Eric C. Lowther

[Calgary Declaration, November 2nd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I am not 100% sure whether this is a point of order, so I look for your wisdom on this. I would like to suggest to the House that the motion be amended by adding after the word—

[Supply, October 26th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, I point out to the hon. member that a number of studies have been done which show that a 1% reduction in payroll taxes in this country will create thousands of jobs.

It is interesting that he would note the fact that the people this question was put to said they were not sure how many jobs it would create. However, study after study shows that if we reduce payroll taxes people hire more people.

[Supply, October 26th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the question. We should all be aware that we are all Canadians from one side of the country to the other. The approach of saying that what works in one part of the country will not work in another is what underlies a lot of the policies of the Liberal government that have caused division in this country.

I can tell members that there is seasonal work in my province. There is seasonal work in my riding. The people who experience seasonal work have the same challenges, the same problems, the same concerns as people in Atlantic Canada. To say that the Canadian in Atlantic Canada who is in this situation is different than the Canadian in Calgary who feels that same set of challenges works against the whole coming together of Canada and making a stronger nation. I think the premise of his question is incorrect.

As far as the short weeks program is concerned, we have stated that it sounds like a good idea. It could be beneficial. We are not necessarily against it. What we are against is extending additional dollars to a program that has not been thoroughly evaluated to see if it is actually encouraging people to get out and work and to work part time as opposed to staying off EI benefits. That is the crux of it.

A Canadian in Calgary, in our estimation, is no different from a Canadian in the Atlantic provinces.

[Supply, October 26th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the remarks of my esteemed colleague and want to touch on a few key comments as well.

It might cause some confusion for those who are listening to hear about small weeks, big weeks, and the difference between one week and another. The motion deals with the unemployment insurance adjustment program which allows individuals who have worked only a portion of a week, perhaps part time or that kind of thing, to combine this work and apply it to their overall income to derive benefits from the EI plan.

On the face of it there is some good rationale for that kind of initiative to encourage people to continue to work, even if it is only part time, and not be penalized by reduced benefits. It sounds like a good idea.

I think what is a key element here is that the motion is perhaps premature today because we have spent $230 million on this program. There has been a $230 million increase in expenses because of this change. I guess the member opposite pointed out that this is a sign that the program is working. This is clearly a program that is needed.

What we have to ask ourselves, now that we have spent $230 million, is has that actually encouraged people to work as opposed to not working and collecting a higher premium when it comes to the part time or short week type of work? Has it actually achieved the result of encouraging people to take on this part time or seasonal work? We do not have the answers to those questions.

This is a fundamental issue that is at play. I want to speak to this today because I see so many of the initiatives that are taken by governments, the government across the way in particular, and governments right across the land where there is no evaluation. I mean a third party evaluation, not an evaluation done by the government itself. Those kinds of evaluations are subject to political bias and possibly moving dollars in the way that will derive votes and support. I do not like to make those kinds of accusations, but I have seen enough to make me skeptical.

My concern is that there has been absolutely no evaluation. I came from a business background and if we were to spend $230 million on anything along the way there would be assessments. Is this actually reaching the target? Are we encouraging people to continue to work? Are we achieving our goals? If not, shut it down and come up with something better. If we are, try to find ways to score more toward the goal to derive more benefit.

What do we have today? We have a motion that says “Keep it going. Keep spending the money. Somebody is collecting the money, therefore, it must be working”.

This is a fundamental problem with the Liberal government in the way it approaches these types of issues. We have an auditor general who evaluates the government and I have read many of his recommendations. I think he often makes some very good recommendations that point out shortcomings. A third party evaluation of the money spent. Unfortunately it does not seem that the Liberal government acts on too many of the auditor general's recommendations. If it does it is very slow.

The key thing is that we must have some assessment of whether or not these tax dollars are actually deriving the stated benefit. If in fact they are, then perhaps we can improve on it.

