Debates of March 4th, 1999

Government Response To Petitions

[Peter Adams, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8), I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government's response to four petitions.

Canadian Nato Parliamentary Association

[George Proud, Liberal, Hillsborough, PE]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 34(1) I have the honour to present to the House, in both official languages, the 7th report of the Canadian NATO Parliamentary Association which represented Canada at the meeting of the NATO parliamentary assembly subcommittee on defence and security co-operation between Europe and North America held in Washington, D.C. and New York, U.S.A., January 31 to February 6, 1999.

Committees Of The House

[Peter Adams, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present the 59th report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs regarding the associate membership of the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities.

I move that the 59th report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs be concurred in.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Does the hon. parliamentary secretary have the unanimous consent of the House to propose this motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.

Petitions

[Ted McWhinney, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have the pleasure to present a petition with 318 signatures on the subject of genetically engineered foods. The petitioners ask for parliament to legislate clear labelling on all genetically engineered foods as well as testing these products to ensure they are safe for human consumption.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36 I am pleased to present a petition signed by a number of Canadians, including from my constituency of Mississauga South, on human rights.

The petitioners draw to the attention of the House that human rights abuses continue to be rampant around the world in countries such as Indonesia. The petitioners also point out that Canada continues to be recognized internationally as the champion of human rights.

The petitioners call on the Government of Canada to continue to speak out against human rights abuses and also to seek to bring to justice those responsible for such abuses.

Questions On The Order Paper

[Peter Adams, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

Supply

[Jason Kenney, Reform, Calgary Southeast, AB]

moved:

That, in the opinion of this House, the federal tax system should be reformed to end discrimination against single income families with children.

[Chuck Strahl, Reform, Fraser Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would like the Speaker to know that during today's debate the members of the Reform Party will be dividing their time.

[Jason Kenney, Reform, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Calgary Centre, who has done yeoman's work in fighting for tax fairness for families and I think he deserves some considerable recognition for his efforts in this regard.

I am today moving that, in the opinion of this House, the federal tax system should be reformed to end discrimination against single income families with children.

It really is unfortunate that we need to put forward a motion like this in this place today. As the official opposition, we rise in the House to deal with the gross and inexcusable inequity, one that undermines the basic unit of any healthy society, the family. I speak of an inequity which creates perverse unfairness for struggling, hardworking parents who are doing the most important work of the nation, raising children, raising the next generation.

This inequity is a tax code which treats stay at home parents as though they are second class citizens and which, in the words of the C.D. Howe Institute, gives children the same level of economic importance as disposable consumer items.

We bring this motion forward today after years of advocating tax fairness for families not only as the official opposition giving voice to the concerns of millions of Canadians but in many other organizations across the ideological spectrum.

We come here in a particular context, in the context of comments made this week by the hon. secretary of state for finance who said, as we know, on Tuesday: “If two members of a particular family are both working, first of all they are putting in twice the working hours as stay at home parents”. He furthermore said that they also have twice the expenses, including the expenses of not having someone at home doing the housework, that is, having to pay for maids and nannies, I suppose.

This reflected the views, not just a temporary slip of the tongue but the fundamental views, of this government when it comes to justifying the unjustifiable and inexcusable inequities in the tax code.

It is not an isolated comment. Yesterday I quoted from a memo that the Prime Minister's office distributed in October 1996 wherein it said of the Reform Party's proposal to increase tax deductions for children that the notion that this will encourage parents to quit their jobs and return to the kitchen is naive.

Why is it that the Prime Minister's office believes that parents who work at home raising their children are “in the kitchen”? What kind of negative, prejudicial stereotype is this enforcing about people who are making real economic sacrifices to do what they believe is best by their families?

Again, this was not an isolated comment. I was at a finance committee hearing in Calgary in October of last year when I heard the member for Vancouver—Kingsway say to advocates for tax fairness for families: “Most women can combine career and family life but a lot of women just take the easy way out”. The hon. member for Vancouver—Kingsway, as reported in Hansard , said that stay at home mothers are taking the easy way out. I say shame on the member and anyone who would tolerate that kind of prejudicial remark to these stay at home parents making sacrifices.

