Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's comment and his question. As the member and I know well, there is an existing child care deduction for expenses, something that my family has availed itself of in the past.
The difficulty with that program is twofold. It is not simply that it supports only particular types of choices for child care, institutional choices, but as the member and others have pointed out in the past, it also discriminates toward high income earners. Not only is it mostly available to those who can afford heavy child care costs, but obviously the value of a deduction is greatest when one's income is highest.
This party has proposed in the past to enhance those deductions along the lines of what the member said, by providing deductions or credits which would be given regardless of the type of child care chosen. Obviously, I think, we should be looking at systems that would move to credits and enhance these benefits across income ranges.
I would not want to do away with the existing tax deductions that people have come to rely on, and I am not sure the member is implying that, but I obviously would suggest giving a wider range of benefits and choices.
We all know the government has the surpluses necessary to provide this kind of tax relief. We know also that all parties agreed to an amendment to the throne speech to recognize the necessity of reducing family taxation, so I urge the government to bring in a wider range of tax relief for parents with children in order to recognize the deficiencies of the system that we have today.