Debates of March 4th, 1999

Supply

[Eric C. Lowther, Reform, Calgary Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know where to start. That was more of a diatribe on why he does not like the Reform Party than it was on anything substantive to do with the motion we are debating today.

There is so much I could dive into, but I want to bring us back to the actual motion. The motion is talking about the inequities between a single earner and a dual earner family. One of the key areas in which his government has continued to make the situation worse and worse is to continue to increase the tax expense deduction for parents who choose to put their children in an institutional receipt type day care situation. It does absolutely nothing for every other kind of parent out there. There are all kinds of scenarios. All parents incur costs in the rearing of their children and the government only respects one option.

Why will the government not at least look at the inequity that it builds into the system in ignoring every other kind of parental care and saying only one kind has value and that is institutional day care?

[Tony Valeri, Liberal, Stoney Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I understand that the hon. member has a great interest in this particular issue. He is out there promoting his position.

I often take exception to the fact that the whole basis of the question and of today's motion is the belief that other members of other parties in this House do not support the work done by Canadians who choose to stay home to raise their families. That is fundamentally wrong. That is the basis I take exception to. To stand up in the House and point to another member, to a government, or to a party and say “You do not believe that the work that Canadians do in raising their children at home has any value”, I take exception to that. We have taken initiative in trying to assist those Canadians who choose to stay home.

The hon. member talks about the child tax benefit and says that it does not in effect assist those Canadians who decide to stay home or the one earner versus the two earner family. Speaking directly to the motion today perhaps after I give the response, Reform members might look at the child tax benefit in a different light.

The Canadian child tax benefit is targeted on the basis of family income. A one earner family receives substantially more money on average from the child tax benefit than a two earner family when the 1999 budget measures are implemented. If hon. members would take the time to do the analysis, they would find that the 1998 and 1999 budget is enhancing the tax position of one earner families versus two earner families.

I am not sure whether the hon. member across the way has taken the time to do that.

In the haste to get into this us against them, one earner versus two earners, they completely ignored the measures the government has taken to try to provide fairness in the tax system.

Again, is he fundamentally opposed to the progressivity in the tax system? Underlying the member's motion here this morning is opposition to that very principle.

The Reform Party, by putting forward this motion and the arguments I have heard so far, has never once mentioned or indicated to the House that it supports the progressivity in the tax system, that those who earn more money have certain obligations in terms of the tax system.

Could the hon. member across the way speak to that and say that his party supports the progressivity in the tax system?

[Gar Knutson, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I believe you will find consent for the following. I move:

That at the conclusion of the present debate on today's opposition motion, all questions necessary to dispose of this motion be deemed put, a recorded division deemed requested and deferred until Tuesday, March 9, 1999 at the expiry of the time provided for Government Orders.

(Motion agreed to)

[Yvan Loubier, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased that the Reform Party is giving us an opportunity to deal with the important issue of tax equity and tax fairness for Quebec and Canadian taxpayers.

As you probably know, tax fairness has always been a concern for the Bloc Quebecois. Since the 1993 election campaign, we have never stopped stressing the need for a personal and corporate tax system that is based on fairness and equity.

In November 1996, the Bloc Quebecois released a study on corporate taxation which looked at tax expenditures for businesses, that is the provisions included in the Income Tax Act to allow businesses to pay less federal tax.

Less than a year later, we tabled an in-depth report that reviewed personal income tax and tax expenditures, and in which we showed the evolution of that tax component since the Carter report, at the end of the sixties, and the obvious injustices we found in the tax system, particularly for middle income taxpayers.

We also proposed corrective measures to the Minister of Finance, who was favourable to the report when it came out. These measures are aimed at making the federal taxation system fairer to middle income earners and a bit less generous for taxpayers earning $250,000 and up, for instance, or for millionaires and billionaires.

At the time, we analysed the tax spending of individuals and concluded that there were $4 billion dollars of tax resources spent on tax advantages for individuals that were outdated, exemptions that no longer served the purposes for which they had been designed.

We took these $4 billion in tax exemptions and reallocated them within the system. We also generated over $2 billion in savings that could be put towards tax relief for low and middle income families and correcting inequities in the system, such as those denounced by the Reform Party this week.

The Minister of Finance was quite impressed by our analysis and set up a task force that held closed door meetings for over one year but apparently looked only at corporate taxation, not individual taxation, because he did not want to spoil things for his rich millionaire friends.

This group, headed by Mr. Mintz, an Ontario academic, tabled its report last year. It has been on the back burner ever since. This may have been a good idea, because what it contained was not necessarily what was desired, at least as far as a good number of the recommendations were concerned.

In response to a very serious need for fair taxation, the Minister of Finance struck a bogus group that turned out a bogus report, which led to bogus decisions, for the latest budget contains no significant personal or corporate income tax measures aimed at correcting injustices.

There is flagrant injustice as far as the income categories are concerned. One need only look at the taxation rates by level of taxable income to see that there is a serious problem. That problem must be addressed, not ignored or studied by bogus task forces.

Let us take the example of a family with two taxable incomes of less than $30,000. Both the man and the woman earn less than $30,000, let us say $29,500. Their tax rate will be 17%.

On the other hand, for a single earner family whose income is less than $60,000, that is to say one person who earns under $60,000, instead of two with a total income of under $60,000, the tax rate will be 26%. This makes no sense, particularly since there has been no indexation since 1984. When I refer to indexation, I do not mean just indexed tax credits, personal exemptions and other deductions, I mean also indexation of the various taxation levels.

