Jim Silye

[Petitions, March 13th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition has a total of 32 signatures from Calgarians who ask Parliament to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act to protect individuals from discrimination based on sexual orientation, sending a clear message of equality for everyone.

[Petitions, March 13th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I have the privilege today to present two petitions.

The first petition has a total of 125 signatures from Calgary area constituents calling on Parliament to reduce government spending and implement a taxpayers protection act to limit federal spending.

[Income Tax Act, March 3rd, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would like to move that the bill be not now read a second time, but because of discriminatory challenges to the Income Tax Act and Parliament's commitment to end child poverty by the year 2000, that the subject matter of the bill be referred to the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development and that accordingly the bill be withdrawn.

[Income Tax Act, March 3rd, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. For those members present in the House, I would like to seek unanimous consent. I know this bill is non-votable and was deemed as such by the subcommittee. However, after due consideration by all members in this House, would the members give unanimous consent to make C-247 votable?

[Income Tax Act, March 3rd, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, there are two comments I would like to make, just to wrap up. When we heard from the Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Finance, basically he said that the program would cost an extra $6.5 billion.

I want it entered into the record that what he is not doing and has failed to recognize in my comments is that this bill would consolidate the current existing programs which add up to slightly over $8 billion and offset the cost of this program. Even if we use $6 billion as the cost, what he has failed to do in his budgetary planning is to recognize that those people who make $30,000 or more get $2.1 billion of the child credit out of that $5.2 billion. We must subtract that from the $6.5 billion.

With the lack of need to spend the $1.4 billion on future day care facilities, given that the present ones would be sufficient to handle the demand for the waiting list of 25,000 people, those would be additional funds that would be available. Although the Liberals now are not going to spend that money, which they promised they would in the red book. It looks like another broken promise from their election trail.

In summary, it is an important mathematical dollar item to consider. We have to consider whether the current system with six different ways of providing child care assistance in this country is sufficient. Is it meeting the needs of the people? My presentation today has shown sufficient cause for the need to address this. It is not sufficient.

There are some solutions. I have offered some. It may not be the total answer, but it offers a solution through consolidation and giving people the choice, helping to put the money in the families' hands and letting them decide how to spend that money. After all, they earned it in the first place. They should know better how to spend it, not the state and not funding institutions.

This government should consider a method of child care support and child care payments in its social engineering and its social package that would truly leave more money available for people. Let them have the choice. Also, reduce the overall cost. Despite what the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance said, if we consolidated this plan it would save this country $1 billion.

[Income Tax Act, March 3rd, 1995]

moved that Bill C-247, an act to amend the Income Tax Act (child care expenses), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to present my private member's bill C-247, an act to amend the Income Tax Act on child care Expenses.

This bill would give all parents a tax deduction of $5,000 or $3,000 per child to assist them with the increasing costs of raising their children while at the same time eliminate the current tax discrimination against stay at home parents and those who do not use day care. All parents would have the same deduction available to them regardless of their incomes, status, marital status, labour force, or chosen method of child care.

I would like to read an excerpt from a discussion paper that was sent to me, not by a special interest group but by Cheryl Stewart and Sandra Evans of Ontario. It reads:

We are Canadian mothers who work at home full time nurturing our children.

We both had successful careers in the paid workforce prior to choosing to stay home and raise our children.

We are concerned about the direction that this process is taking toward institutionalized child care and how it is virtually ignoring other forms of care-particularly those who choose to care for their own children.

According to Statistics Canada, 68.5 per cent of women in two-parent families with children under three, and 62 per cent with children between the ages of three and five, remain at home on a full time basis or work part time. When all women in two-parent families with children under 16 years of age are taken into consideration, 57.6 per cent have decided to either remain at home full time or work part time.

These figures show us there is a large percentage of women who have made their choice to stay at home with their children. Despite this fact, they are not entitled to the same tax treatment as those who use day care.

As a direct result, our courts are filled with cases of individuals and families alike who feel that the Canadian income tax system discriminates against them. Calgarians, Jim and Laurie Boland, for example, were told in Federal Court that a parent that chooses to be at home with a child is not entitled to the same privileges as those who pay for child care.

The judge ruled that the Income Tax Act admittedly denies the Bolands equal benefit under the law but because stay at home parents are not "a discrete and insular minority" they are not protected by the charter of rights and freedoms.

This is just one example of people fighting a system that does not reflect the realities of society. Currently provisions in the Income Tax Act make the child care expense deduction only to families who pay institutions to look after their children. The deduction can only be claimed by the lower income spouse of a married couple, which makes it useless when one parent stays home to raise the children.

