Mr. Speaker, once again I want to thank the member from Kitchener—Waterloo for his motion and certainly the contribution of the other speakers on this, particularly the parliamentary secretary.
It sounds as though we are on the right track. We know there has been a decline in charitable giving over the last couple of years. It may be as a result of the recession, but there could be other issues that are at play here.
I know there is another bill before the House that deals with the disclosure of the salaries of the top managers and CEOs. There is the issue of what portion of the donations actually reaches the people it is supposed to help and how much is used in administration.
It is conceivable that when these two bills reach the finance committee together we will be able to look at them as one big piece of the puzzle, but certainly there is some merit in what the member says. The reason I asked him the question initially was because I was not sure whether this was just an idea that he had, something that he had been promoting on his own for a while, or whether in fact it was being endorsed by the finance minister and the parliamentary secretary. Clearly the government seems to be reasonably behind this particular idea.
What we are doing here is simply fostering and approving that a study begin. We all know how quickly the current government moves at the best of times. Glaciers move faster than the parliamentary secretary, although I must admit that on the pension issue he seems to be getting some of the results that we in the NDP have been pushing for. We have been reasonably happy with him up to recent times; however, some of his recent speeches have cast some doubt on that.
The fact of the matter is that we are probably looking at an election in another few months anyway, so with all the good work we are doing now in getting these bills through the process, we are likely to see these bills again after the next election. However, this idea looks as though it is one that should be proceeded with.
The finance committee is looking at studies. We are going to have to look at the cost to the treasury and what impact that would have on the budget, where the government is not in very good shape right now with a $56 billion deficit and no clear idea of where we are going to be another 12 or 24 months out. By the time this study is concluded, we could be well beyond the next election. It could take a couple of years and the government may end up saying that it is going to cost too much money, that it cannot afford to give up the revenue and that it is going to phase it in over a period of time.
That was my original caution. I wanted to make certain that the members did not raise hopes among the charities that somehow they would be called to meetings, which I am sure he has had them attend, and think that somehow they are going to get some results from the government in short order. I think he should dampen those expectations a lot, given the past history of the government.