Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member and many others have said, this is an extremely important issue not only for adoptive children and adoptive families, but for our country. With our declining birth rate we need to rely increasingly on immigration to ensure we have the necessary citizen base for the future of our country. This has certainly been a passion of mine over the last number of years but it is not because I have been an adoptive parent myself.
As a member of Parliament and as someone who has family members and friends who have been in the position where they have availed themselves of adopting children, I am quite familiar with the issue. I think all members of Parliament, regardless of party, do come in contact from time to time with parents who either have not been able to conceive naturally or have made the choice to adopt children. In some cases, they have very generously made the choice to adopt children, in addition to their naturally conceived children.
I was very pleased when the former Liberal government picked up on this and offered a tax incentive for adoptive parents to offset some of the huge costs they incur when they make the choice to either start or to enlarge their families. We are all aware of the numbers. With some of these foreign adoptions, the costs can literally run very quickly into tens of thousands of dollars. It was an important step forward when the Government of Canada at the time did that. It showed its appreciation through making a change to our tax law to assist adoptive families. As the member himself said during his remarks today, this particular bill is another step in the right direction.
As we debate, consult and formulate plans on how to help all Canadian families, not just adoptive families, we are looking for good, new ideas on how to assist in that. Has the hon. member given some thought to that or does he have some other ideas of additional ways that we can reach out and help adoptive families?