As my hon. colleague said, why just Atlantic Canada? Why not other parts of Canada? In my own riding there are people who are unemployed. Do they have any less trauma by being unemployed or any less of a challenge in making it day to day than someone in Atlantic Canada? I would say not. Why do they not have access to it if in fact it is working?

Another benefit of evaluation is that we might come up with some better ideas, for Atlantic Canada particularly. In this day and age, with the information age, there are many new challenges in gaining new skills and that $230 million could retrain 23,000 workers at $10,000 a worker. There are a lot of potential abilities and a lot of new markets that those people could move into. If it was set up as a loan program we could benefit three to four times that many people with new training.

We do not question these things when we do not properly evaluate these programs. Someone is collecting. Just keep it rolling. There is no accountability at the end of the day with respect to where those tax dollars are going.

But again, is this so unusual? Tragically no. The government has treated the EI fund, basically, I am afraid to say, as a cash cow. It is not really being treated as a benefit program for workers. We have accumulated a $19 billion surplus. It is accumulating at $7 billion a year. There is room for a 33% reduction in the premiums that workers and employers pay and we would still have some left over for that rainy day. Yet we do not see it happening.

I have in my riding the Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association. Those people lobby me and talk to me on a regular basis. I have many restaurant owners in my riding and they have continually come to me and said “Please put pressure on the finance minister to roll back the EI premiums that we are forced to pay”.

This is an industry that employs many young people. It is their first step into the workplace. This group of small business people point out to me that this is the worst thing that the finance minister can do. We all applaud and praise small business as the engine of the economy, yet we skewer them with higher taxes, particularly payroll taxes. These payroll taxes must be rolled back, but we are not seeing that and I think it is tragic.

These are issues that I believe are even more important than the one we are debating today. It surprised me that this was actually the motion the Progressive Conservative Party felt needed to be debated here today.

Is it likely that we would actually see the Liberal Party roll back these EI payroll taxes? I would suggest that it is not. I would point to the budget debate last spring when the Liberals said that they wanted to spend any surplus. The official opposition at the time proposed broad based tax relief for Atlantic Canadians totalling over $900 per year. That is really what is needed. We do not need more in the way of strengthened social programs. People get self-esteem and fulfilment from a job and we should be working toward providing jobs to Atlantic Canadians.

I am not the only one saying this. Let me quote Fred McMahon, a senior policy analyst with the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies. He says that the EI merry-go-round seems like a good idea for Atlantic Canada, but it is often not working. He goes on to say that the EI system has undermined Atlantic Canada's growth prospects. It has marginalized thousands of workers and even helped destroy our fish. Now, this is not me, this is Fred McMahon, senior policy analyst with the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies. It has not been good for Atlantic Canada by any measure. These are people who have studied the situation and they are saying that this is not the way to go in the best interests of Atlantic Canadians.

I point out again that if we had followed the reducing taxes and paying down debt approach in Atlantic Canada long advocated by the Reform Party as opposed to holding on to these high payroll taxes through the employment insurance program, if we had gone instead with our proposals, we would see a grand total of over $1 billion a year in the pockets of long suffering Atlantic taxpayers, money which could be spent and invested not by bureaucrats and politicians but by Atlantic Canadians themselves to improve their own lives and future.

[Supply, October 20th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would ask the House for unanimous consent, because of the importance of this particular issue, to extend the questions and comments portion of the debate at this time.

[Telus Mobility, October 20th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the National Quality Institute announced yesterday that the 1998 Canada Award of Excellence has been won by an Alberta Company, in fact a Calgary based company. Telus Mobility provides wireless communication services to Alberta. Yesterday in Toronto, Telus Mobility was called to the front to accept this most prestigious award.

This company learned and applied methodologies that made it number one. These included clearly defined and communicated objectives, independent assessment of progress toward its goals, and recognition and rewards at all levels for quality improvements. The government must learn how to gain efficiencies from Canadian business people like these who are achieving world class quality results.

Congratulations to Mr. Harry Truderung, President of Telus Mobility, for the consistent leadership he has shown and to all employees who made it happen.

