Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in this House this afternoon to speak on Bill C-223, an act to amend the Income Tax Act providing for the deduction of interest on mortgage loans, introduced by my colleague from the Reform Party, the hon. member for Portage—Lisgar.
On the face of it, this bill looks like a good bill, in the sense that it could indeed help boost housing starts. And as the old saying has it “When home construction goes well, so goes the economy”.
The economy is going well because forestry workers are working in the forest again, providing lumber mill workers with wood to cut. Construction workers also have work. Everyone is working. This activity also brings in revenue for the government. With fewer people on EI, costs go down and, with more people paying taxes, revenues grow.
That aspect of the bill seems quite interesting. Another interesting aspect is the opportunity for our young people, who are just starting off in life, to get a nudge in the right direction from people with grey hair like mine so they will be off to a good start. That does sound good.
What I have more of a problem with is equity. Let us take a look at equity in this legislation. Take for example a $200,000 house, on which, as I understand it, the first $100,000 in mortagage would be deductible. How much would this $200,000 house built in Montreal be worth?
Because of supply and demand, the same house would not be worth $200,000 if it were built in Sept-Îles, Sherbrooke or remote areas like Abitibi.
And how would we manage to get equity for interest on this first $100,000 deductible. That means the houses would not have the same value. This needs looking into.
The tax deduction is the point of most concern to me. It concerns me because again there would be two rates, one for the better off and one for the less well off. Let me give an example to explain what I mean.
A person with an income under $30,000 could get a tax deduction of $140 per $1,000, while someone two houses further down the street who earned $60,000 annually could, for the same $1,000 deductible, get $290 in assistance. Why that difference of $120?
We in the Bloc are in favour of a refundable tax credit. This refundable tax credit, at a fixed rate, could be far fairer for everyone. That is why we have certain reservations, and will not be supporting this bill, barring amendments in the tax provisions.