Madam Speaker, I am pleased to take part in the debate today on Motion No. 318 which was moved by the member for Fraser Valley. The motion suggests that charitable donations should be treated no less equitably than donations to a political party. There are some arguments to be made in terms of fairness and equity on this subject.
I tend to agree with the government member who spoke on this motion a few minutes ago. He said that we are really discussing apples and oranges. Political donations have a very limited threshold. It is 75% of the first $100, 50% of the next $450 and 33% of the last $600, with a cap of $1,150. If a person gives more than that to their favourite political party they do not enjoy any form of rebate. The tax credit is given in the year in which the money is donated to the political party.
That is quite a bit different than the situation we have with charitable donations where up to 75% of a taxpayer's income can be forwarded to the charity or charities of their choice. Tax forwarding advantages can be used on many other things that are simply not available with the political tax credit.
By way of history, the political tax credit came into being in this country following the 1972-74 minority government. It was one of the conditions for our party's support for the then Trudeau government that it bring in some kind of public financing for the political process and it may very well be in need of updating and redressing.
The Lortie commission on electoral reform and party financing discussed a number of these things several years ago. I might remind members opposite that this government has managed to ignore the recommendations of the Lortie commission since it tabled its report in 1992.
I remember being involved with the Lortie commission on a trip to Harvard University where we met with a number of American politicos. They wondered, I think quite correctly, why we were in their country talking to them about political donations because we had a much fairer system in this country. Thanks to funds that come in through public financing for political parties we get away from all the soft money and all the money that is raised. There are limits. There is a process. Generally speaking, it has worked well in this country for the last two decades.
I think it is all well and good to talk about the explosion of charities and the need for more money. I agree with what has been said on that point, but let us get at the reasons there has been an explosion in the need for money for charities.
As has been correctly pointed out, but with no editorial comments attached, cutbacks have been made by all levels of government as they have focused on balancing their budgets, eliminating their deficits and concentrating on paying off their debts.
I think we could have a very interesting debate about why we need all these charities and that if we had a proper tax system and financing for a number of social programs people would not be required to go door to door or call us at six o'clock at night for a donation for their favourite charity.
I think when the member moved his motion he was clearly directing his attention at the small donor, the person who gives $50 or $100. It may very well be that we do need to look at levelling the playing field for those small donors, with a cap of perhaps $1,150, which is currently what the political tax credit is, or perhaps with inflation over the last two decades we should be looking at moving that number up to $2,000 so it is more appropriate in this day and age.
Someone might make the argument that there should be symmetry between political givings and charitable donations at the low end. However, we should be be careful about the absolute amount that is donated to a political party.
There are lots of good arguments that could be advanced on another day on that topic, but with respect to charitable donations, nobody is arguing that we should cap them, so we are talking, to some extent, about oranges and apples.
In conclusion, I believe that there is a case to be made at the low end for levelling the playing field, but I would leave it at that.