[Petitions, October 20th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I have two additional petitions that I would like to present which relate to abortion. These citizens point out that the legal rights of the unborn are protected under the United Nations charter on the rights of the child.

These citizens are calling for a national referendum to determine whether people are in favour of government funding for abortions on demand.

[Petitions, October 20th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to present three petitions.

The first petition comes from residents of my riding who are concerned about sexual offences against children. The petitioners support Bill C-284, which is currently on its way to committee. This bill would allow parents to make informed decisions on the hiring of those who care for children.

[Salaries For Stay At Home Mothers And Fathers, October 19th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to the motion which has been presented by the hon. member for Abitibi. For many of the people watching it might be wise to read the motion:

That, in the opinion of this House, the government should legislate to grant a salary to mothers and fathers who stay at home to care for their children.

For many years, in spite of the concerned voices of many Canadian families and the intense lobbying work by many in this House including even some in the Liberal Party, the government has chosen tax funded support of only one approach to child care. That one approach is institutional day care, not parental care or extended family care, but only formal day care.

In the current budget I thought the Liberal cabinet and the finance minister might finally have heard parents who want the discrimination against their options of child care, including full time homemaker and parent, to stop. But they went in the other direction again. They increased the child care expense deduction for the cost of institutionalized day care by up to $2,000 more per child but did absolutely nothing to recognize the cost and value of other forms of care parents choose to provide. It is interesting that this is what they have done.

I have consulted a number of studies that point out how important parental care is to the long term emotional stability of children. Even without considering those studies, let us consider why the government cannot treat parents' choices equally. If the government will provide up to a $7,000 deduction for institutional receipted care expenses, why can parents who choose other options not also be considered? This question has been asked again and again by parents and it was asked loudly after the current budget ignored them one more time.

Perhaps the motion on the floor of the House today which calls for parents to be employed by the government, i.e., the government would pay them a salary to be parents, is the Liberal government's best solution, but surely we can do even better. I appreciate the member's attempt to recognize the value of parental care in the motion. I truly hope it is a real start. However, based on the federal government's repeated determination to only subsidize day care, and it increased the tax breaks for it just eight months ago, there is little real hope that the pattern will change with the current government. Parents will continue to be told that through the tax system the only valuable child care is non-parental day care. That is tragic.

Let us assume somebody is listening and perhaps today's debate will influence the government to finally consider changes to bring in fair family tax reforms. The Reform Party has long called for fair family tax reforms.

Let us seriously consider the motion. It calls for the government to pay parents. Does this give parents the freedom to choose the child care arrangement that best works for them? Does it allow them to make that choice without discriminating tax treatment? Is it really simple?

I have had parents ask me these questions. How would this work? If parents work part time and only use day care a little bit and care for their children at home the rest of the time, do they get a salary for being stay at home parents? What if a grandparent or another member of the extended family looked after the kids when the parents were working and occasionally day care was used but three days a week mom was home for part of the day, what do they get?

There are some families where parents work alternative shifts. One parent is with the children in the day and the other at night and maybe there is an hour with a sitter. Do these parents qualify? They both work but they both stay at home with the kids.

Add to this that life is dynamic. Situations change because of illness, job changes, moves, et cetera. Child care arrangements within families may often change several times in the same year.

Picture trying to figure all this out on an already overly complex tax form. Does this not add more stress to the family? Maybe there is a better way. There is and I am going to get to that in a moment.

First let me ask are Canadian families not also concerned about their country and the overall prudent operation of the government? I think they are. Why then would they want to pay the high taxes that they pay? I should point out that the Liberal government has raised taxes 37 times since coming to power. Why would they want to pay these high taxes and have the government flow that money through Revenue Canada and only have Revenue Canada give some of it back to the same taxpayer? This is expensive bureaucratic manoeuvring. Where is the value added by flowing the money through Revenue Canada? Put a dollar in and get 75 cents back out. The bureaucracy burns up the rest.