Since there is none, we find ourselves in a situation where the 17% tax rate this year ought to apply not only to taxable incomes of $29,590 as it does at present, but to taxable incomes of $36,918.

In other words, those with an annual single or family income of between $25,590 and $36,918 ought to have paid only 17% tax this year, but instead they pay 26%. Can members see the double injustice here? If we compare a family with two incomes totalling less than $60,000 and a family with a single income of less than $60,000, there is a difference in the tax rates, one being 17% and the other 26%, which is a blatant injustice.

Moreover, the 17% tax rate would not apply only to incomes of up to $29,590, but also to incomes of up to $36,918, had full indexation been in place.

Do members know how many taxpayers are affected by this situation? If we look at the tax brackets for Canadian taxpayers, we see that 70% of them are in the under $35,000 category. This means that if the Minister of Finance had the political will to correct the gap between families with one income and families with two incomes, and if he decided to fully index the tax tables and tax brackets, 70% of all Canadian taxpayers would benefit from such a measure. This is a lot of people.

However, because the Minister of Finance does not have that political will, and because of the fact that he has been relying on economic growth since he took office, the government is maintaining injustices such as the ones condemned by the Reform Party and by the Bloc Quebecois since 1993. Furthermore, there is a lot to be done regarding the tax system.

As I said, we released two in-depth studies on corporate and personal income taxes, and we found that, in addition to the injustices being discussed today, the tax system is full of inconsistencies.

Let us take, for example, the child care expense deduction. Does it make sense that Canadian families earning over $100,000 save a minimum of $313 in taxes on each $1,000 they spend on child care, while those earning in the neighbourhood of $30,000 save only $175 for the same $1,000? This is not right.

If the Minister of Finance had done more than just pay lip service to the Bloc Quebecois' analysis of personal income tax, he would have corrected this a long time ago. The figures we provided in 1997 were very eloquent.

We pointed out that 25,000 Canadian couples earning over $100,000 had reported child care expenses of almost $25 million in 1993. Their tax savings were $7.6 million. We are talking about $7.6 million for 25,000 couples earning $100,000 and over.

If these 25,000 couples had earned around $30,000, their tax savings on child care expenses would have amounted to only $4 billion, or almost half what those earning $100,000 end up saving. There is something wrong here.

There are many similar injustices in the taxation system. I am sure there will another opportunity later on, because we have to keep bringing these things up, to give other examples of unfair situations that must be urgently addressed. These injustices affect low and middle income families and prevent them from contributing fully to the economic activity of the country.

The government must wake up and take a look at what needs doing instead of taking advantage of the situation and congratulating themselves on producing a surplus on the backs of employed and unemployed workers by dipping into the EI fund. It should be doing some serious work and not producing the likes of the Mintz report.

We will be supporting the Reform Party motion and will continue to work for fair taxes.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this motion has come up in the House over the last couple of days. The opposition leader yesterday said: “A two income family and a one income family, each with children, each earning $50,000 a year, are taxed differently by this government. The one income family is penalized up to $4,000 more than the two income family”.

I believe that is what the member was referring to in his speech when he compared two $30,000 income earners to one $60,000 earner, the comparative rates.

The member said, if I quote him correctly, that each of the two income earners earning $30,000 apiece, or just below at $29,950, the first bracket break, is at 17%. He went on to say, however, the one income earner making $60,000 is taxed at 26%. I believe I heard the member correctly. He said $60,000 is taxed at 26%.

Is the member not aware that in our income tax system the first $29,950 is taxed at 17% and the next $29,950 is taxed at 26% and anything over $59,000 et cetera is taxed at 29%? Why did the member suggest to the House that a $60,000 income earner was paying a federal tax rate at 26% when in fact it is only 21%?

[Yvan Loubier, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am keenly aware of the comments and thank my hon. colleague for the opportunity to offer some clarifications on what I have just said.

I know very well that what he has just said is a fact. However, what I said is that if there are two incomes in a family, both the man and the woman working, and the family is made up of two adults and two children, and if the two together earn less than $60,000, the 17% tax rate applies up to the $29,590 level.

If the income is $59,180, the portion falling between $29,000 and that $59,180 will be taxed at 26%. This is where the injustice lies. In the first example I gave, a two income family, the overall tax rate for the two incomes, which together are under $60,000, will be 17%. If this is one single income, the part between $29,500 and $59,180 will be taxed at 26%. This is the first injustice.

There is a second, that I mentioned earlier. Since there has been no indexation since 1984, not just of deductions and tax credits, but also of income levels, the 17% tax rate applies only to $29,590. If there had been indexation, the amount between $29,590 and $36,918 would not be taxed at 26% but still at 17%. In other words, a person earning $36,900 for example would be taxed at 17%, whereas at the present time he or she will be taxed at 26% on the amount between $25,591 and $36,900. This is where the injustice lies.

This situation does not affect just a few Canadian taxpayers. Most Canadian taxpayers earn $35,000 or less. According to Statistics Canada, 70% of taxpayers earn $35,000 or less. With just this adjustment to the indexation level, middle income families would benefit from tax measures. It would be only fair to them to provide full indexing, as well as correcting the injustice surrounding the difference between one family income of under $60,000 and two family incomes totalling under $60,000.

These two aspects of the tax system must be corrected. The hon. member should support this, being a member of the finance committee. With all his talk of fiscal justice, he ought to support such a measure.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to speak to this motion today and to offer my party's support for it.

We in the NDP are committed to tax reform that is both fair and progressive. It certainly goes to the root of our party's philosophy and vision.