In other words, if you put your child in receipted day care, the government will reward you, but if you opt for a different arrangement like most Canadians do, you are on your own. It is just a matter of time before the courts overrule this decision. Maybe it is time for the legislatures in Canada to set the agenda as opposed to responding to court decisions.

You only have to look at how the Thibaudeau decision on child support payments sent the Minister of Justice scrambling. The fact is that this legal discrimination must and should stop. As the dynamics of the family continue to change, parents should be free to choose the method of child care that best suits their situation, as opposed to having government reward one choice over another. It is the choice that I am trying to emphasize today. Flexibility and freedom of choice should be the key elements of our approach to child care.

It is obvious that people cannot afford non-subsidized day care and have limited choices other than to stand in line and wait for a spot in a subsidized program. Why not give them the financial means and the options to choose other forms of child care? Provide all families with the $5,000 tax deduction, leave the money in their hands and let them choose whether to stay at home; unregulated day care, nannies, relatives or friends are the best options for them.

Interest groups all talk about the need for more flexible child care. Here we have true flexibility. Leave more money at the source and stop financially encouraging families to choose outside receipted child care.

Let us look at this from a different perspective, a different angle. Currently there are 360,000 child care spaces in Canada, 150,000 of which are subsidized for low income families. Is the answer more spaces as the Liberal government thinks, or is it more choices as I think?

The purpose of my bill is to amend the Income Tax Act to allow the deduction of a fixed amount of $5,000 or $3,000 as child care expenses, depending on the age of the child, regardless of the income of the parent and the amount of child care expenses actually incurred. Quite simply, the bill provides for a straightforward income tax deduction per child, up to age 14, to any taxpaying parent regardless of the method of child care chosen.

Therefore, Bill C-247 is based on three fundamental principles: funding the family, not the institution; giving freedom of choice to parents for their preferred method of child care; addressing the shortcomings of our current system and the subsequent increases in the financial burden on Canadian families.

The fact is that Canadian families have been taxed to the hilt. With Bill C-247 parents would be free to choose how to best spend their money. If they choose to send the kids to day care, so be it. If they choose to have one parent stay at home to raise the children, let us give them the freedom to make that decision. My main concern is to treat everyone equally. Leave money in the hands of the people who earn it and need it, and let them make their own choices on how to run their lives.

The vast majority of federal funding for children's programs in Canada is provided in the following ways. There are actually six different mechanisms by which people get assistance.

The child tax benefit went into effect in January 1993, replacing the former family allowance program as well as the refundable and non-refundable child tax credit. This program delivered benefits of $5.2 billion between July 1993 and June 1994.

The Canada assistance plan, which comes under the human resources department, shares in the cost with the provinces and territories of providing social assistance and welfare services. This program delivered benefits totalling $2.8 billion in the year 1993-94.

The third mechanism is the child care expense deduction. It is a tax measure intended to assist parents with the cost of receipted child care. This program cost Revenue Canada just over $330 million in fiscal 1993-94.

The fourth mechanism is the equivalent to married tax credit, which is a non-refundable tax credit available to single parents to help ease the burden of raising children alone. Only one child can be claimed. This program cost the federal government just over $565 million in fiscal 1993-94.

The fifth mechanism is the goods and services tax credit of $213 million per year.

In addition, the Liberal government in the red book promised to spend an additional $1.4 billion with the provinces to create 150,000 regulated, non-parental child care spaces over the next three years. This is apparently on hold with the latest budget. Hopefully that will be confirmed later on today.

Currently in Ontario there are about 7,000 vacant child care spaces in non-subsidized day care, while 25,000 people are on waiting lists for subsidized day care. If we put stay at home parents or any families that do not use outside receipted day care on the same financial footing as those who do, then some of those child care spaces would be freed up as parents choose different options and the list of 25,000 would shrink.

The government could then take part of the revenue that it was going to spend on more spaces and target it specifically at the poor families in the form of subsidies and benefits. That would be a true social program for the truly needy, a welfare assistance program that helps people who are in need, if it is a demonstrable need.

We are considering spending billions of dollars to apply a national program and national standards to families that are different in composition, situation, work and educational schedules, income, age, cultural and linguistic profiles, urban and rural settings, and the list goes on. The only common denominator I can see is that these people all have children.

Does it not therefore make sense to give families the economic tools to make their own decisions depending on their own specific needs? Let us consolidate the list of programs which I outlined and adopt Bill C-247 for all wage earners and introduce a social welfare package that, I submit, would be of significantly less cost.