Why not just leave the dollar with the taxpaying family in the first place? Save us all the money. That family pays less tax and has more disposable income now when it is needed. Other taxpayers are saved the expense of collecting dollars from and returning dollars to the same people.

The Reform Party, driven by its membership made up of thousands of Canadian families, has long called for fair family tax treatment when it comes to child care costs. Instead of just a child care expense deduction for day care, Reformers have long proposed a child care expense credit that would be available to all parents. This per child credit can be deducted directly from the tax the parents are required to pay thereby leaving the money and the child care choices with them.

If the family has no tax to pay, then the credit would be paid to them in the form of a refund. This way everyone receives equal monetary recognition for the costs of child care, regardless of the method of child care chosen. As well, there is no added bureaucratic cost flowing through Revenue Canada.

Finally, let us examine the concept of paying someone to be a parent. The proposal in this Liberal motion today would give the appearance that stay at home parents are employed by the state. In effect, parents would be hired using their own money. This is strange. Down the road would conditions be applied to the salary? Is it conceivable that parents would be required to meet some government set of parenting rules or risk loosing the salary? Is that far-fetched? Perhaps, but why go down that road? History is full of examples of things that people thought would never happen, but they did. Do parents have children so they can be employed by the state? No. Parents have children to build a family and express their love.

It is better to recognize that there is a cost and a social contribution to raising the next generation of Canadians and all parents, regardless of the change in child care options chosen, should be given the same degree of tax relief. There is no salary that appropriately addresses the interaction between loving parents and their children and it is inappropriate to try to set one.

In summary, it is good that this motion is a recognition of significant tax inequities and tax discrimination against homemakers. Unfortunately, this government, in typical fashion, also demonstrates an approach that increases government dependency and wasteful spending through an inefficient methodology. Instead, replacing the child care expense deduction with a fully refundable child care expense credit is a much superior means to addressing the current inequities in the tax structure. It would not be dependent on the method of child care chosen and it would reduce both family and government administrative overhead.

This approach to a fair family tax system for Canadian families, which the Reform Party has long advocated and developed, is simple, flexible and efficient. Most importantly, it is good for Canadian families and it is good for the children they care for.

[Marriage Act, 1997, October 6th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, today we are debating a bill that would formalize in law that a marriage is between a man and a woman. It is clear legislative recognition that it is the union of a man and a woman intentionally for life.

Sometimes when I am back in my riding of Calgary Centre, constituents will eagerly with hope in their eyes want to know some of the details of the affairs of the nation. I can anticipate some confused looks, perhaps some perplexity and frustration when I advise them that the state of the nation and the time of this great House and hon. members and of course your valuable time, Mr. Speaker, and all at the taxpayers' expense has been to debate what a marriage is.

My office did some research on the history and current laws surrounding marriage in Canada. I studied it and began building my presentation for today.

I could quote from 130-plus years of history, from 1886 to 1995, of case law in this country that powerfully enshrines marriage as a voluntary union for life of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others, or the many legal statements that profoundly point out that marriage is an institution upon which the family is built.

I could have detailed the respective roles of the federal government and the provincial governments concerning marriage and have shown through a detailed analysis that the federal government establishes the legal framework and capacity for marriage. However, it is the provinces that enact the laws which provide for the solemnization and the formal marriage ceremony. Or, I could have gone outside Canada and examined marriage down through the ages. It is easy to demonstrate that a one man-one woman for life definition of marriage has been the norm in most stable cultures from the beginning of recorded history.

I began down each of these tracks but something was missing. It seemed I was just repeating the obvious. Men and women get married. It is recognized by law. Marriage is a quality institution that has been around since the beginning of recorded history. However this was not touching the heart of the issue we have before us today. It seems to me there is something deeper that needs to be addressed.

In the storm of ideas in today's life it seems we have forgotten some of the basics. We have been intimidated by accusations of discrimination when we point out that there are differences. We have been barraged with the call for equality. Then it is implied that when things are equal they become the same. We know it is not true. Some things are different, just as some relationships are different from others.

