Beryl Gaffney

[Income Tax Act, April 27th, 1994]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-241, an act to amend the Income Tax Act (child support payments).

Mr. Speaker, the current tax treatment of child support payments requires custodial parents to pay taxes on the support they receive while non-custodial parents are allowed to fully deduct the amount.

Canada's tax policy taxes child support payments unlike what we see in the United States, Australia, Britain, Sweden, and many other countries of the world.

While the average child support order covers less than half the minimum cost of raising a child, up to one-third or more of the support payments that are meant to help feed and clothe children are taken away in taxes.

This private member's bill will alleviate this injustice and will work to bring fairness into our tax system, particularly as it relates to the future of our children.

I might add that I am paralleling this private member's bill with my private member's motion. The issue is relevant and this injustice to our nation's children must be corrected.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed.)

[Kids Sense Week, April 27th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, April 27 through May 1, 1994 is Kids Sense Week across Canada sponsored by the International Council of Shopping Centres, a non-profit trade organization. Shopping centres across Canada as we know are significant contributors to the economy as well as entertainment centres and effective forums for public service programs.

This morning I was pleased to be at the Merivale Mall in Nepean along with kids and parents and police and others. We could see that the Merivale Mall and all other shopping centres are providing important community services. They are raising awareness of safety issues in conjunction with the national observance of Kids Sense Week.

I am delighted that this week is Kids Sense Week in Ottawa-Carleton and I encourage our young people and their parents or guardians to involve themselves in this vital community service activity.

[Members Of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act, April 25th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to Bill C-208, an act to amend the Members of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act.

While I commend the member for Saint John for putting the private member's bill forward, in my estimation it does not go far enough. My colleague dealt with the first part of it and I will deal with the second part.

It purports to deal with two aspects of the pension plan provided for former members of the House and former senators. It proposes amendments to the Members of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act in an effort to provide a quick fix regarding two features of our pension plan which have attracted a good deal of criticism in the country. I am referring to the fact that the act places no restrictions on double dipping and permits a former member to begin drawing a pension immediately upon retirement regardless of his or her age.

At this point I should state clearly that the government is very much aware of the widespread concern of Canadians about the pension plan for members of Parliament. The government is committed to change but wishes to do so in a rational and comprehensive fashion, not piecemeal, which unfortunately is the approach adopted in the private member's bill.

It would be prudent to await the proposals of the Lapointe commission and modify the pension plan for members of Parliament in accordance with a more integrated and cohesive approach to the overall compensation package appropriate for parliamentarians.

My hon. colleague from Essex-Windsor has dealt ably with the issue of double dipping in the context of the amendments proposed in the bill. Therefore I shall direct my remarks to other deficiencies in these proposals, deficiencies which are serious enough that the intent of the bill could not be realized if it were to become law.

The major problem with the bill as it stands today is that it deals only with some of the benefits to which a former member is entitled. As hon. members may know, the amendments made to the Members of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act in 1992 brought the pension plan into compliance with the Income Tax Act registration rules and essentially divided the pension plan into two parts: part I, the registered plan and part II, a retirement compensation arrangement.

The proposed amendments in the bill only deal with part I of the act, the registered plan, and purport to delay commencement of pension benefits under the registered plan until age 60. As an aside, these amendments do not even deal with all benefits to which a former member might be entitled under part I, since they do not address the special joint and survivor benefit which a former member may elect to receive under section 23 of the act in cases where a former member wishes to provide survivor benefit protection to a spouse he or she married after ceasing to be a member.

Not only is the proposed subsection 13.1(2) quite redundant, it fails to achieve its objective of delaying receipt of benefits until age 60. I would assume that is what the hon. member would like it to do since it does not amend part II of the act, the portion of the act which contains the provisions that allow for benefits to be paid prior to age 60.

Further, the proposed amendment seeks to delay commencement until age 60 but does not make any exception to that rule in the case where a former member became disabled after retirement but before he or she reached age 60. Surely it could not have been intended that in no circumstance would a benefit be payable to a former member who was unfortunate enough to become disabled prior to age 60.

Turning to the matter of the proposed companion changes to survivor benefits, hon. members should be aware that delaying receipt of survivor benefits until a deceased member or former member would have been 60 years of age is quite inconsistent with any other federal pension legislation and contrary to the standards set out in any pension benefits standards legislation in the country.

Such a measure could be characterized as regressive at best, not to mention slightly absurd in the case of children's benefits, since few such recipients would still qualify for benefits if they had to wait until their parents reached 60 years old. No provision is made for an intervening disability in these instances either.

