Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to join this debate today on such a positive motion being brought forward by members of the official opposition. It is such a pleasure to speak on this topic because it is a topic that is so dear to my heart.
I am the father of four young children, ages eight, six, four and two. My wife is working at home raising those kids as am I when I get a chance to be there. It is hard sometimes with this job. We know there are some major commitments here as members of parliament. There are lots of Canadian families making major commitments to their families. They have made a number of different decisions. Some families have decided to have one of the parents stay home to look after their children. Some families have decided that they need both parents working. There are all sorts of other arrangements with others giving care to children in the home.
What is becoming very evident in this debate today is this government's approach, this government's real attitude toward families and to parents who choose to look after their children at home.
This issue was brought to light by the junior finance minister. We are all well aware of his comments made earlier this week and his apology for those comments, which is an honourable thing to do. I think that is a good thing to do but also we must take a look at what government members are saying and, more important, what they are doing, what the Liberal government is doing.
The government is purposely discriminating against families, against individuals who choose to stay at home and raise their children. It is saying is that there is not real value in that very hard job of raising families, at least not the same value as if those individuals, those parents, were outside the home working.
We have heard numerous statements. We heard the member for Vancouver Kingsway try to enter in on a point of debate not happy about what she said. She said most women can combine career and family life. We know it is very difficult. A lot of times people just take the easy way out.
What is that member saying? What is the government saying to families that choose to have one parent stay home to look after their children? I think it is an amazing admission of what the government's real agenda is. It is unbelievable and it does not stop there.
We heard in question period today and throughout debate as well another member of the government, the member for St. Paul's, talking to members who appeared before the finance committee, saying that your perception as elite white women is not helping colleagues stay at home, individuals, mothers in this case, called elite white women. That is reprehensible.
It shows there are members of the government who are bringing a voice to what the real belief of the government is. It is becoming evident through debate today what the real agenda of the government is as it relates to families. That is discrimination. The government does not have a problem with that.
It does not have a problem about discriminating against families that choose to have one parent stay home to raise children. In fact, if government members put action to their empty words about what they believe they would do something in their budgets about this discrimination that continues. Year after year the government has been in the House and it has not addressed this.
Government members will throw out some straw dog arguments about the child tax deduction and benefit which helps certain individuals but not all individuals. They neglect to mention the clawback factor.
The millionaire finance minister believes that individuals who are making between $30,000 and $60,000 do not deserve the same amount of benefit as other individuals. He must think those individuals are rich and that $50,000 is a lot of money to raise a family.
I can tell the millionaire finance minister that is not a lot of money. There are a lot of families in this country working really hard to try to raise their families.
I never intended to get involved in politics. One of the things that motivated me to get involved was that very fact, the outrageous amount of taxes the government was taking out of my family's pocket to subsidize its spending habits that seem to know no end at all.
My wife is a professional. She is an early childhood educator. She was a supervisor of a day care. I was a teacher. We made the decision to have her stay home and raise the children. She has also worked outside the home. She has worked sometimes during the summer and I have stayed home to look after the children.
The minister of multiculturalism made some fairly outrageous statements earlier about members here, about why we do not just look after our own children. I will tell that minister that is exactly what our family is doing. That is exactly what we are working on and that is what families are working on across the country.
The agenda of the government is very clear, discrimination against families that choose to have an individual stay at home to look after the children. What we are asking for is a choice and equality for all individuals, for all families, for the different arrangements people choose to make regarding looking after children.
Sometimes people choose to stay home to raise children. Sometimes they need to work outside the home. Why is the government so against choice? I cannot believe it. It is just unbelievable.
Members of the government seem to be talking out of both sides of their mouths. Some of the members say yes, we are discriminating.
I want to read a question that was asked to the finance minister by an individual in British Columbia earlier this week. This mother had chosen to stay home to raise her children. She was phoning a talk show and these are her exact words to the Minister of Finance on March 1: “We were hoping to see in this budget some form of help for families with stay at home moms. We are under an incredible amount of stress because we have decided for me to stay home to raise the children. My husband is the single income earner. We are bringing home less. We are actually being penalized. The mothers or the care givers going to work and getting better tax breaks than those of us who are deciding to stay home and deciding to send one of us out to work. What is the finance minister going to do about that? Why has he not done something this year?”
The finance minister did not give the normal rhetoric and spin he gives in the House of Commons, which was refreshing. He said: “The fact is that you are right”.
What was the caller right about? The caller was saying that we are being penalized because we choose to send one of our members of the family out to work outside the home. The finance minister admitted that.
He went on to say: “There are anomalies that have been allowed to build up in the Income Tax Act over the years”. He has been the finance minister for five years and he has allowed those inequities to go on and on.
There is discrimination against families, discrimination against Canadians who choose to have one of the members of their family stay home and look after their children.
This motion is a positive motion that seeks to end the ongoing discrimination of the government.
We hope we have unanimity on the opposition benches and that this positive motion will go forward. We hope that government members will have an opportunity in a free vote to turn this around and put an end to this Liberal government discrimination against families.