Roy H. Bailey

[Supply, May 31st, 2001]

You invented mixed messages.

[Canadian War Museum, May 16th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the vets and the Friends of the Canadian War Museum have raised millions of dollars. They did this after the government's announcement in 1998, just three years ago, that the war museum would be built in Rockcliffe at a cost of $70 million. Now the government is spending twice as much and moving the museum to a smaller site.

Why does the government continue to treat vets and their organizations as second class citizens by not consulting them?

[Canadian War Museum, May 16th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, at the press conference yesterday the Minister of Canadian Heritage disappointed thousands of our war vets from across Canada who believed that the new war museum, as promised, would be built on the 35 acres of land next to the aviation museum and the new military cemetery at Rockcliffe.

Why did the minister not consult the war museum advisory committee and the many veterans' organizations before making a unilateral decision to move the war museum to LeBreton Flats?

[National Defence, May 14th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I want to tell the hon. member that Canadians themselves disagree with what he has said. They really question the government and the capacity of the military.

How can we send troops into war zones around the world when the former military say that they are completely not ready to go?

[National Defence, May 14th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence.

Four prominent Canadian generals have publicly disagreed with the minister when the minister claimed that the Canadian forces are as combat ready as the forces were 10 years ago.

Generals MacKenzie, Dallaire, Addy and Belzile have warned Canadians about the capacity of the forces. When will the government rebuild morale, equipment and combat readiness?

[Income Tax Amendments Act, 2000, May 14th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, of course I agree. There is no one in the House more firmly convinced that the best institution, our oldest institution has to be maintained. That is to strengthen the family in every way possible. The previous speaker mentioned that very fact.

No matter which way we want to cut the cake, when there is an expenditure in child rearing it should be considered.

I know of a case in Toronto where the individual is paying $20,000 a month with two children. I know other case where the father is trying to put up $2,000 a month. Not only is he going bankrupt, he will lose the his house because of what happened to his income.

There should be a $12,000 a year deduction at source for that parent. There is no one in the House or outside it who can successfully argue that it should not be an income tax deduction. Maybe we are past the days of being all deadbeat dads when we hung it on the men and gave women more liberty. I hope those days are gone forever.

Sometimes after divorce, even though the money goes to the wife in support of children, she then continues to work and pay income tax. She includes the children and does not have to count the money. There is something wrong there. I think everybody on that side of the House knows it. Everybody in Canada once it is explained knows it, and it is up to the government to make the changes.

[Income Tax Amendments Act, 2000, May 14th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to speak to Bill C-22. It is certainly a complex bill. Thousands of people in Canada, and a good many in my constituency, fall into the situation that I am about to describe in terms of exemptions and qualifications.

I refer to what happens to a young father who finds himself in a divorce situation. I draw the attention of the House to two such cases as they relate directly to the exemptions in the Income Tax Act. Dan and Valerie were married for 12 years. I do not know what led up to the divorce but they went through a divorce. The responsibility, and rightly so, is for Dan to support the children.

I will not accept for a moment, as is generally thought across Canada, that all these men are deadbeat dads. Dan agreed to pay his wife $1,000 a month for the upkeep of his children. At the end of the year that upkeep costs him $1,200 a month. Aside from the cost of the divorce and the loss of his house, he does not get to claim that $1,200 as an exemption. His wife does not have to claim it as income and receives a tax credit. That is wrong. No matter which way the cake is cut, it is wrong.

I have other examples on file. We do not know why suicides come about, but all these dads are not deadbeats. Many of them work overtime to make ends meet, only to have to pay more money. They are finding it more difficult to pay up each month. They want to carry on their responsibilities, but the situation is getting worse.

The last example I have on file is a shocker. John married a girl by the name of Janet and she had one child from her previous marriage. He accepted that child and together they had two more children. That union divorced and, believe it or not, Janet married her former husband. The oldest child from the former husband then went back to the original parents. John was ordered by the court to pay support for three children, even though the one child he assumed from the previous marriage was back with the original parents.

I could go on and on. All kinds of people have written to me from across Canada. In many cases there is no fight between the former wife and husband, but in many cases these young men simply cannot make it. What I am saying is that the monthly support payment should be an absolute deduction.

We seem to say at the present time that all divorces are the fault of the men. There is no question about that. One only has to look at the tax laws and the exemption entitlements. Hundreds of young men under 40 escape by running away, by taking on new names, and some by committing suicide. We sit here and allow it go on year in and year out. No one has the stamina and the courage to say that it is wrong. If members ever talk to some of these young people, they should talk to a man of 38 years of age who lost his professional job through no fault of his own. Watch the tears roll down his face because he cannot meet those obligations, and he was never credited for it as a tax deduction in all those years.

I say to the House and I say to all Canadians, it is time we faced up to this. It is time that we said no, that not everyone is a deadbeat dad. If we look at the statistics most of them are not.

I have dealt with many cases individually where men have had to suffer extreme hardships in order to meet the requirements of the courts. Then the income tax comes, they make a huge payment and have no deductions whatsoever. Their income tax is deducted at source because they are once again a single parent.

I wish that somehow the finance committee could sit down with the other departments involved in this to bring this atrocity to an end, to bring some fairness to the situation and to bring some fairness to what happens with a court ruling. Maybe they will. However if they do not, there will be more and more young men who will mysteriously disappear from the landscape and we will not know the reason for their deaths.

[Veterans Affairs, May 10th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the recent incident of a Liberal member of parliament dishonouring a veteran because of the way the veteran voted should be an isolated incident, but it is not.

Previously the veterans affairs minister refused to help to send some of our war veterans back to commemorate Christmas in Ortona. A local newspaper had to raise the money.

The government's fiasco in attempting to apportion part of the Canadian War Museum to the holocaust memorial was prompted by the minister of heritage. She did not even consult Canadian veterans. Powerful public opinion changed that.

The same minister did not bother asking the war museum's advisory committee or veteran organizations before announcing the change in the location of the new war museum.

There are two questions: When will this abuse of our veterans come to an end and when will the insult to our veterans cease?

[Canadian Wheat Board, May 8th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, Doyle Kemp, like a growing number of wheat farmers in Saskatchewan, is now a registered organic grower.

He has found his own market. He has found a customer who wants to buy 3,000 bushels of his organically grown durum wheat, but before he can make that sale he has to turn over $1,750 to the Canadian Wheat Board. That is what is called a buyback. Why does the government continue to penalize western farmers for diversification?

[Korean War Veterans, May 8th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, on the 56th anniversary of VE Day, Canadians would like to think that our government has done all it can to remember our war veterans. I am sad to say that this is not so.

When Korean vets asked the government to contribute to a monument in Korea for next year's 50th anniversary of the end of the Korean war, DND and the Department of Veterans Affairs said they would not. This is an all too familiar story.

Korean vets raised $110,000 for a life sized bronze replica of a Canadian soldier, and with that monument are two replicas of Korean children each holding 16 maple leaves to symbolize 16 Canadians whose graves could not be located. The names of 516 Canadians who died in Korea will be inscribed, and with them, the inscription, which came from the Koreans, “We will never forget you, brave sons of Canada”.

Korea has not forgotten. Too bad our government did.