Mr. Speaker, we will be hearing from the government side shortly and I am sure the hon. member who will speaking will feel that he is being reasonable.
The only excuse I have ever heard in the past is that we cannot set up individual exemptions, and yet we have seen it done for other expenses that are tax deductible. I therefore do not think that is a rational or reasonable excuse for not addressing this very real issue.
The research I have done has shown that there are roughly 20,000 children in Canada today growing up in permanent government care. They are either bouncing in and out of foster homes or they are in some form of government care. If we could somehow, through adopting this measure, have it assist other parents who might be deterred from adopting one of those children because of the huge financial cost, then why would we not do it? It is not difficult to make this tax deductible.
The other thing I learned, which is sort of the human side of the whole issue, is that foster children who are waiting for adoption are, in many cases, bouncing in and out of foster homes on short term stays and then go back into government care and institutions. This is not always the best scenario.
I thank God that I was raised in a good, solid Canadian farm home environment. I am not saying that I was not disciplined from time to time when I got out of line but I had a very loving home. I had four siblings. It was a great environment being raised on a farm in the Peace River country of northeastern British Columbia. I was very fortunate but these other children are not.
When foster children talk about the chance of being adopted, they refer to it as a forever family. That is how they differentiate between a foster home or staying in an institution and having the chance to belong to a permanent family.