We have been long time advocates of tax policies designed to ease the stress on families and children just as we have been vocal opponents of policies which discriminate against middle and low income Canadians and which benefit corporate interests and the wealthy.

New Democrats have also been aggressive in our support of children, whether as leaders in the movement to end child poverty or fighting for a child tax benefit that does not discriminate against the poorest of the poor or erodes over time because of deindexation.

We also fully support, for example, the ideas that families where one parent chooses to work to raise their children should not be penalized financially for that choice.

That is why we advocate extending the child care expense tax deduction to all parents, not just those who work away from the home.

We support that measure because it acknowledges that family friendly policies, progressive and fair policies, are policies that focus on children and not necessarily on the working status of their parents. That is also why we support progress indicators that are not only focused on the fiscal bottom line.

Current measures of well-being focused solely on GDP ratios do not recognize the important value of unpaid work to society as a whole.

By measuring the value of unpaid household work, genuine progress indicators like the GPI index championed in Nova Scotia remedy this flaw. Measures like this one allow us more accurate estimates of our actual growth as a society and should have a direct impact on social policy and on assessments of our quality of life and our overall progress as a society.

While the Liberal and Reform parties debate in the House who has it better, parents who work in the home or parents who work outside the home, the truth of it is that we are really missing the point. The truth gets lost in the platitudes. Even this motion, which has good points, misses the bigger picture. The truth is that all Canadian families and kids are under stress. This government often with the support of the Reform Party has done more to increase the load than to ease the burden.

There are many reasons for this. For example, incomes are dropping while time spent on the job is increasing. According to the recent growing gap report the annual income of the least well off 90% of families fell in real terms between 1992 and 1997, most dramatically for the bottom 30% who depend heavily on social programs and suffer most because of unemployment, while only the top 10% of families saw a significant increase in income, up $5,000 to $138,000.

Billions of dollars have been cut from social spending since the Liberals came to power and increased targeting of programs has meant that some children are deemed more worthy than others. We only have to look at affordable day care and decent day care options to know that this is more and more difficult to find. Affordable quality child care would ensure that children of parents who work outside the home are given the necessary early education and care despite their parents' incomes. High quality care and early childhood education are critical components of an integrated strategy to meet the needs of families but unfortunately the government has chosen to renege on its promises and it is the children who feel the impact.

We also know that the tax burden for low and middle income families has also been on the rise. Instead of increasing tax credits in the last budget for lower and middle income Canadians who have been badly hit by cuts to social assistance and UI and the growth of insecure jobs, the finance minister chose to deliver significant tax relief to high income earners.

Most important, families are under stress and Canadian kids are suffering because too many government policies and policies the Reform Party advocate are too narrowly targeted to favour some families over others. Even Tom Kent, a former Lester Pearson adviser and one of the architects of Canada's social infrastructure, blasted the finance minister last week for failing to better the situation for all Canadian families.

What has been the result of all this targeting and discrimination that has been designed by public policy into the system? What has been the result of reducing everything to the fiscal bottom line? The investment that parents make when they raise their kids seems to be treated like any other expense and kids become treated like any other commodity, like a company car or a business lunch. That was not always the case.

As a society we did not always favour one child over another because of how parents spend their days. We did not always say that kids on social assistance did not deserve the same consideration as kids whose parents were among the growing ranks of the working poor. We used to have a system tied to universality where there was a basic understanding within governments, within public policy, that the responsibility for raising children was seen as a collective and a community responsibility as well as a responsibility for parents.

We recognized that the well-being of children has a direct impact on the well-being of all of us. We used to have a family allowance for example that was universally accessible and was tied to support for children, not the working status of parents. Instead what we are left with in the nineties is a child tax benefit system that actually discriminates against the poorest in society because it was designed, not by accident, not to apply to families on welfare.

People on welfare do not qualify for the child tax benefit. While the funds will initially be distributed to every child below a specified income level, provincial governments will deduct that amount from current welfare payments. That means that most welfare poor children have gained absolutely nothing from this plan. It is a system like so many others that is structured more to reduce welfare rolls and subsidize low wage jobs than to combat poverty and help children.

Rather than alleviating the poverty of the working poor and the non-working poor, the benefit is designed to push poor women to leave welfare and it does not recognize the value of the work parents do in the home. Most jurisdictions now have rules forcing single parents on welfare to look for work once their youngest child has reached a certain age. Those ages can range anywhere from 6 months to 12 years. This age is actually going down as some provinces become harsher with people on welfare.

As a result, single parents on welfare are forced to take low paying jobs even when it is not in their best family interest and not in the interest of their children. The result is the percentage of children in low income families has increased from 15.3% in 1989, one in seven children, to a staggering 21% in 1995, one in five children. Since 1989 the number of low income children has increased by close to half a million or by 45%.

Like the policies this motion refers to, the child tax benefit is discriminatory. It discriminates against the poor and it discriminates against an increasing number of children who live in poverty in this country.

Women who have children are also subject to further discrimination with maternity benefits. They receive only a percentage of their salary for the time they take off with their children, making the economic liability of child rearing that much heavier to handle. Like any worker, if they do not meet the stringent demands for hours worked they get nothing.

My colleague for Acadie—Bathurst has advocated eliminating the new entrant requirement for workers who have left the labour force to care for children or family members as a first step in providing fairer coverage for women. Once again it is a policy that discriminates against some families while favouring others but in the process does a disservice to all children.