The hon. member for St. Paul's in the same kind of fracas with these defenders of stay at home parents characterized them when she said they are perceived—presumably by her—as elite white women. She is talking to these individuals who have come before a finance committee to defend equity and disparaging them as elite white women?

The member for Essex—Windsor in the last parliament said that the Reform Party's notion of tax for stay at home parenting was a nostalgic notion. I ask, not rhetorically but really, what is nostalgic about the choice made today by a third of Canadian parents who choose to give up the second car, the bigger house, the vacation in order to stay at home and raise their kids, and spend as much time as they can bonding with their children and raising the future generation? I submit that there is nothing nostalgic about it. I submit that it is specious to suggest that these people do not work. They are doing the most important work there is to be done in our society.

We could dismiss these slips of the tongue in evidence of the fundamental Liberal philosophy, which is hostile to stay at home parenting, but these comments reflect the real discrimination that exists in the tax code. Rather than hearing empty apologies for these kinds of prejudicial remarks, we want to see this tax system corrected.

What is wrong with this tax system that we are talking about? I will tell the House what is wrong. A family with one income earner who earns $35,000 ends up paying $2,281 more in taxes than a two income family with the same gross income. That is nearly a $2,300 differential for a very modest income family. That is according to federal government budget documents. According to the C.D. Howe Institute, a single income earning family making $50,000 pays about $4,000 more than its double income equivalent or about two-thirds more.

This is not just an aberration. The government made policy changes in its last budget to increase the child care tax deduction, one of the principal offending elements of the tax code in this respect, by increasing it over the last and current fiscal years. It actually increased the disparity, the inequity, the unfairness between two income and single income families with children. That is inexcusable.

People may ask what is the basis for this inequity. First, there is the child care tax deduction which allows those parents who pay for third party day care to deduct a substantial portion, $7,000 per child under the age of 12. That is a deduction which is not available to parents who raise their kids at home, who forgo the second income and do assume a cost, called opportunity cost, the cost of giving up income.

One of the other offensive things this government did was to raise the age under which parents can claim the child care tax deduction for minors. It brought in a $4,000 deduction for children between the ages of 12 and 16. What does this mean? It means that some parents are claiming this deduction to send their kids to hockey school and summer camp, while those parents who are taking care of preschool kids at home get no coverage, no advantage from the tax system. It is just plain wrong.

One of the other offending elements is the basic exemption versus the spousal exemption. The spousal exemption is worth about 20% less than the basic personal exemption. What this says to fathers and mothers who decide to stay at home is that they are second class citizens. Their value to society is deemed to be only 80% of the value of somebody who works outside the home. We say enough of this kind of second class status for people who are staying at home to do what is best for their families.

Those are the principal offensive areas of the tax code. Single income families also end up in higher brackets. They do not get to claim as much RRSP room as the combined room of two income families and so forth. Families do not want it this way.

One of the interesting things we see, according to the Vanier Institute of the Family, is that over the past several years two income families have seen their after tax income stay relatively flat, while single income families have seen their incomes since 1989 go down by 10%. The single income families that tend to be at the lower end of the income scale and that need the help the most are falling further behind because of these inequities, while the double income families that tend to be higher up the income scale are staying at least even with the enormous tax take of the government.

Families do not want it this way. Eighty-two per cent of Canadians in a 1998 Compas poll said they wanted the tax code changed to make it easier for parents with young children to have a parent at home. Ninety per cent of Canadians feel that taxes are too high for parents with children and that this is placing a greater stress on them than it did a generation ago. Eighty-six per cent of Canadians favour a lot or some priority for families with a stay at home parent. Ninety per cent believe the family setting is preferable to day care when asked what is the best for an infant or preschool child.

In a 1991 Decima poll 70% of the women asked said that if they had the choice they would prefer to raise their children at home rather than work outside the home and use day care.

That is what Canadians are saying by overwhelming margins: 70%, 80% and 90%. We do not get that kind of consensus on virtually any other public policy issue. It is very clear that these people are falling behind even though they are working harder and playing by the rules.

What is the remedy? Very simply, we propose to convert the child care tax deduction into a refundable credit and increase the value of that credit to $7,900, which would equalize the playing field. We would also convert the child care tax deduction into a credit. We would raise the spousal amount to be equivalent to the basic personal amount.