There are two further aspects of the survivor benefit proposed in the bill that are problematic. The first of these is that again the bill does not address the survivor benefits paid under part II of the act and does not therefore impose the delay until age 60 for these benefits.

Second, the provision that purports to delay payment until age 60 does not have any transitional arrangements and could have the effect of cutting off the benefits of those persons presently in receipt of survivor benefits who became entitled to them under the law as it now stands. It is far from clear that the proposed section 13.3 would prevent this from happening, given the wording of the proposed new section 24 of the act.

In conclusion the bill may be well intentioned but falls far short of achieving its objectives. Given its structural defects as drafted it could be said to raise questions of equity. As I mentioned earlier the government will be coming out with a report in July of this year.

I would like to quote from Hansard of March 5, 1991. I am on record as speaking in favour of amending the Members of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act.

I find it hypocritical that someone in the private sector who might get laid off from their job, or might be transferred to another company within the private sector in another area of Canada, does not have the same privileges as we do as members of Parliament under the present legislation.

We have widows and widowers who are living on limited income. We have a country whose economy is very tight today. We have people who are unemployed and I think that we as members of Parliament must show some compassion and some consideration.

I am in support of amending the Members of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act. Parts I and II must both be amended. We cannot look at one in isolation of the other. I am pleased to speak to the bill. Again I commend the member for Saint John for taking this initiative and looking at it, but we need to go one step further to cover all aspects of the bill.

[Highway 16, April 19th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, this issue has been before the people of the nation's capital for a great number of years. The hon. member for Victoria-Haliburton, my colleague who just spoke on the issue, adequately explained or visually explained the problems people have in trying to get to the nation's capital. Whether they are coming to Ottawa on the present highway 16 or whether they are coming on Highway 7, both roads are very dangerous.

In 1988 we were talking about the free trade agreement in the House. It was the first bill I had to vote on having been elected in 1988. Madam Speaker, you will remember you were newly elected at the same time. We sat in the House right up to December 23.

One issue I raised in my maiden speech in the House of Commons was with regard to the free trade agreement and particularly highway 416. I raised the importance to the nation's capital of having that four-lane link prepared and the effect it would have on the economy. It is the only four-lane link that would connect us to Toronto. It would be the only four-lane link that we had to connect us to New York State. Presently we have a

two-lane highway connecting us to both Toronto and New York State.

I refer to the comments of the member from the Bloc Quebecois who spoke earlier on why should we give it to Ontario when we should give the same thing to Quebec. I would like to correct the gentleman and advise him that federal moneys have gone into roadworks in the province of Quebec.

We already have a four-lane link between the nation's capital to Montreal and right through to Quebec City. If my memory serves me correctly it goes right through to Rivière du Loup and the Gaspé peninsula. I have travelled that route on many occasions. Therefore the precedent has already been set.

I am looking at transportation infrastructure agreements. In 1993 the federal government put in a $10 million project in roadwork infrastructure in the Northwest Territories. In B.C. it put in $30 million; Saskatchewan, $35 million; Nova Scotia, $30 million; New Brunswick, $130 million. I could go on and on but there was not one penny that went into the province of Ontario.

The province of Ontario has long been recognized as the engine of growth in this country. We who live in Ontario are very proud of that. We are very proud to help the provinces that do not have the financial resources we have had historically up until this point in time, to sustain not only ourselves in this province but also the people in the other provinces. We have been pleased to do that.

However the province of Ontario today is going through very tough economic times. We no longer have the manufacturing base we had before. We have lost hundreds of thousands of jobs. Whether it is the result of the free trade agreement I think the jury is still out on that. We need to do things that are going to increase economic growth. We need to do this not only in all of Ontario but we need to do it specifically here in the nation's capital.

Why should we put federal money into a roadway coming into the nation's capital? For goodness sakes, it is the nation's capital. The eyes of the country are on this capital city. We talk about our Canadian dollar and how it flips up and down. Is it any wonder it flips up and down when we cannot even put a four-lane highway into the nation's capital? It is absolutely disgraceful.

The argument of the gentleman from the Bloc Quebecois does not wash with me and it does not wash with the majority of Canadians.

The improvements to this highway are long overdue when one considers the increase in traffic over the 25 years plus that I certainly have been a resident of the Ottawa-Carleton region. We have seen the traffic patterns increase. As a result of this heavy traffic we see the accidents have increased in this area.

