sometimes we do wonder if it is not true that Liberalism simply is saying the right thing but doing nothing.
The partial deindexing of the child benefit like the partial deindexing of the so-called refundable GST credit and the partial deindexing of the personal income tax system is regressive. We use these buzz words a lot, but it really means that it hits poor people more than it hits higher income people. This falls most heavily on the working poor, the very ones with the poor children, the child poverty the Liberals have said they will do so much about.
These tax increases are not transparent. The Liberals can say one thing and do another. It is very easy for them to hide this tax increase. Although it happens every year the tax increase is never debated in the House and most Canadians do not even realize it is going on. It is like the bracket creep we keep talking about. It is the same sort of thing.
One of Canada's leading social critics says that this amounts to social policy by stealth. I find repugnant that this is from a government, from a party that is always talking about compassion for the poor and the downtrodden. It says it will help those most in need and to redistribute the social benefits of the country to those who need them the most.
Yet what do we find? We find policy after policy after policy, including the current increases in the Canada pension plan premium, which fall most heavily on those least able to pay penalizing the families and the children most in need of the extra dollars the government is sucking out.
This erosion of net family income continues in many ways. The child benefit is only one example. It results in higher and higher taxes.
The average Canadian family has suffered a $3,000 drop in real income since the Liberals took office in 1993. If the Liberals had actually said their policies would cost $3,000 more a year by the time they were out of office, how many Canadians would have voted for that?
What did the Liberals get elected on? Jobs, jobs, jobs. They were also to get rid of the GST. They did neither. They dropped the average Canadian family income by $3,000. No wonder there is child poverty. Now the Liberals can ride to the rescue and say that they will certainly do something about it. They caused it, so they should do something about it.
Between 1951 and 1973 real family incomes more than doubled, but since the mid-1970s total family earnings in real dollars adjusted for inflation have actually not improved at all. This in spite of the fact that more and more two people in a family are working. There is less ability for parents to make choices about caring for their own children because they simply need the extra dollars from both of them working.
Despite the rising numbers of dual income families, total inflation adjusted after tax incomes have fallen by $2,733 per worker since 1984. This is simply unacceptable. It is no wonder families do not have enough money to feed and clothe their kids, to pay the mortgage or the rent, and to make sure that their children have the necessities of life. It is because the government thinks it is more necessary for the government to have the money than for the children to have it.
This is incredible. I hope nobody misses this fact. Canadian taxpayers must start paying taxes at an income level of about $6,460. If they make that grand sum of $6,460 per year the government says “All right, guys, start paying up”. Who can live on $6,000? Somehow government thinks that if they make over that they owe the government something.
A family of four at an income level of $11,800 has to pay income tax. It is brutal, absolutely brutal. Under the seniors benefit the government says they do not have to pay tax for a family income of $11,000, but a family of four has to pay tax. No wonder there are poor children and families in the country. Yet every year the government wants more. It takes more and more. I am happy, Mr. Speaker, that you and many other members of the House care about this matter.
The average Canadian family spends more in taxes than on food, clothing and shelter combined. In 1996 Statistics Canada said the average Canadian family spent $21,000 on taxes but only $17,000 on food, clothing and shelter. Government takes more out of us than we have left to look after our needs.
The Liberal government is simply increasing the rate. It has an insatiable appetite for tax dollars. That is why we call the finance minister a taxaholic. That is exactly what he is. One bottle is not enough any more. It has to be more and more every year.
The Reform Party simply says enough is enough. When Canadians make money they should be able to keep the amount necessary to feed their children, to clothe their families and to provide them with shelter and the necessities of life.
The government takes a whole chunk of the money Canadians need to look after their families and then says that it is giving some back. The parliamentary secretary just said they would like to give more if they could afford it. They will someday but in the meantime they cannot because they have fiscal costs. It would cost them too much. They need our money.
We have to start giving Canadians tax relief. Government does not have the right to take more and more money.
We need to give Canadians tax relief. We need to look at things like this indexation.
We support the motion of this member and hope the House will as well.