Madam Speaker, it is a disgrace and I am ashamed that we even have to talk about this as we are about to turn the millennium, that we discriminate against parents who choose to stay home and raise their children.
I will get into specifics. This all boils down to just one issue as I see it that we have to decide on. Will we recognize that parenting is one of our most important occupations that any Canadian can do? I suggest it is.
My wife stays at home. She works 14 to 16 hours a day raising our children. There is not one other occupation I can think of that is more difficult, more demanding and is more of a cornerstone of the fabric of our society than that.
Before I get into specific examples out of their own documents to prove this, I will relate something that is even more insulting, more disgraceful. Members opposite, instead of giving tax fairness to stay at home parents are more concerned about providing tax relief to NHL franchises, to NHL hockey players who are earning millions and millions of dollars. That is what they are focusing on. That is insulting. That is a disgrace to all these parents who stay at home.
I do not disagree that they are probably overtaxed but if the government is to give out one thin dime and a tax free certificate it had better give out 30 million of them.
I will get to the specifics. I have a document, a child care expense deduction form for 1998, form T778. That is what any Canadian will have to fill out to claim a child care deduction for this year. I will use myself as an example.
My wife has a university degree. She was a director of information services at a local college. She can speak four languages, is well educated but she chose to give up her career because she felt it was so fundamentally important to stay home with our children while I went out to work.
I have another example. My sister is a school teacher in Invermere, British Columbia. He husband James chose to put his career on hold and stay at home with their three daughters until they started school. He felt it was important that one parent be there. He put his career on hold and stayed at home.
For either James or my wife or anybody else in similar circumstances, if they wanted to get the same tax deduction as two working parents there is one way they could do it. I am looking on the tax form, part C. If they ticked off the box that they are mentally or physically incapable of raising children they would be eligible for the same deduction.
This one is even more amazing. Let me read word for word from the government's tax form:
e) The other supporting person was confined to a prison or similar institution for a period of at least two weeks in 1998.
Is so they would be eligible for that tax deduction.
That is not rhetoric. That is fact. It is an insult to every single man and woman who chooses to stay home and look after their children and it is absolutely shameful that we are discussing that as we go into the next millennium, that we can discriminate. I plead to the members. I am telling straight facts.
There is one other way that they could get this deduction. My wife and I would have to separate. If we are living separate and apart we would get the deductions.
It is an insult that we are promoting that. I know seniors who have come to me and said the only way they could get tax fairness is if they were to get a legal divorce. That is another whole issue.
The issue we are talking about today is whether we recognize the role of parents who choose to stay home and raise their children. The question is whether we recognize that as the most important occupation in society.
The government puts zero importance on it. It discriminates against it. They are not entitled to it.
In fact, one of the Liberal members point this out to me. I am appalled. These are the facts. I challenge any member on that side to come to talk to me personally or stand up in the House and I will provide him or her with this document. They can get it from any post office. These are the facts.
They keep coming up with all these other arguments on everything they have done. Some of these came in with the Tories but we are not discussing those because those are available to everybody. We are talking about the one deduction that is available.
Another issue that has been raised is how a two parent family each earning $25,000 is better off than another two parent family that has only one person earning $50,000. The family that believes it is important to stay home and nurture and raise children is discriminated by $4,000. This is on top of the the child care issue which I was just explaining.
My children are four and five. They go to preschool for my wife's benefit so that she can get a few hours out of each week to do the things she needs to do. It is also, I argue, a benefit for them and very good for them. However, we are not entitled to that tax deduction because my wife is not a criminal, she has not spent two weeks in jail and we are not separated. These words are right off the form:
f) You and you spouse were, due to a breakdown in your relationship, living separate and apart at the end of 1998 and for a period of at least 90 days—.
It is insulting to these people.
I have another example which takes me back four or five years going to law school. This goes on to part D. We had our children when I was going to school. My wife gave up her career while I was in law school. If the circumstances had been the same as they are today, we would not have been entitled to put them in a day care and claim that deduction even though the family income was only for three or four months a year around $16,000.
If both the parents are not working they both have to be going to school to claim that deduction in part D. This is right off the government's tax forms. I encourage members to look at them. I read these and I am appalled.
I then listen to other comments made by members in the House and the insults get deeper and deeper and the wounds become deeper and deeper.
Let me talk about the member for Vancouver Kingsway. She was sitting on a committee in Calgary along with my hon. colleague from Calgary Southeast who explained to me the outrage of the people she was addressing. These people were just disgusted. There is a quote in Hansard which she laughs and sneers at when she is questioned in the House. She said perhaps individually you have low self-esteem for many reasons but you cannot say this applies to all women at home. They are not being looked down upon as misfits.
I would argue that my wife is not a misfit. She has a degree and is fluent in four languages, written and spoken, but she chose to place her priority on our family. We believe that it is very important to stay at home and raise our children. She is also fully aware of the sacrifices she has made. She wants to go back into the workforce when our children start school. We are facing those choices now. She took five years out of her career because she felt it was so important. We discriminate against those people. There are hundreds of thousands of those kinds of people across this country.
She also said most women can combine career and family life. It is not about that. It is about making choices. I find this absolutely outrageous. That the government will give the tax deduction to a criminal who spends two weeks in jail, somebody who is separated or somebody who is not capable of raising their children but the person who chooses to stay at home is not entitled to that same deduction is outrageous. How can the government insult Canadians?
There is an opportunity to correct this by standing and voting in favour of this motion. We can do what is right, put politics aside, rise above party labels and do what we believe is right for Canadians. I will give members this document and they can read it for themselves and make the choice.