There is the commercial business, the recreation business, the tourist traffic. This morning my colleague from Leeds-Grenville and I were at a meeting. We met with the tourism industry from eastern Ontario. What is happening to the tourism industry? What is happening to the tourism industry in the nation's capital? Do members know how many dollars from the tourism industry support governments, support the federal government, support the provincial government?

It is very shortsighted on our part not to recognize the economic importance we as a nation as a whole would realize from such a structure being expanded. The construction of highway 416 to a four-lane highway is precisely the kind of infrastructure we as the government are talking about. It is something that is needed in the province of Ontario.

It would provide jobs and would improve jobs, which would contribute to the productivity and competitiveness of area employers. The four-lane link is vital to the continued growth of eastern Ontario.

I cannot be dramatic enough in speaking to my colleague's motion. Our future in eastern Ontario depends upon it.

Even setting that aside, set aside eastern Ontario and think of the nation's capital. You people from Quebec, think of your capital city, Quebec City. How many times in the province of Quebec have you heard Quebecers say: "Oh, Quebec City gets everything. We don't get anything in Montreal. We don't get anything in Hull". At that point in time you have a federal government which has been especially kind to you, which has helped with bridges, which has helped with roads and which has helped with the infrastructure in the province of Quebec.

I say the same thing to Toronto, to Queen's Park. Look at all of the beautiful roads in Toronto. I do not want to crap all over Bob Rae and what he is doing. My colleagues would like me to, but for goodness sake, Queen's Park is not any different from Quebec City where they think of their own and they want to make sure that the capital of their province is well looked after.

Would you not agree with me that Quebec City is probably better looked after in terms of infrastructure as compared to Montreal? Would you not agree with me on that? Or Ottawa?

This is the seat of our Canadian Parliament. It is the seat of all our national institutions. Our museums, our arts centres, our galleries, everything that is national in scope is here in this region. Maybe we should do as Washington does. Maybe we should make this little precinct around the nation's capital, on both sides of the river. Make this a separate little province or a

regional area or territory that could receive these special dollars to ensure it is an area we can be proud of.

People come here from all over the world. My God, heaven forbid if they are driving from Toronto and they have to come in on the two-lane highway. They cannot believe they are on the road to the nation's capital.

I believe my time is almost up. I have gone on in trying to impress upon this House the importance of this issue to me, to the nation and to the capital. All of us in this House should be very concerned. I hope all members will support my colleague from Leeds-Grenville on this issue.

[Sexual Harassment, April 14th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Solicitor General.

It has been reported that a woman who was sexually assaulted by a co-worker of the RCMP was unable to receive redress from her employers. Today the victim, a single mother, has been forced to leave the job while the perpetrator of the crime is still employed with the RCMP.

Does the RCMP really believe that it is outside the law? What is being done to redress the job loss and harassment suffered by this woman?

[Budget Implementation Act, 1994, April 11th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, at the outset I thought that the member from the Reform Party was going to be talking about the CBC. He started talking about the CBC in his initial comments and started quoting on the program that we could watch with great anticipation and delight this evening.

I do not know whether he had the occasion to watch Venture last night. It was talking about the BBC and the types of programming that the British Broadcasting Corporation has.

When watching the breadth, the depth and the scope of what is allowed to be broadcast in the UK as opposed to what our CBC is allowed to broadcast here in this country I felt slightly ashamed. Here we have a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that we are literally starving to death and not allowing it to use any amount of intellect as to the type of broadcasting that it can show us.

I had to stop and think that it probably had to do with money. It had to do with the amount of money that we were giving it. If we are going to starve it to death then we might as well put it out of existence. We might as well not have a CBC as to allow it to slowly starve as to what it is allowed to show us.

I think we are being very shortsighted and I would like to hear the comments of the member opposite on this. I think that the CBC was created the same way as our railway system was created in this country because we are such a vast country. We need to know what is happening in Northwest Territories and in Yukon or even in Alberta for the information of the Reform member.

There is nothing more enjoyable to me than driving home at night, I live in the nation's capital, listening to that program broadcast from coast to coast and I can hear what is happening in Newfoundland or I can hear what is happening in British Columbia. I can find out what is happening in this wonderful country.

My question to this member is does he really believe that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has a role in this country in broadcasting? If he does, how does he expect it to accommodate what we as Canadians would like to see on its programming with the type of money that we are allowing?

[Divorce Act, March 24th, 1994]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-231, an act to amend the Divorce Act (granting of access to, or custody of, a child to a grandparent).

Madam Speaker, the motion is very simple. The bill that I am presenting today would amend the Divorce Act to grant access to grandchildren for grandparents upon divorce.