Why marriage? How does it work? Perhaps by considering these questions we will be more clear on what is best, no matter what we call it.

Marriage as it is currently understood is an inclusive arrangement, I would argue. Does it not include both genders? Neither one is excluded. Is it not inclusive? The equality of the sexes must not be confused with the sameness of the sexes.

In marriage a man in relationship with a woman gains insights, sensitivities and strengths that she brings to the relationship, and vice versa for the woman with the man. This intimate relationship between a man and a woman involves giving time to understand the other person's perspectives on the challenges that life brings.

A lifelong committed union of a man and a woman in marriage creates a unit that is stronger than the sum of the individuals because the differences complement one another.

In a prominent Canadian court case the ruling read:

Marriage has many other characteristics of which companionship and mutual support is an important one.

The court also stated:

Marriage is the institution on which the family is built and with the capacity for natural heterosexual intercourse as an essential element.

What about children? The children of a marriage should be considered. Teachers, and my wife is one, have a saying. They say that more is caught than taught. Intimate, committed marriage provides the best possible learning ground for the socialization and character development of children. Boys who have a lifelong example of a father who is patient with his wife, kind, polite to her, calm, forgives, is truthful, is trusted and is protective toward his wife are more likely to be that way themselves. More is caught than taught.

The same concept applies for daughters. Both genders learn from myriad subtle character messages that children pick up from different gender parents. These models help them to decide and to relate to their own life mate.

This kind of positive character modelling within and across genders does not stay confined to the home but continues with the children outside the home and adds to the stabilizing and strengthening component of society as a whole.

Recent Statistics Canada studies record that children in home relationships with both parents have far fewer behavioural problems and a significantly higher percentage complete high school.

In addition, we celebrate anniversaries in this land. I am sure, Mr. Speaker, you have sent out congratulatory comments to those who celebrate anniversaries. When we talk to these people, happily married men and women, about marriage they talk about it in terms of entering into a marriage covenant, not a contract. A contract states that I will participate as long as the other party delivers, but a covenant states that I am committed to a person for life without performance demands. For these people divorce is not even an option. This makes the proper selection of a life mate all the more critical and the need to go beyond physical attraction is apparent.

Marriage is an institution that defies those who want to promote the gender war. A loving, caring marriage, and many still exist, is a beautiful reconciliation of a man and woman. It develops good character in both parties. It allows procreation and is the best environment for raising children. They learn by example.

Canadians believe in marriage and they make it work. In 1995, an average year, there were approximately 6.3 million married couples in Canada. That year 98.8% of them decided it was worth it and stayed married. A little over 1% got divorced but 98.8% said it was worth it and stayed married.

It is interesting in a recent Angus Reid poll on the state of the family in Canada that our young people also aspire to having stable marriages and families. Some 93% of the youth in this poll predicted that their families would be the most important in their life and 80% of them believed that marriage was for life.

The Liberal Party's position as of its most recent convention allows marriage to exclude one gender or other from the relationship and allows for two men to marry or two women to marry. This is a contradiction to current Canadian law which repeatedly recognizes marriage as the voluntary union of a man and a woman, which by the way is exactly what the Reform Party membership has in its policy book.

Tragically, rather than bringing its position forward for public debate in the Parliament of Canada and to clarify the law, the justice minister chooses to defer to Liberal appointed judges to make changes independent of the will of the people of Canada. Increasingly judicial activism within the justice system is resulting in court rulings which are taking Canadian law in directions that are contradictory to the representative collective voice of the people.

For this reason it is a prudent step to further define marriage relationships in federal legislation. I support Bill C-225. Let me conclude by saying that for some this is a troubling topic, troubling in the fact that we are even seriously debating it.

The reassuring fact for me is that a man and a woman committed to intimate mutual care and a relationship for life to the exclusion of all others has been and will always be the most rewarding human relationship that they both can have, that the children can have, and for society. This is the truth. No matter how we want to play with the words, it will not change.