moved:
That, in the opinion of this House, the government should consider implementing a tax credit or tax rebate that would compensate parents for the substantial costs of enrolling their children in youth activities.
Mr. Speaker, my private member's motion which we are debating reads:
That, in the opinion of this House, the government should consider implementing a tax credit or tax rebate that would compensate parents for the substantial costs of enrolling their children in youth activities.
The intent of this motion is to provide a tax credit or rebate to parents to help defray the costs of a variety of programs such as recreational and academic; summer camps; sports teams; fees for hockey, soccer, baseball, et cetera; music or band programs, theatre or artist programs; camping and outdoor clubs; scouts, girl guides, et cetera. Obviously it is only a motion. It is not a bill. Any particular tax rebate program like this might have to be more specific as to what was included and what was excluded.
The point I am making through the motion is that parents are under increasing pressure to be able to fund and to pay for the many programs they would like to have their children enrolled in. They are being hit from all sides in this respect.
Parents face new and growing costs to keep their kids in school and in community club youth programs. If we talk to people who have children, they say that one of the features of parental life these days is fundraising. Parents always have chocolate bars on the dining room table. Their relatives are afraid to come over because they do not know what they are trying to sell them next, whether it is chocolate bars or this, that or the other to fund various programs at school.
Kids are marketing things at the door such as Christmas cards and various other things in order to get extra resources to buy things that I frankly think should be paid for by the school through the public treasury and the funding of our public education system through the tax system. That is happening less and less.
Parents are being asked, either by the school or by the various other programs their children are enrolled in, to engage more and more in either the payment of extra fees or the raising of extra money through fundraising.
Schools are feeling the broad range of cuts by federal and provincial governments with respect to education and youth programs. There has been a lot of downloading from the federal government to provincial governments, to school boards and to municipalities. We see the elimination or the reduction of a lot of youth programming.
This is not a problem that would be addressed in particular by what I am speaking about tonight. For instance, I have learned that in my own community the city of Winnipeg wants the community clubs to take over wading pools. The community clubs are already volunteer organizations. They are already stretched, yet this level of government expects volunteers to take over a program that is very important to a lot of children during our hot summers. Even though it gets cold in Winnipeg, it gets hot in the summer and wading pools are very important. That is another matter which has to do with the reduction of program funding.
There is also the problem of extra fees which the motion addresses in particular that are more and more expected of parents. They are required to pay extra amounts to provide their children with these positive experiences. The government should look at a way to recognize the value of children being enrolled in these kinds of programs. We should not have a society in which any child is prevented from being enrolled in these programs by virtue of the fact that parents feel they cannot afford it.
We need to encourage youth to engage in these kinds of positive activities. In parliament quite appropriately we spend an awful lot of time talking about the Young Offenders Act and the more punitive dimension of how to deal with youth crime. We also need to spend more time talking about the other half of the equation, which is making sure that we provide opportunities for positive learning activities that play a preventive role in dealing with the root problems of youth crime, or at least dealing with elements of the root problems of youth crime.
The experience of many people over the years has been that involvement in an organization which demands of a young person a great deal of time, energy and commitment keeps them from having time on their hands. It keeps them from the temptation to become involved in other things that are less wholesome. Much is to be said for youth being involved in these kinds of programs and activities.
There is merit in the government looking at ways in which it might extend more support in this regard than it does now. We need to break the cycle of youth crime, and I believe that healthy youth programs contribute to the maintenance and development of cohesive and safe communities. The evidence on that is pretty convincing.
The motion will not pass because it is not a votable motion, but I hope the government would consider what members of Parliament have to say and will look to incorporating some of the suggestions made today, not just by me but perhaps by others, into any kind of comprehensive strategy for youth in Canada.
If the government were to implement such a policy, it might want to look at how the tax rebate could be designed to give a bigger break to middle and low income Canadians who need it more than others. There might be some kind of ceiling on it. It does not necessarily have to be available to everybody.
Such programs have been instituted in other jurisdictions. In Minnesota, for instance, an educational tax credit and deduction was brought in to assist parents in this way. It is not identical to what I have in mind, but I am just saying there are examples of how this can be done. I recommend that the government have a look at that. It may see elements of a solution in what has been done in that state.
It is time for all levels of government to look at how we can begin to rebuild our educational and recreational programming because they have taken a beating over the last 10 years or so. We need to begin to invest in our children's future again. I think this is one of the ways we can do it. We could recognize the expense many families have in order to provide these kinds of experiences for their children. This measure would go a long way toward doing that.
I have a few other points I would like to put on the record. I have been very disturbed, for instance, in my own riding by the way the community clubs have been treated by Revenue Canada.
A community club in my riding was audited, assessed and told that there had been certain hockey fees on which it was supposed to be charging GST. The club did not know it was supposed to be charging GST in this category of program. The next thing we know, it is told that it owed Revenue Canada something in the neighbourhood of $10,000.
This is a community club run by volunteers. I do not know how many other community clubs across the country have been affected in this way. It seems to me that if Revenue Canada wants to instruct the club by telling it that it has been doing this wrong and from here on it it needs to charge GST, that is fair enough.
However, for Revenue Canada to tell the club, a volunteer organization where people are working nights and weekends to help make that club a success, that it owes $10,000 and interest is not a very wise policy when at the same time we are talking about the Young Offenders Act and what we can do about youth crime. Here we have a community club that is doing its best to keep as many kids active in sports and on the ice instead of on the street, and it is being told it made a mistake and it has to pay through the nose. I think that should have been waived.
We have had some success in waiving the interest but personally I think the whole thing should have been waived. I believe we need to look for other ways to encourage community clubs and other groups involved in youth programming rather than make them vulnerable to the kind of situation Park City West Community Centre in Transcona found itself in.
I look forward to the comments of other members on my suggestion.