Mr. Speaker, I am always pleased to speak to private members' initiatives. I am a very big fan of private members' bills and motions because they provide the ordinary member of parliament, most of us, an opportunity to raise issues which we feel will promote and stimulate dialogue and discussion on issues which we otherwise might not deal with in terms of government business.
It gets people thinking. It gives them an opportunity to demonstrate the thinking behind and the philosophy behind some of the things we are doing. It is very easy in this place to argue why we should not do something.
I think the strength of Private Members' Business is it gives people an opportunity to argue why we should do something and why we should find ways. Do not tell me why we cannot, tell me how we can.
I am very pleased to speak to this motion because we could certainly argue it on an environmental basis. However, if we wanted to speak against this motion, we could clearly deal with it totally on a tax basis and come to a different position in the context of only taxation or in the context of only the environment, or in terms of any other impacts this may have.
There is no question this proposal has some merit and should be considered by the House. Motions are not binding on the government. They are simply to consider the advisability of an idea, in this case that the government should consider making employer provided transit passes an income tax exempt benefit. It is quite straightforward. As has been clearly laid out by other speakers, the proposal contained in the motion is not simply a taxation matter. It is also very much an environmental matter related to climate change, an issue which is extremely important to the House and which will be a major item as we enter the new millennium because of our commitments under the Kyoto agreement.
I wanted to deal with this motion on behalf of the member from Kamloops in the affirmative. I want to speak in favour of this motion. The Government of Canada has announced the establishment of a climate change secretariat. We have done a number of things which I think will advance the issues. I know the government is working on a comprehensive approach to the environmental aspects of the matter before us. It is part of the solution. It is not part of the problem. It is an interesting perspective to raise.
There is no question as we adopt strategies and move toward implementation the important strategies will be those that are in a co-ordinated fashion so that there is an efficiency and an effectiveness in terms of making changes in policy. It would be very easy to say this is premature, that it pre-empts somehow the process in place on the environmental side. Any time is a good time to talk about ideas. That is exactly what this motion has done.
I am aware of a couple of arguments that could be opposed. The one about being premature is a valid argument. In the context of advancing the dialogue, advancing the knowledge and kind of raising this issue, maybe even getting it to committee where we can have experts to further evolve the thinking and the knowledge on the issue that has been raised, in all its broad context I think it is a good thing. It is a good thing for the House. It is a good thing for Canadians.
There is an argument that one could make that the proposed measure would be unfair to individuals who are not supplied with employer paid passes. That is quite true. I was mentioning to a colleague that this is an issue which tends not to be as inclusive as we would want simply because there are not public transit systems in all parts of Canada which would even allow businesses to take advantage of some sort of tax exempt status.
It does raise the interesting point about philosophy of providing benefits or supporting consensus initiatives or objectives of government. Do we have to treat everybody the same? Does everybody have to be treated exactly the same? Or, is it that we are trying to promote equity or equality of benefits? If you had two children you might give one a book because they are a good reader. You might give the other a chemistry set because they want to get involved. You treated them equally because they both got something that maybe brought out the best of their talent but you did not treat them the same.
I think in this context we have an item which admittedly may have more of an urban thrust to it. Yet it has some linkages which make it important for us not to dismiss it simply because it is not universally accessible and relevant to all Canadians. I think it is one of those arguments we could go either way on. I think we as parliamentarians always want to be as open as possible with regard to broader implications and maybe the philosophy of approach to dealing with issues that Canadians feel are important as we enter the new millennium.
Another argument brought to my attention was that the bulk of the assistance of non-taxation of employer paid transit passes would accrue to individuals who already are using the transit system and therefore it would not be an efficient way to increase the ridership of our transit systems in our major centres.
I suspect that is the case. I think it would be somewhat difficult to determine how many employers would start providing tax exempt passes, if this were to come to pass, and whether it would have the impact on people.
Maybe people have made up their minds. Maybe there is a price elasticity here when using one's car. There are really not very many options. I think we have cases right across the spectrum.
The real point is there is a broad range of issues that would have to be balanced. A motion like this helps to probably identify the circle of issues to be considered not only on this motion but generally the thinking we have on a lot of matters that come before the House. There are conflicting interests or there are competing interests with regard to almost everything that comes before us.
The laws of Canada are by their very nature discriminatory. They have to be discriminatory. If there were no discrimination in the law then there would be no need for the law because everybody would be treated the same, and we do not have laws and policies which try to treat everybody the same.
We have certain benefits, for instance employer paid health care benefits, which are not taxable benefits in the hands of employees. Dentists et cetera have brought this to us. There are so many people who are directly or indirectly covered by employer paid plans that to make that taxable may have an adverse consequence in terms of the number of people making use of health care services.
It is discriminatory because those people in Canada who do not have employer paid health plans are left to their own devices, either to buy insurance themselves or to pay as they go for the services they require. They are all subject to a deductible and only get a modest break on our tax return system for medical and dental and vision care expenses that would be incurred directly on their behalf. There is a discrimination there.
One of the things I had suggested is that for those who do not have group life plans which cover the broad range of health services, maybe there should be a super or an extra tax benefit or deduction, those kind of things.
With regard to the tax exempt status of bus passes, yesterday on the news I saw that Northern Telecom and I believe the transit system in Ottawa have kicked off a one month pilot on this very thing where the employer is providing those passes. The Ottawa transit system announced that it needs to increase its ridership by some 70% over the next few years to maintain the efficiency and service levels it presently enjoys simply because of the changing of this region.
There must be at least a dozen different angles or issues on this. I believe it provides an ample opportunity for members from all sides of the argument to be engaged in debate, which is one of the most important reasons we have private members' bills and motions.