Often times in our society when families are torn apart in a divorce it is the children who are hurt the most and require someone who can help them put their world back together.

Grandparents are a prime source of the financial and emotional assistance children need during this time in their lives. The bill will remove the obstacles which sometimes arise in a divorce that prevents grandparents from offering these resources to their grandchildren.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed.)

[Income Tax Act, March 22nd, 1994]

moved:

That, in the opinion of this House, the government should amend the Income Tax Act so that child support payments are no longer considered taxable income for their recipients.

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to stand in the House this evening to speak to the following motion:

That, in the opinion of this House, the government should amend the Income Tax Act so that child support payments are no longer considered taxable income for their recipients.

This motion holds a great deal of interest throughout the country.

In 1942 Canada introduced a taxation policy on child support payments which allowed the payers to deduct the full amount of the payment from their income while the recipients must include the full amount in their income calculations. The policy has been criticized as discriminatory to women because it places an unfair tax burden on the custodial parent, usually the mother. Evidence shows in theory and in practice that this criticism is valid. This situation can be partially explained by historical changes, more specifically in patterns of the lives of men and women in Canada over the last 50 years.

When the policy was introduced in the 1940s it was designed to provide relief to the taxpayer burdened with both a wartime increase in taxes and the obligation of spousal and child support. The father was typically the only income earner and therefore the sole taxpayer in the separated family. It was logical at that time that tax relief be awarded to him. It was assumed the mother would still pay no tax.

Today, most single mothers have earned income and pay taxes on this income whether or not they receive support. What are the changes that have occurred in our society since this tax policy was implemented in the 1940s? First there have been demographic changes. The phenomenon of lone parenthood affects many more people today than in the past. Due to divorce and remarriage, lone parenthood is not always a lifetime, permanent situation. Rather is a phase of life of varying duration experienced by many parents. While lone parenthood itself may not be a permanent situation, the consequences have a lasting impact on women and children, particularly where the period of lone parenthood is lengthy and income is subsequently inadequate.

As well, the practical support networks of extended family and community which usually provided financial and other forms of support have shrunk due to urban development and increased mobility.

Second, there has been a number of social changes. Today violence against women is being recognized as a societal problem that takes many forms and influences many aspects of women's daily life.

When negotiating a separation or divorce agreement many women are left in a very vulnerable position. Often they simply wish to get out of their relationship and to get on with their lives. This often creates pressure to capitulate to inequitable settlements in order to end confrontation and avoid long drawn out custody battles. Returning to court later to seek a variance of child support is usually economically prohibitive for women and can carry many of the same dangers as the initial negotiation.

The report by the Royal Commission on the Status of Women in 1970 was the first study to examine the economic and social disadvantage of women in Canada. Since then many other studies have overwhelmingly identified and described the feminization of poverty and its direct relationship to the unpaid work involved in raising children and other tasks related to human maintenance.

Third, policy changes over the years have had a significant impact on the situation of women, families with children and in particular lone parent families. There has been decreasing support for families with children through the tax transfer system over the past two decades. The value of deductions and credits for children as a proportion of income has been steadily reduced. The reduction of the number of tax brackets from 10 to 3 today has also had an impact on families and on the tax treatment of child support.

Often after a divorce it is very difficult to find work with adequate pay to meet the needs of the children in the household. Therefore, mothers are forced to rely on social assistance. Social assistance policies in Canada however are not designed to take into consideration child support. Dollar for dollar of child support payments are deducted from the mother's social assistance cheques leaving her in a disadvantaged position of having little money for her children.

Fourth, there have been a number of economic changes in our society which impact on the taxation of child support. Perhaps the most significant change is the steady increase in the number of women, including those with children, participating in the labour force. However, they are still paid at the lower end of the pay scale.

After divorce family resources are often inadequate to continue to meet children's needs, yet it is the single mother who continues to be solely or primarily responsible for the financial needs of children because of the extremely high rate of default and child support awards.

The evidence is overwhelming. Given the number of changes that have occurred over the last 50 years it is paramount that we revisit the 1940s policy of the tax treatment of child support payments. We must ask ourselves if this policy is still, or for that matter, whether it has ever met its original goal of providing tax relief to the tax burden and encourage the payment of child support.

The rationale that the deduction for child support payers automatically requires inclusion as income by the recipient does not hold water. While they were married the father's support of the children was not income to the mother. While they were married the father's support of the children was not deductible. Likewise, now that they are divorced the custodial mother does not get to deduct what she spends on the children. The parents have now gone their separate ways. Why should the father's support of his children now become taxable income to the mother?

