Madam Speaker, I agree with sentiment and the spirit of the member's comments as I think he listened to my speech earlier. He will know that I have some difficulties not with the intent of the motion but rather based on the speeches that were given with the approach to dealing with it.
I say that because the child care expense deduction which appears to be the foundation of the debate is only available to the lowest income earning spouse. It is also worth more to a higher income earner versus a low income earner. It is problematic. Given that it is only available to the lowest income earner it does not do justice or equity to parents where one of them may have some part time income because that parent would be the only one to claim the child care expense deduction against a low level of part time income. Also not taken into account would be someone who has interest income as a second earning. A stay at home mom with interest income would have to claim the child care expense deduction and could not transfer it to the higher income earning spouse. It would not benefit them. The third situation would be lone parents. They either work or if they do not work, they will have no income to deduct the child care expense deduction against.
I argued and I ask the hon. member whether he would not consider that if the child care expense deduction in itself is technically flawed and is not apparently an instrument that can be inclusive of the different kinds of configurations of families and income situations of families, maybe we should just scrap it and replace it with a care giver benefit.