What we need is a much broader approach than the one advocated by this motion. We need to make children the centre of family friendly policies that benefit all families in all their derivatives, be they dual income, single income, lone parent or extended low income or middle class. We need a plan that recognizes the importance of all parents, all families, all children, not just some.

We support this motion because it does deal with one aspect of discrimination but we must go further. We in the NDP will continue to advocate for a broader approach hinged on equity and fairness in our tax structure. We will continue to fight for plans that do not discriminate some families over others because they are poor or on social assistance. We will continue to advocate an approach that recognizes that it is children who are important, not just the working status of their parents. We will continue to champion the fact that child rearing is a responsibility all society must share in.

[Dennis Mills, Liberal, Broadview—Greenwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, to the members of the opposition, specifically the Reform Party and the member of the NDP, I agree with many of the comments I have heard this morning. Members were talking about comprehensive tax reform and fixing the inequities in the tax system.

I find it strange that we are having this debate three weeks after the budget has been announced. This is like trying to debate something after it is a fait accompli. The time to talk about comprehensive tax reform and fixing these inequities was before the budget.

For three months all we heard from the opposition was gossip on airplanes, pepper spray, water bombs and other cheap political tactics. Never once in the three months leading up to the budget did we have any real solid comprehensive debate on the fact that our tax act needs serious reform.

Can we count on the New Democratic Party over the next few months to put a more specific and substantive focus on comprehensive tax reform, building fairness into the system, so that we can build toward this for the next budget? On some of the inequities members are pointing out I tend to share their views. I think our best hope now for reform is to build toward the next budget at this time next year.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his comments. I do not know how often the member has been in the House to listen to debate. I can say, having been here during the budget and prior to the budget through all of last year, that time and time again these issues of discrimination not just within the tax system but within public policy, policy that has been developed by the government, have come up in this House for debate on a continual basis. If the member is asking whether the NDP is going to continue to raise these issues, whether we are going to continue to advocate fair and progressive taxation and an end to discrimination, the answer is absolutely yes.

My question would be when is the government going to listen to those issues? When is the government going to respond to those issues by supporting this motion? Will it begin with this one basic issue that has been identified within the tax system and then in a progressive comprehensive way say that it believes there should be child centred policies that support the family and end discrimination, for example the child tax benefit I mentioned?

The question really goes back to the other side of the house. Is the government prepared to listen and take action in defence of Canadian families?

[Roy H. Bailey, Reform, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I commend the NDP member for her comments. I appreciated her stating very clearly that we on this side of the House have talked about this problem over and over again. The first question was that we have spent too much time talking about APEC and all of these things. Was it this side of the House that provided the fuel for all that debate? Did we bring up the debate? Where did all the fuel for the debate come from?

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his comments. If we look at all these other issues, whether it is the scandal around APEC or the role of the Prime Minister's office, we have to look to the government's actions to know that members of the opposition from all four parties have had to raise these issues because Canadians are demanding answers. Whether it is the scandal to do with APEC and the role of the Prime Minister's office, or discrimination in our tax system, or discrimination against poor people, these are issues that demand to be raised in this House. It is unfortunate the government member says that we can do either/or. These are all things that are before the Canadian people.

Today we are debating this motion. Today we are focusing on this issue and calling on the government to right a wrong. We are calling on the government to recognize an injustice that exists. We in the NDP are saying that this has to go much further. We need to have a comprehensive strategy that says we believe we need to have child centred policies to promote the well-being of children in Canada.

[Scott Brison, Progressive Conservative, Kings—Hants, NS]

Mr. Speaker, it is with pleasure that I rise to speak on the motion to eliminate the discriminatory tax treatment of single earner families.

There is no more important fundamental debate about the future of our country than the debate about the future of the children of Canada. If one takes the time to review the information that abounds on this topic, including the Mustard studies, it has been demonstrated unequivocally that the first three years and the first six years are the most important years in the development of a child's cognitive skills and socialization skills. During that period it is absolutely pivotal that a child have a stimulating environment in which to develop the type of creativity and socialization necessary to succeed in an increasingly complex knowledge based society.

The discriminatory policy against single earner families with children is one way the government is currently encouraging one type of behaviour over another. It is what I refer to as a Pavlovian tax policy which tries to encourage or push Canadians toward one type of activity and discourage another type.

Our party believes very strongly that Canadian families should have the opportunity to make their own choices on these types of matters and that the government does not have a role in trying to push Canadian families, for instance in this case to putting their children in day care when in fact many Canadian families would prefer one parent to be actively involved and stay at home to help raise the children.

The C. D. Howe Institute in its recent studies calculated that a single earner family making $60,000 per year will pay a penalty of $4,000 per year over what a double income family would pay. A single earner family at $70,000 would actually pay a $14,000 penalty over what a double earner income family would pay. This is clearly unfair.

The Liberals point to the child tax credit, and I have heard this repeatedly over the past few days, as a way to ameliorate the perverse effects of their tax policy. The fact is that the tax credit through means testing reduces any benefits to Canadian families beyond an income of $65,000, actually $67,000. There is no benefit beyond that. In fact the benefit begins to decline at the $25,000 level. For the Liberals to point to the child tax credit as a way to ameliorate or to soften the impact of their perverse tax policies is absolutely false. It is bogus and is not reflective of the realities here.

The fact is that on the lower income levels, eight of the 10 provinces are clawing back the child tax benefits from the social assistance recipients. While the child tax credit purports to benefit Canadian families and Canadian children directly, it does not because at the low income level, eight of the 10 provinces are clawing back the money. Money that was designed to directly impact the lives of Canadian children is being used to support provincial bureaucracies. At the middle income levels it is being clawed back by the federal government so as to not provide that benefit to families that need it.

