Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to rise this afternoon and briefly address Motion No. 318 placed before the House by my colleague from Fraser Valley.
Motion No. 318 states:
That, in the opinion of this House, the government should bring in legislation making the tax deduction for contributions to charitable organizations no less than the tax deduction for contributions to political parties.
If we were to flip that motion around and stand it on its head, it would really state that gifts to political parties should not be given more favourable treatment than donations to charities. That is how we need to look at this motion. The intent is clear. It is to level the playing field between donations to political parties and those which accrued to charities.
I compare this motion to the Reform blue book policy that deals with political donations. There has been some concern expressed about that and why my esteemed colleague would bring forward a motion that on the surface would seem to be contrary to Reform's blue book policy.
Reform policy in the blue book under the heading of electoral reform states: “The Reform Party opposes any assistance to political parties and political lobbies from public funds including—” and it lists a number of things. In that list is tax credits for contributions to federal political parties. That is the policy of the Reform Party. Certainly it is a policy that my Reform colleague adheres to, as do I. If we were ever to become government, or when we become government, we will enact that as well as a number of other policies.
In the meantime, it has become painfully clear to charities that this government does not intend to address the inequity between the donations to political parties and those to charities by removing the tax incentive to donate to political parties, as the Reform Party would do.
Therefore my colleague took it on himself to bring forward Motion No. 318 which would level the playing field between the two and treat them the same. Unfortunately we see that in some cases people who are looking at making a donation might be encouraged to make a donation to political party rather than to the charity of their choice. It is very unfortunate that they might tempted to do that because the tax incentive is so much greater.
How unfair is the present system? It was noted in the debate last spring that for a $100 dollar contribution to a political party a donor will receive a $75 federal tax credit. For a $100 donation we have a 75% tax credit. For a $100 gift to a charity the donor will receive a $17 federal charitable donation tax credit. That is $17 versus $75.
To receive a tax credit of $500 for a donation to a federal political party an individual would have to give $1,150, and to receive that same $500 tax credit a donation to a registered charity would have to be in the amount of $1,807.90. Clearly a gross inequity exists. My colleague is attempting to address that by putting forward Motion No. 318.
I think it would interest the viewing public at this point in the debate to ask what are we talking about here. How many charities are we talking about? There are roughly 80,000 registered charities in Canada and in 1996, 5,451,860 donors gave approximately $4 billion. We are talking about a substantial industry, as it were, in the sense of charitable organizations. They employ a lot of people and they certainly do lots of good work.
I see the Chair is telling me I have one minute left. I must have spoken on this issue previously. I thank the Chair for the correction.
On such an important motion I could go on at great length but I will sum up by stating the obvious. This motion is votable. It is not too often that members of this place have a great opportunity to right an injustice.
When we come to vote on Motion No. 318 we can seize the opportunity and vote to level the playing field and treat both these things the same. I urge all members of the House to do exactly that.