Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to the motion today. I was somewhat amused when I looked at the television broadcast of this debate and saw the line underneath the picture indicating “elimination of poverty”. I thought some might say we have reached a point of arrogance to assume we in the House will eliminate all poverty.
I have some comments regarding the motion which I would like to share. The particular motion proposes to eliminate the gap between the rich and the poor and to eliminate child poverty through government intervention.
For some individuals these are noble sounding goals, but Reform would take issue with how the Bloc and others in the House propose to achieve these goals. Often the method and the determination of the outcome are more critical than just lofty sounding goals.
Some feel the answer to these problems is more megagovernment programs, more government make work projects, more protectionism, more bureaucracy, more taxes, more debt and a more unfocused federal government, more of the old vision of how a government should work.
It is because this has not worked that Reform takes a different view of how these issues should be addressed. Reform would point out that we have been through the age of megagovernment programs and it has not worked. It certainly has not eliminated the problems. The Bloc obstensibly says that this is an attempt to address the issue. Instead of eliminating poverty or the gap between the rich and the poor, what has been the result of megagovernment that the Bloc seems to wish to promote today?
A short list would include a $600 billion debt, the highest taxes in the industrialized world, one-third of every tax dollar going to interest on the national debt, job insecurity for many Canadians, almost one in five of our trained young people not finding work, and a brain drain of our brightest to better opportunities in other countries.
We could do better but more of the same and bigger government are not the answer. This megagovernment vision which the Bloc and others in the House seem to support has resulted in low and single income individuals and families paying higher levels of taxation with the hope of getting some back through some government program.
Even after the latest budget an individual starts paying taxes at approximately $7,000. Surely such individuals cannot be classified as rich, but the government still forces them to hand over their income to their megagovernment so that perhaps their megagovernment can think of some sort of bureaucracy growing program for them.
An individual earning $29,000 will pay about 20% of his income to the federal government in personal income tax, employment insurance and CPP premiums. This total does not include the Liberals' beloved GST or any provincial taxes.
A megagovernment comes up with megaproposals and megaprograms which are not easily tailorable to the needs of individuals. Given the diversity of the needs of the regions in Canada, the big brother approach does not meet people where they are at.
An example might be the child tax benefit. One can agree there is value in recognizing the increased costs of raising a child, but we can take issue with how it is recognized by the government. It is important to recognize the responsibility of raising children. In the words of supreme court Justice La Forest:
Marriage has from time immemorial been firmly grounded in our legal tradition, one that is itself a reflection of longstanding philosophical and religious traditions. But ultimately its raison d'etre transcends all these and is firmly anchored in the biological and social realities that couples have the unique ability to procreate, that children are the product of these relationships, and that they are generally cared for and nurtured by those who live in that relationship.
The family is an important relationship. The child tax benefit essentially takes money from families with children through taxes today. Then one year later they are sent a cheque. This is a year after they filed and paid their taxes. Would it not be easier to simplify the process and simply reduce their tax bill at source in the first place and eliminate much of the bureaucracy involved in processing the program? Let the family have the money in the month it is earned and not a year later.
There is a family in my riding, the Lucas family, that shared with me a story of how there was an error in the child tax benefit the family received. Revenue Canada sent a cheque for $1,000 and said “We underpaid you on the child tax benefit”. This is a poor family that is just starting out with one young child and another one on the way. This was a windfall, $1,000 out of the blue. The family enjoyed the $1,000 by spending it on some immediate needs.
Three months later the family got a letter from Revenue Canada saying it was an overpayment on the child tax benefit and now the $1,000 had to be paid back. The stress it put on that family I cannot begin to fully articulate today. However after many calls and many appeals to the taxman the family was allowed to pay so much off a month. It put tremendous stress on the family. In researching the whole situation it was not the only family that had been ground up in this bureaucratic nightmare. In fact there were many families across Canada. It is the height of administrative bureaucracy when it loses touch with the impacts it is having on everyday people.
This kind of complexity adds to the burden of taxation and administration that families have to carry. Not only have taxes become the greatest expense in the family budget, but it has become a family expense just to file an income tax return because it is so complex. There are 600 pages in the act and 700 pages of special interpretations. The Income Tax Act and the special interpretations that go with it are thicker than most phone books and it started out as a 36 page document to fund the war effort. Bureaucracy has gone crazy and it is impacting on families. The bottom line is that more government intervention in recent years has worked against the family and their children.
What is Reform's vision? Reform has pointed out that the old vision of megagovernment just is not working. This is the vision which has us working half the year just to pay the tax bill. The old vision of the current government promised job creation and social justice. That is what it promised but it delivers chronic unemployment, chronic poverty and youth crime. It is a vision which promises national unity through national programs and national standards but delivers friction, disunity, non-accountability, duplication and waste.
Current government vision trivializes the individual, family and community contributions by implying that only through government programs, government spending and government propaganda can the country be held together.
Reform's vision is that of a country defined and built by its citizens rather than by its government. It is a vision of smaller government and lower taxes. It is a vision that reaches out to the initiative, drive and diversity of Canadians and calls upon individuals, families and communities to lead the way to growth, progress and unity. It allows families and communities to enjoy the fruits of their labours.
The best way to address child poverty is to address the needs of the family. This may be attained through jobs for parents or youth. This can be achieved through lower taxes and less bureaucracy. Children are members of families in the care of their parents. They are not disconnected free agents.
Reform believes that we can best help families by simplifying and reducing the burden of government on them and by showing that they make an important contribution to the health of our country. More than that, Reform would point out that we need to better respect the autonomy of families and not undermine these relationships by driving a wedge between parents and their children or between husbands and wives with greater government intervention in family relationships. That is not the answer.
These are not just my comments. These positions are written into the policies, statements and documents of the Reform Party. We affirm in our statements the duty of parents to raise their children responsibly, according to their own conscience and beliefs. We further affirm that no person, government or agency has any right to interfere in the exercise of that duty as long as the actions of parents do not constitute abuse or neglect.
Rather than saying we need bigger government and the higher taxes that go along with it, Reform is saying that we need smaller government. The money earned by families is best left in their pockets, the pockets of those who know how best to spend it to address their needs and those of their children. Children can be best served by those closest to them, that is parents and not governments. Parents know best how to address the needs of their families.
I refer to the publicity stunt we saw performed by the Bloc Quebecois member who carried his chair out of the House in protest. It is interesting that he did this to demonstrate the government's ineffectiveness in addressing child poverty and the gap between the rich and the poor—