Madam Speaker, I would like to make a couple of remarks that will be appropriate for the previous speaker, the member for Hamilton West. He said we will help them. Yet I read in the Globe and Mail of February 6, 1996 that grants and other support from governments have been sharply reduced and sometimes eliminated entirely. We will help them all right. That is some help. That was the Liberal government.
The House of Commons finance committee which tabled its prebudget report last month endorsed the viewpoint that growth in charitable donations is at a virtual standstill and new incentives are needed. The finance committee which is chaired by a Liberal asked that the government consider enhancing the charitable tax credit for donations to charities currently funded by governments to make them as generous as the current political tax credit for small donations to political parties. We see that the Liberals' own committees are against what the previous speaker had to say.
The Liberals are the biggest beneficiaries of the current system, but I can assure members of one thing. In my riding the Liberals will be the big losers under any system as they supported Bill C-68 in the last election.
The question now is who do we want to help in this country, the political system or the charitable system? I have worked with charities. I have worked in government, as now, and I am not entirely convinced that we are doing the good that many of the charities do. One thing is for certain. I hear a lot of complaints about MP paycheques and other perks available to them but I do not hear anyone complaining about what charities get and do. That says a lot to me.
Canadians are voting with their pocketbooks. They are voting to support charities at an extremely high level. Why should charities be subject to discriminatory tax treatment? Should this country not have one law for those who support volunteers?
Three out of fifty-two awards for caring Canadians were made to people from the riding of Prince Albert. That left only 49 for the entire rest of Canada.
The changes requested in the motion would do a lot of good in a constituency like mine which is a rather low income constituency but very generous in giving to support fellow Canadians.
Caring costs money. The government should not be hindering. It should be helping charities to get ahead. I am sure those who make the large donations appreciate the large tax credits on donations. But many Canadians give smaller donations because it is all they have left after the government has finished taxing them out of existence. Many charities, in particular pro-family charities, need help and they are key to Canada's way of life in the 20th century. As we go through redefinitions of family and the family is under attack, those pro-family groups need to have their charitable status.