Ottawa encourages new parents to put their children in day care. We believe that families should be able to make these choices. I think we all know of cases where having both parents working in professional situations particularly is actually advantageous to the children. The parents choose to work and they choose to be self-actualized in a work environment and they choose an appropriate positive day care environment for their children. Everyone wins. There is nothing wrong with that.

Some people argue that it is better for a child to have stay at home parenting. Some recent studies actually demonstrate that either can work, but it depends on the individual family. It is important that individual families and parents can make these choices.

Our party is not advocating a return to some 1950s model of a Ward and June Cleaver family. This is not what we are advocating. We are not purporting to know what is best for Canadian families. But we believe that Canadian families know what is best for them and what is best for their children and that they can make those types of decisions.

The tax system should not encourage, in our opinion, either stay at home parenting or the utilization of a day care system or an alternative system. We should not be encouraging either. We should give Canadians the choice. It would be equally pernicious and counterproductive to have a discriminatory policy against two income families, because in some cases that may be the best alternative.

Our position on this has remained consistent from as far back as August 1996 at our Winnipeg policy conference. I will quote from a document: “A Progressive Conservative government would introduce a joint tax return so that single earner households with dependent children stop paying more tax than dual earner households with equal incomes”. That was in August 1996. “Beyond that, a Progressive Conservative government will introduce a child care tax credit available to parents working inside or outside of the home to replace the present system of day care credits”. We have been consistent on that.

I know the hon. member for Mississauga South has worked assiduously on this issue. “Caring for children is an honourable profession. Parents who make the sacrifices and deliver quality care have earned the right to get support”. That is a quote by the hon. member for Mississauga South who is an expert in this area and has written extensively on it.

Why does the Liberal government not listen to its own members who have devoted so much time, research and effort to this cause and eliminate this discriminatory tax policy that takes choices away from Canadian families and parents? Ultimately it may result in Canadian children not having the best possible start in their lives, particularly in this global knowledge based society where their cognitive skills and brain power are not only going to enrich their own lives but will reflect directly on the future standard of living of Canadians.

This issue currently, and it is argued disproportionately, affects women. Working women with children, for instance some argue, are actually paying an incredible cost because not only are they working hard in the workplace but when they return home, despite the fact that society has evolved somewhat, they are still faced with a disproportionate share of work in the home whether it is with child rearing or other domestic areas. This is fundamentally unfair but it is a fact that women continue to share a significant burden both in the homes and in the workplace.

We have evolved from an agrarian society where men had significant advantages because people made their livings with their hands and brute force, to an industrial society where to a certain extent that may have been reduced but still occurred, to a knowledge based society today. I would argue that in a knowledge based society, women will have significant advantages over men.

On the issue about it disproportionately affecting women, people should recognize that in an evolutionary sense, in the future this will not disproportionately affect either sex. Based on the graduation ceremonies I have been attending over the past several years for grade 12 and also university, women are winning the scholarships and the student council presidencies. They are earning top marks not just in history, arts and English but in maths and sciences. In the future this issue is going to affect all Canadians equally regardless of gender.

Some members opposite may say that this motion is some type of archaic movement by the opposition parties to return Canadian society to the Ward and June Cleaver family model. I would argue that from our party's perspective it is a way of effectively recognizing a societal trend that will benefit all Canadians of either gender. We also believe that we should start treating all Canadians fairly and equally and it should start with the Canadian family. Give Canadian families the opportunity to make the best choices for their children.

Some will choose for both parents to work and for the children to have appropriate care outside the home. Some will choose to stay at home. The best choices can be made closest to the people affected, the children. Those choices can clearly be made best by the families of those children.

Let us get away from this ridiculous Pavlovian tax policy of the government where it believes that it can make the best choices. Let us return the choices to the people who really should have had them from the beginning, the Canadian parents and families for the benefit of Canadian children.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his kind remarks.

I do admit that I have been somewhat preoccupied in my parliamentary career with families and with children. I agree with the member that we should not be playing mathematics when we are talking about the physical, mental and social health outcomes of children and that parents are in the best position to determine this.

However, there is a contradiction here because the member does not like June and Ward Cleaver yet he is advocating choice. When I think of Leave It To Beaver and that family life, I am not so sure I have a problem with that choice about a caring and loving mother and father, about two well adjusted kids, some friends and a little bit of mischief. I am not sure there is a problem with that. But I do understand the member and I will not take him to task on it.

I want to raise with him an issue with regard to the motion itself to see if he agrees with me. I am personally having some difficulty with the motion. The motion is so very simple that it lends itself to having some problems because it cannot cover all cases.

If the member would consider the situation where two parents work in the paid labour force and grandma takes care of the kids, and no payment is made, there is no child care expense deduction. All of a sudden the mathematics that the Reform Party have thrown to us fall apart, except for the fact that a one earner family would pay a slightly higher marginal rate on the amount over $30,000 versus the two $25,000 of a low income family. If there are no child care expense deductions and the only other difference is progressivity, the only way to deal with it is to advocate a flat tax. The only way we could resolve Reform's position is by saying that it advocates a flat tax and it advocates eliminating the child care expense deduction or extending it to others.

Does the member not agree that the motion is maybe a little too simplistic and maybe it is a little difficult to suggest to anybody that it is a solution to anything?

