Mr. Speaker, first, I want to start by thanking all my colleagues who participated in the second hour of this debate, especially the member for Beaches—East York and the members for Portage—Lisgar, Rimouski-Neigette-et-la Mitis, Fundy—Royal and Winnipeg North Centre. I thank them for their support.
It is fitting that we discuss this issue today, six years later, and that we address what is happening with the EI Family Supplement. I agree to a certain extent with all the recommendations of my three colleagues, who made suggestions to improve our system. One of the recommendations that I find very attractive—and I think should be reviewed by the government—is the one that we lower taxes for low-income families.
I think the suggestion from the hon. member for Fundy—Royal that we should in fact re-examine where we draw the poverty line in this country is a very important recommendation. When I began this process, the member for Portage—Lisgar asked why it was necessary to bring forward this motion. It was necessary because after a few attempts at having it become part of the budget process and also part of the budget on the government side--and I am a member of the government, of course--I was unsuccessful. I felt it was an important enough issue, as based on everything we have heard today, that I should bring forward this motion to draw attention to the fact that it has not been done.
In the present context of having a surplus and having taken care of the deficit and the debt in this country, I believe we should be looking at ways of improving the situation of low income families. In my opinion, this is just one step in a series of other steps that have been taken by the government in order to ensure that low income families in fact have enough money to be able to live decently in this country.
I do not want to repeat a lot of what was said during the debate, but I again would like to make it clear that in 2000 and 2001, the most recent statistics show that $157.4 million was paid out in family supplement benefits. In addition to the regular employment insurance benefit, low income recipients with children received on average an additional $44 per week. According to the 2001 employment insurance monitoring and assessment report, nearly 11% of all EI claimants received higher weekly benefits through the family supplement.
Again, as other colleagues have said, women and youth benefit especially from the family supplement. Approximately two-thirds of recipients are women and 14% are youth. Women also accounted for 88% of the growth in family supplement top-ups paid to sickness benefits claimants.
I just gave the House an example of a situation concerning the family supplement that shows its obvious advantages for low-income families. It is a good program and I believe the support I received from all my colleagues from both sides of the house shows there is a need for this change. The members may wonder why we are asking for this again. As I already said, there is an obvious need.
The commitment to do more has to be our commitment in this place. We came here to do more and to do better for low income families and for children and women. We should keep what I consider our tradition and our promise on the government side: that we will do everything possible, especially in this time where we do have a surplus in terms of the budget, to make sure that the ceiling for receiving the family supplement is not frozen. It has been frozen since 1996 at $25,921.
I would like to close by first of all thanking all the hon. members who took part in this debate and also those who seconded the motion, the members for Beaches—East York, Lac-Saint-Jean—Saguenay, Vancouver East, and St. John's West. I wish to thank everyone who took part in this debate. I want to thank them for their support and for the fact that they seconded the motion.
And since, as Acting Speaker, I do not often have the opportunity to do so, I would like to thank my constituents, who gave me the honour and privilege of representing them here in the House of Commons.