That is a starting point, but we need to start this national debate—

[The Deputy Speaker]

I am afraid the hon. member's time has expired.

[Peter Adams, Liberal, Peterborough, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would be grateful if you would seek unanimous consent to return to motions under Routine Proceedings.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Does the House give its consent to return to motions under Routine Proceedings?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

Committees Of The House

[Peter Adams, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, if the House gives its consent, I move that the 59th report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, presented to the House earlier this day, be concurred in.

(Motion agreed to)

The House resumed consideration of the motion.

Supply

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am absolutely sure today that we are going to hear a great deal about the importance of raising our children and care giving, no matter what choice is made by parents.

This morning the hon. member raised a couple of issues that I would like to pose to him. The first issue is the differential between the basic amount, the non-refundable tax credit for individuals, which is $6,452 I believe, and the spousal amount, which I believe is $5,380. One of the recommendations is that we equalize those because they should not be different.

I wonder if the member would comment on why he did not take into account the fact that spouses who stay in the home can in fact earn $538 of taxable income before any of the non-refundable credit would be eliminated. There is in fact another component that he has totally missed.

The primary question concerns a problem I have with the motion itself. The member consulted with me yesterday and I suggested to him a change which he did not accept. The motion states that the tax act discriminates against single earning families with children. One out of six families in Canada are lone-parent, one-income families. Why is the member excluding single income, single parent families from the motion?

[Jason Kenney, Reform, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, we are not. The motion speaks to single income families with children. Single parents with children fall under that category. Those single parents with children who have no income suffer no tax discrimination because they suffer no taxation. I therefore do not follow the member's reasoning.

With respect to the question on our proposal to raise the spousal amount to become equivalent to the basic personal exemption, this is simply a question of equity. We see no reason for the current arrangement whereby stay at home parents who do not generate their own income are told that their contribution to society is somehow less significant than those who are in the “paid” workforce. We ought to equalize that. It is not a convoluted, technical issue. It is simply a question of principle and a question of fairness.

[Jim Jones, Progressive Conservative, Markham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the member for Calgary Southeast for bringing this motion forward.

Helping our families through tax relief is an admirable goal for any government. Certainly the Conservative government in Ontario has led the way in that regard.

I would ask a simple question of the Reform member. In 1993 Ron Mix, a Reform candidate in Edmonton North, said this about women in the workplace. “Women are being forced to work under the guise that they are being liberated and enjoying the freedoms of the workplace, when in fact it is bondage”. Meanwhile, in a 100 page paper the Leader of the Opposition quoted from the Bible:

Wives, be subject to your husbands as the Lord, for the man is the head of the woman.

I ask the Reform member, as this motion deals with ending discrimination in the tax system, will that member also refute those discriminatory comments, or does the Reform member support those comments?

[Jason Kenney, Reform, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, what I rebuke are the gutter politics of the member for Markham. Shame on him for taking an issue like this, an issue of fairness and equity for families, which he ought to agree with in principle, and taking it down to the gutter.

That member may not have recognized that the members of my party have engaged in a form of unilateral rhetorical disarmament with respect to that party. But as far as that member is concerned, that ends right now. Let me remind him who started the inequities for families in the tax code and who tolerated them for nine years. It was the Mulroney government. It was the PC Party which he represents which allowed this discrimination to seep its way into the tax code. It was that government which de-indexed the tax rate which has cost $11 billion to taxpayers since then. It has forced 1.2 million taxpayers on to the tax rolls since then.

Shame on this member for accusing the Leader of the Opposition of quoting from his scriptural book in a negative way. To bring a member's personal religious convictions into a policy debate like this is beneath contempt.

There are all sorts of ridiculous comments that have been made by members opposite in the last week which suggest a discriminatory attitude toward single income, stay at home parents. That is what we ought to be addressing our attention to, solving the problem which is creating enormous pressure on Canadian families, enormous economic pressure—

[Jean Dubé, Progressive Conservative, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I was listening to the comments made by my colleague from the Reform Party. I believe I heard him say that our colleague on this side was using gutter politics. I believe that to be unparliamentary.