[Scott Brison, Progressive Conservative, Kings—Hants, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I was not attacking Ward and June Cleaver. Who knows? Perhaps June wanted to work. Maybe Ward drank a little too much. We do not know what he did outside of the house. I am not convinced that it was a totally functional situation. Perhaps it was. But that was television in the 1950s.

The bottom line is, if June wanted to work she should have had the opportunity. My point was that choice is fundamental. We are not advocating a return to the chauvinistic principles and ideals that may never have existed in the first place.

I believe that this motion is sufficiently vague to represent the general intent to reduce and eliminate the discriminatory policy that currently exists toward stay at home parenting.

The hon. member for Mississauga South is an accountant, so I forgive him for delving into the minutia of the details of implementation. Perhaps that is why many great ideas that start with a glistening generality never actually make it to fruition on the Liberal benches. They become so engulfed in the details that they never make it happen.

The intent of this motion is clear. The intent of this motion is sound. And we will be supporting this motion.

[Roy H. Bailey, Reform, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I was very pleased to hear the hon. member talk about choice. In my particular case, when our children came along, I was married to a professional teacher. She was a very professional mother. We are glad we made that choice.

Would the member not agree that the tax situation we have forces that parent not to become a professional parent and that they both have to go out and work simply because of the tax system?

I saw a cute little sign some time ago that I believe belongs on the other side of the House. I will see if my hon. colleague agrees: “A woman's place is in the home and she should go there right after work”. That is the attitude of this government. I wonder if the hon. member would agree with that.

[Scott Brison, Progressive Conservative, Kings—Hants, NS]

Mr. Speaker, after work a woman should have the right to go wherever she wants to go. That is my opinion.

With respect to the other issue, the government has clearly created a tax policy that discriminates against stay at home parenting.

Further to my point that it should be a matter of choice, depending on the parents, in some cases it might be better for both parents to work if the children have appropriate care.

I will give one brief example. My mother and father raised four children. I am the youngest. Until 1968, for 23 years, they had a business, a store. My mother was an equal partner with my father in that store and she worked day and night. The first three children did not really have a stay at home parent.

[Monte Solberg, Reform, Medicine Hat, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Nanaimo—Cowichan.

I thank the opposition parties for supporting our motion and also for the qualified support of some members on the government side. I know this is an important issue to many members.

I also want to salute the work of my colleague for Calgary Centre who has done an outstanding job in supporting families and bringing light to this issue. It is an extraordinarily important issue for people across the country. It has not had the light that it deserves.

In a quick rebuttal to my colleague from Broadview—Greenwood, many people who have come before the finance committee over the last several years have pointed to this issue. They have said it is a problem. The Reform Party has pointed that out in minority reports. Sadly, it is never reflected when budget time comes around.

The whole reason this debate is happening today is because the Reform Party made this an issue. We made it an issue, partly in response to comments that came from some government members in the last week, but really because we believe that this issue simply has not had the scrutiny over the last several years that it deserves.

We underline the tremendous value of parenting in Canada today. Reformers believe that the family really is the basic social unit in society and that we need to find ways to support that unit if we want to have a strong civil society in Canada. Whether it is a one parent family, a two parent family, a dual income family or a single income family, we have to find ways to support those families. In doing that we end up supporting children and ensuring that they have a healthy environment in which to grow.

Reformers believe that there is probably no more important job in the world than being a parent. I have done a lot of hard things in my life. I have had to get up at four in the morning to go to work. I have had to hire people and let people go and do a lot of tough things, but I can say, and I think a lot of parents would bear this out, that the hardest job in the world is being a parent. A parent has to know and try so many things. They have to be a teacher, a health care provider, a bit of an amateur philosopher, a psychologist, a social worker and the family historian. A parent has to do a million different things and there are no guidebooks. It is extraordinarily difficult and it has always been so.

Today I would argue that it is even more pronounced because people have to work so extraordinarily hard just to get by. There are all kinds of polls saying that families are completely stressed out. Both parents work today, oftentimes not because they want to but because they have to. One parent has to work just to pay the taxes because in Canada we punish our citizens through our tax system. Our taxes are extraordinarily high. They have to come down. That would help not only single income families, it would help dual income families as well as individuals.

I had a young woman phone me today at my office. She and her husband are both in the paid workforce. She said “Monte, please make the point that when we go to work we would like to have a better quality of family life as well, and the way to do that is to find some creative ways to allow us to spend a bit more time at home, maybe work from home”. She said that if they were not taxed so heavily maybe they could work at home. They would not have to put in as many hours, but they would still have roughly the same amount of money because the taxes would be lower.

She pointed out that some companies in Canada are doing things to help people because they recognize that in a lot of cases women with extraordinary skills are being forced out of the workforce because they want to spend more time with their families. In a lot of cases it is women, but not in all cases.

There was an article in Maclean's recently about the Royal Bank allowing flex time for its employees and Deloitte & Touche doing the same thing so that they could accommodate the needs of the people who want to stay at home with their families and at the same time keep their expertise.

I believe that the government has an obligation to do that. Maybe it could do that in its negotiations with the public service. Maybe there are ways to do that for its employees.

A way to help everyone in Canada would be to start cutting taxes of all kinds. The debate has been a little limited today, but we need to cut taxes for dual income families. We need to cut taxes for individuals and, of course, for single income families.

The way this debate arose today, the catalyst for it, were the remarks that came from the junior minister of finance earlier this week. Maybe unintentionally, he disparaged the work of parents who stay at home with their children. He somehow suggested that they really do not provide a great service. I would argue that they provide the most valuable service that can possibly be provided. To raise and nurture children is extraordinarily important. Any parent or anyone who has been raised in a family who reflects back on what it was like for their parents understands how difficult a job it really is.