If one totals the programs I have mentioned, it is over$8 billion. We can certainly have a two-level plan and make the cost for the social and welfare programs a lot less.

Using Revenue Canada statistics, using the government's main statistics bank, for taxes filed in 1993 it is estimated that Bill C-247 would cost the federal government $3.6 billion in tax revenue losses. One can call them tax expenditures.

The government may come up with another set of figures that says $6 billion but maybe the cost is $4 billion or $5 billion. What is a billion these days? People seem to throw it around like it does not matter.

The question that begs to be asked, however, is where that money comes from. Where does the money come from for this new program that everybody gets a deduction? The answer, 92 per cent of my bill is related to families with incomes above $30,000.

Simply put, one needs income to claim a tax deduction. Last year the $5.2 billion child tax benefit which was designed to help lower income families paid out $2.1 billion to families with incomes in excess of $30,000.

If members narrow the targeting of the child tax benefit to those making $30,000 and under, that would free up $2.1 billion to pay for Bill C-247. Do not forget I said there is a two-tier system, over $30,000 and under $30,000. We have just freed up $2.1 billion to help cover the costs of Bill C-247.

Where does the additional $1.5 billion come from? If I stick to my $3.6 billion in costs, which I could round up to $4 billion if the government would like me to, a portion can come from the $1.4 billion. We have found $2.1 billion now. A portion can come from the $1.4 billion that will be spent on subsidized day care, the future spending they will not have to spend. Leave the current day care facilities in place and reduce that list of 25,000 people who are waiting. They can go to the ones that are empty in the private day care centres or they might choose other forms of day care.

Eliminate the need for the equivalent to married tax credit, the $565 million, because quite simply with Bill C-247 single parents would be left with more of their own money and be able to claim more than one child as is currently the case.

They would not need this assistance because as the recipients of child care payments, they would have the offsetting deduction to eliminate the tax payment. There is another $560 million.

The final costs would be made up through the elimination of handling charges on the money that is redistributed by Ottawa through tax credits. The beauty of a deduction is that the money stays at the source, leaving more disposable income for people, lower processing fees for Ottawa and greater netbacks for everybody.

I believe that the power of the lobby for day care is overly evident in governmental policy to date. In his social reforms discussion paper, the Minister of Human Resources Development addressed day care spaces and flexible work arrangements for parents but said nothing about current taxation inequities, charter challenges or, more specifically, stay at home parenting.

One of the biggest single problems that this government has is that it always fails to identify the right problem, just like the deficit and the debt. It wants to lower the deficit. However that is just a contributing factor to the debt. It should be attacking the debt and how to solve that problem.

Such a move would have been too racy, the Minister of Human Resources Development said on a Calgary talk show, to consider a proposal of deductions for children. I fail to see what is so racy about a tax break for people who work just as hard in the home,

but it is obvious that someone with a different view has the minister's attention.

The red book deals once again with the day care spaces but not with other significant issues affecting families in the 1990s. For example, it specifically addressed a child care system that enables parents to participate fully in the economic life of the country. That is on page 35, for members opposite.

In other words, do not stay at home, work. What about people who choose to directly participate in the lives of their child? Is this not valuable? When the Tories were in power they proposed Bill C-144 which basically stated that parents of children six and under would be able to double the child care expense deduction of $2,000 in 1988.

For the benefit of larger families the plan would have removed the $8,000 family limit for child care expenditures.

Parents staying at home to care for their children or those without receipts for child care expenses would have been able to claim an additional $100 tax credit per child in 1988 and $200 in years after that; not significant amounts, but recognition of the problem was a step in the right direction.

Bill C-144 was hammered by the lobby groups for subsidizing for profit care and spending money on tax breaks as opposed to subsidized spaces. It died on the Order Paper, on October 1, 1988.

Day care advocates continue to claim that true equality for women cannot be achieved until a universal day care system is in place. I argue that a balance must be struck to encourage a system that enables parents to participate fully in the economic life of the country and/or if they so choose to participate fully in the raising of their children.

The key word and the key problem this bill is attempting to resolve is choice, eliminating the discrimination. The current legislative agenda does not recognize that people want the freedom and resources to choose what is best for their children. They are tired of governments and government bureaucracy trying to influence their actions through old-fashioned social engineering.

I recognize that child care comes under provincial jurisdiction. This is the federal contribution to that system. In conjunction with provinces they could discuss the various ways and means of developing the social safety net to target those who are truly in need.