What do we do about this? The first thing we have to do is change the attitude that we are seeing from the government. The minister apologized and I appreciate that, but the minister is not the only one.

We heard from members of the finance committee last fall in Calgary. The member for St. Paul's chastised groups who came forward to argue for fairer treatment in the tax system for families. She chastised them, saying they were a bunch of elite white women telling us what to do. She dressed them down.

The member for Vancouver Kingsway said “Being a single mother, I do not quite see. Most people can combine career and family life. We know it is very difficult. A lot of times people just take the easy way out”.

Going home to be with family and to raise children is not the easy way out. It is the hard way. It is a tremendous sacrifice to forgo an income to spend time with sick children and to help children get through the difficult times in their lives. That is not the easy way out. It is extraordinarily difficult.

Anyone who is a parent will know that if there is something wrong at home nothing else in the world really matters. When someone is at work and the children are sick or they are struggling in school, whatever the problem, nothing else matters.

I say it is a great sacrifice to stay at home to be with the children. I honour those people who make that decision. Whether it is the male in the relationship or the female, it is a great sacrifice.

Let us first change the attitude on the other side. The second thing we have to change is the system. In last year's budget the government actually made worse the discrimination against single income families in the tax system. My friend opposite who has done a lot of work on the family issue must acknowledge that.

The government increased the child care deduction, but that only applies to people who make the choice to look after their children in day care. If they choose to do that, that is fine. But we are saying, let us give people the choice. If they choose to use someone else, maybe a relative to look after their children, or if they choose to look after their children themselves, they should be treated equitably.

Why is this government making an ideological value judgment that day care is the best way to go? Let parents make that choice. Parents know what is best for their families. Let us leave it in their hands. Let us give them that choice. I think that is extraordinarily important.

Too often we see the government, the nanny state, saying “We think it should be done this way, or that way”. We reject that. Leave the money in the pockets of parents and they will make the best choices. No one cares more about their families than they do; not the government, not the heritage minister, the finance minister or anyone else in government.

We encourage the government to pay serious attention to the motion which simply asks for an end to discrimination in the tax system against single income parents with children. It is not a motion that covers all eventualities, as my friend across the way has pointed out, but it goes a long way to dealing with a bone of contention, something that is very important to many people in Canada today.

I encourage my friends across the way to consider this carefully and to do what is right for Canadian families.

[Jason Kenney, Reform, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I understand that the blues show me having made unparliamentary comments this morning. I just want for the record once again to clearly, unequivocally and sincerely retract any unparliamentary language that I used directed at any hon. member this morning.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the member's speech. I thank him for his kind words. I am not as comfortable with his words which perhaps attribute or ascribe the views of a couple of people to all. It is the same kind of tolerance we should demonstrate with regard to the choices of parents. I will not pit one against the other. If I disagree with someone I will make my point, but I will make it affirmatively and not because they are wrong. I take exception to the yellow part of the speech.

I have presented over 200 petitions to the House since 1993 referring to managing the family home and caring for preschool children as an honourable profession which has not been recognized for its value to society and therefore requesting that the Income Tax Act be changed to reflect equity for those who choose to provide direct parental care.

I believe all members of this place fundamentally understand that we are talking about children and we are talking about the facility of parents to make choices in the best interest of their children.

I would ask the member a question, however. The aspect of single parent families or lone parent families is not covered. There are no child care expenses if both parents work and grandma is caring for the children. There are jillion other examples where it is not fair to say to the House that it can done by fiddling with the child care expense deduction.

Would the member not agree that what is more important is that we are talking about looking at comprehensive tax reform and not just tinkering?

[Monte Solberg, Reform, Medicine Hat, AB]

Madam Speaker, my friend across the way points out that many people today pay taxes which makes it difficult for them to get by. That is kind of what he is saying.

The Reform Party agrees with that. We believe there needs to be fundamental tax reform and deep tax relief. That is why we have advocated $26 billion in tax relief over the next three years so that everyone is better off in the end. We want people, no matter what their family situation, to have more money and the ability to go out and carve out the types of lives they want to live. We want less stress on families and less stress on individuals. We agree with that completely.

We are not saying that the motion covers every eventuality. We are not saying that at all. We are saying that this is a specific matter the government can address. It has the fiscal wherewithal to do it right now. It has a large surplus. It is a bone of contention. It cries out for rectifying.

Groups have come before the finance committee year after year and the hon. member has called for the issue to be addressed. I say this is a specific thing we can do now. It is within our grasp.

I call on my friend across the way to embrace the motion and help make a change. This is his chance to make a change. I urge him to consider very carefully that now is the time, after all the petitions and the motions he has brought in, when he can actually make a change. I call on him to support the motion.

[Scott Brison, Progressive Conservative, Kings—Hants, NS]

Madam Speaker, does the hon. member agree that while we should eliminate the current discriminatory policy, we should not create another discriminatory policy which actually favours single income families?

I was the youngest of four children. My mother was a great mom and was also a partner in a business for the first three children. She worked hard as a mother. She raised me as a full time homemaker after they sold their business. My three older siblings ended up being very successful and I ended up in politics. I am not certain we should necessarily be encouraging one or the other if it has that kind of effect.

[Monte Solberg, Reform, Medicine Hat, AB]

Madam Speaker, that really is a tale of woe. I am sorry about the member's position. I agree we should treat all people equally in the tax system. That requires a lot of changes. We need to do a lot of work. We need to have a real fundamental discussion about how to do that.