Bill C-247 is of national interest as it addresses the highly contentious issues of national child care, funding for child care spaces, the discriminatory aspects of the Income Tax Act for individuals using non-receipted child care, the stay at parent. It encourages the focusing of social spending to the truly needy and provides families that are not in need of social programs with tax incentives to spend their money the way they see fit.

The time has come to bring tax laws up to speed with the modern era. We must modify present tax laws, not only to bring about greater fairness but to reflect the changes that have occurred in our society.

The Bolands from Calgary challenged the discriminatory nature of the Income Tax Act. The Schachtschneiders challenged the discriminatory nature of the Income Tax Act in its apparent favourable treatment of common law couples as opposed to married couples. Ms. Thibaudeau challenged the discriminatory nature of the Income Tax Act in its treatment of child care payment recipients.

Unless we act now the only way these issues will be truly addressed in the House is if the Supreme Court or the federal courts render a decision that contradicts or negates existing legislation. We have an opportunity as legislators to initiate discussion and action on this issue which, after all, is how things are supposed to work.

The Income Tax Act is by no means perfect. Bill C-247 would go a long way in addressing the reasons for the charter challenges. Contributions to the work force should once and for all be on the same level as contributions in the home. I recommend that we stop playing one off the other and start giving stay at home parents financial, political and social respect. They deserve the opportunity to work not only in the home but in the workplace as well. They deserve the opportunity to live the lifestyle they choose to live on their own without having to consider tax implications and the costs, the netbacks or the net benefits they are receiving.

As I mentioned, the five or six existing programs are just like the Income Tax Act. They make up part of the Income Tax Act, with 2,137 pages of convoluted, mixed up mishmash that is difficult to understand. If we took those six programs, combined and consolidated them to make two, one for over $30,000 and one for under $30,000, this government and parliamentarians would be proud to present a system of child care better than what we currently have.

[Pensions, March 3rd, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, for the information of the President of Treasury Board, we would support any legislation he introduces to eliminate double dipping.

On Monday, the Prime Minister said he cannot reform the MP pension plan retroactively because "there is a rule in democracy that we do not pass retroactive legislation".

Considering the fact that the Liberals applied retroactive legislation to the Pearson contract, public service contracts, the EH-101 contract, the Canadian taxpayers working overseas, can the minister explain why the Liberal fat pack is not subject to the same rules as those Canadians?

[Pensions, March 3rd, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, let us not forget what we have learned today, that the Liberals now define spending cuts as a better way of doing things.

The Liberals' two-tier pension plan through trough regular and trough light will continue to make millionaires out of defeated cabinet ministers. On Monday, the President of the Treasury Board acknowledged that members of Parliament contribute double what is normal in the private sector to their own plan. He said that in the House.

How can the Liberal government justify this double standard of asking Canadians to sacrifice while most ministers continue to stuff their mattresses?

[Child Care, March 3rd, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Human Resources Development has fumbled the ball on his plan to reform the child care system in Canada.

Various child care programs cost over $8 billion per year, yet many still live in poverty and our courts are filled with charter challenges by families fighting the discriminatory nature of government policy.

My private member's Bill C-247 provides for a straightforward tax deduction per child to any taxpaying parent, regardless of the method of child care chosen or marital status. By empowering people to take more responsibility for themselves, the bill will give them tax free money to do so.

In the social reforms paper the minister addressed day care spaces and flexible work arrangements for parents but said nothing about current taxation inequities, charter challenges or stay at home parenting. "Such a move", he said, "would have been too racy", with which I am sure the member opposite would probably agree. I fail to see what is so racy to the member for Halifax about a tax break for overburdened parents.

It is obvious that someone with a different agenda-

[The Budget, March 2nd, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, just when the province of Alberta gets its own fiscal house in order, the Liberal Party of eastern Canada has once again swooped in and hammered her taxpayers.

The elimination of the public utilities income transfer tax is nothing more than a selective tax grab against Alberta's private sector which will raise gas and electric bills for all Albertans. The Minister of Natural Resources has truly shown us that Ottawa has become her primary residence. It is blatant partisan political endeavours like this that make Calgarians now question the closure of CFB Calgary.

Was this an economic decision in the best interests of the country or a political cheap shot at a city that sent six Reformers to Ottawa? Calgarians want to see the books. Show us this is truly a money saving measure and not a lesson for not voting Liberal.

Like all Albertans, Calgarians are prepared to tighten their belts as long as it is fair. As a reminder to the Prime Minister, no matter what the Liberals do politically to the west, Alberta will keep sending fiscally responsible Reformers to Ottawa.