The first step could be some of the things proposed today by my party, by the member's party and others. I encourage the government to open its mind. There is a huge majority of Canadians are onboard in this regard and the government would do itself an immense favour if it voted in support of the motion.

[Reed Elley, Reform, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is a real pleasure for me to rise in the House today to speak to the motion put forward by my hon. colleague from Calgary Southeast. I am sure all hon. members of the House would agree that the motion and the debate today are not just about taxation but also about the family.

I have a huge stake in the Canadian family. I have eight children, as I have said before in the House. There is hardly anything that goes on in the country that I do not have some kind of opinion on because those eight children usually involve me in all kinds of things.

In my family of eight children we have two who are now married and have their own families. One family is a single income earner family. Another family is a two income earner family. My wife has been a stay at home mom for a number of years. With eight children that was very important. I think I know a bit about the kinds of huge pressures on family life today.

If there is anything we can do as parliamentarians in this place, it should be to pass legislation that helps the family. The family is still the essential building block of society. If we take away the family or damage the family unit in some way, we damage the country, the nation, the society we all love very dearly. This is not just about taxation; this is very much about the family.

Over the past several days and even today a number of hon. members opposite have talked about the wonderful budget of 1999 that is good for all Canadians. However, there is a group of Canadians for which the budget is not so good: single income families.

We have to get the facts before the Canadian public. If single income families earn $50,000, they will pay almost $4,000 more in tax than if both parents brought in the same $50,000. The common sense of the people ought to prevail. Surely we can see this is not right. It does not make sense.

The Liberals should not only take my calculations in this regard. They could listen to other authorities in the country who feel the same way: the C. D. Howe Institute, the Fraser Institute, the Vanier Institute or Statistics Canada. According to these authorities and numerous others, the family as a whole is paying more in taxes and the single income family is paying more than the dual income family earning the same amount.

What sparked the debate today were the remarks of the Secretary of State for International Financial Institutions. I do not want to go back over the words that he said. They have been replayed on every television channel across the country, but what he said sparked a huge debate.

Quite frankly I hear from people in my own riding, as I am sure other members in the House have also heard, that Canadian stay at home parents are outraged by this kind of statement. Whether or not the secretary of state meant it in the way he said, it was said and it has produced outrage.

Is this how little the government cares for Canadian families? Is it indicative of how little it cares for children? Children are very much a part of this debate. Is it how little it cares about changing the burdensome tax system it has created?

Actions always speak louder than words for any of us. If the government truly wants to change the public perception of the Income Tax Act in this regard, it has to change it. It has to produce action.

As I said before I understand these matters quite a bit. My wife has been a stay at home mom for a number of years. At a certain point in our lives she made the decision to quit her registered nursing career and stay at home with our children. We have fostered for many years and have many children in our home now because of that.

What did she do when she chose to give up her career, for which I salute her today? She chose to give up her career as a nurse in a hospital to be a full time nurse, chef, domestic engineer, entertainer, chauffeur, counsellor, comptroller and administrator with a host of other full time duties in order to raise our eight children. If that is not work, what is? That is work. When my wife heard the words of the parliamentary secretary we can imagine the deep groan that came from her.

[Gar Knutson, Liberal, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

The Secretary of State for International Financial Institutions.

[Reed Elley, Reform, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

I know there are probably times when these families have questioned which is easier: to remain as a stay at home parent or to stay in the workforce. It is a decision that many Canadian families have to make. The real question, however, perhaps should be: Which is more worthwhile to them personally? How do they want to raise their families?

I acknowledge that many families do not have the option of having stay at home parents. There are many single parent families in Canada today, and for these families the parent must play the part of both mom and dad. They must be the breadwinner. They must attend to the multitude of needs of their children. In many other situations both parents need to work outside the house to make ends meet financially, and I salute these people.

It is interesting to note that if Canadian families had their way and the opportunity to do what they wanted in this situation, 70% of women have said that they would stay at home if they had the choice. In a 1994 Angus Reid poll 77% of Canadians said the individual or family should have the primary responsibility for child care.

Throughout the budget process we have heard about the need for equality among Canadians. What we are speaking about today is not equality; it is inequality. Simply stated, Canadian families that are able to make the choice of having one parent at home to raise their family will pay more tax than the family that earns the same total amount of money through the combination of both parents. The government penalizes them for wanting to raise their own families. It is as simple as that. Is that equality?

The government claims that it has balanced the books. The budget has been balanced at the expense of Canadians, not at the expense of the government. Let us look at how the budget has been balanced: 76.7% of the balancing came from higher tax revenues; 14% came from slashing health and social transfers; 7.2% came from cutting transfers to individuals; and a minuscule 2.1% came from cutting federal spending. This government should be ashamed for even bringing this budget forward with these kind of statistics. The hon. members opposite face some very serious questions not only here in the House but in their own ridings. They will have to answer to the Canadian public for this kind of juggling of the figures.

If we are to fully grapple with the question of applying tax equality to all families we need to look at the benefits to society offered by stay at home parents. We have seen from previously mentioned reports that this is not the choice of 77% of Canadian women. The question begs to be asked why they do return to the workforce. They have to go to work because they are taxed to death. That is the reason one of the members of our family circle has had to go back to work. The mother of that family has had to go back to work because her family has simply been taxed to death.

That is unacceptable. We must have comprehensive tax reform that brings equality to all families. The motion today is a small step along the way to achieving that. I ask all members to support it.