Child support payments were not income to the custodial mother prior to the 1940s because they did not fit the income tax concept of income. The Oxford Dictionary defines income as money received during a certain period as wages or salary. Child support in the custodial mother's hands is not new wealth from the production of labour or capital. It is simply the father's payment for his share of his children's expenses.

The most important rationale for the reduction-inclusion treatment is that it will encourage higher support payments by shifting income from a higher tax paying parent to a lower tax paying parent. This is expected to cause a surplus tax saving available to increase child support payments.

The policy expects that the father's tax savings will always be greater than the mother's tax liability. Because of this the non-custodial parent should be able to pay the custodial parent's increased taxes through what is commonly referred to as a tax gross-up added to the child support payment. Then the policy assumes there will still be an additional surplus tax saving which can also be used to increase child support.

However, as we all know, theory and reality do not always produce the same end results and this is definitely the case with the deduction-inclusion policy.

First, although the father's tax saving may be greater than the mother's tax liability, neither the Income Tax Act or family law legislation requires the father to pay the mother increased tax liability. The report of the federal-provincial-territorial family law committee of May 1992 entitled "The Financial Implications of Child Support Guidelines" noted that while tax consequences should be an element of every child support determination, there is evidence to suggest that these calculations are not routinely made. If the father does not use his tax savings to pay the mother's tax liability, the consequences are very serious.

Let us use another example. A support order has determined that the father's fair share of the children's expense is $10,000 for the year. Under family law principles, this determination is based on both parents sharing the cost of raising the children. The mother is also independently contributing to the children's support.

This $10,000 child support award should be grossed up by about $2,600 to reflect the mother's increased federal and provincial taxes. The grossed-up award then to the father should be $12,600 for the year. The father can pay the extra $2,600 because he has a tax savings from the deduction. The custodial mother needs the extra $2,600 to cover her tax increase from having to include the support in her income.

Let us consider what will happen if the gross-up is not added to the award. The mother still must pay the $2,600 in taxes. She will now be left with only $7,400 from the father's support payment. There will be a shortfall from the original $10,000 that the judge has awarded her. The onus for this shortfall is on the custodial mother and this causes hardship for the children. The father, on the other hand, still gets the benefit of the full tax savings.

A further flaw in the deduction-inclusion policy is the use of tax bracket differentials to deliver overall tax savings. This perspective is examined in great detail in a report entitled "Child Support Policy: Income Tax Treatment and Child Support Guidelines" by Ellen Zweibel and Richard Shillington.

Zweibel and Shillington note that there is an overall tax saving only when the non-custodial father's tax savings on support exceed the custodial mother's liability on support. The Zweibel and Shillington report found that a tax saving only occurs in 51 per cent of the cases and no saving occurs in 49 per cent. Furthermore, when a saving was realized, that saving was minimal.

The study revealed another troubling effect of the deduction-inclusion provisions. So far in this discussion we have been assuming that the non-custodial parent's tax savings will be greater than the custodial parent's tax liability thus creating a surplus tax saving. What happens if this is not the case?

If the mother's increased tax liability is greater than the father's tax savings, the system works against the separated family. The father can no longer pay the mother's increased tax liability from his tax savings.

In the Zweibel and Shillington report, 20 per cent of the cases fell into this category. Not only did the system fail to produce the possibility of a higher award, the system actually worked against them to decrease their already scarce resources.

The final rationale holds that the savings that occurs through the deduction-inclusion gross-up policy is supposed to benefit the children by generating further revenues for their support. Again reality must step in. Even when the saving is realized, the money sits in the hands of the father parent and there is nothing to say that he will forward that money to his ex-wife for the children.

This policy ignores that child support is a very contentious issue and that non-custodial fathers seeking to minimize their

payments may not readily agree to either a gross-up or to a further sharing of any tax saving above the gross-up.

This is not just a tax issue but one of wider social injustice which affects the well-being of Canada's children and subsequently Canada's future. Article 2 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of the Child states:

The child shall enjoy special protection and shall be given opportunities and facilities, by law and other means, to enable him or her to develop physically, mentally, morally, spiritually, and socially in a healthy and normal manner and in conditions of freedom and dignity. In the enactment of laws for this purpose the best interest of the child shall be the paramount consideration.

It is our children who now bear the immediate consequences because the current system is not providing the effects it was intended to produce. If the current policy is not changed it is the children who will go on paying the consequences every day, not just in some cases and not by accident, but deliberately by our failure to redesign an outdated tax mechanism.

The causes of child poverty have been linked to family breakdown, at least in part, in many areas of the world including Canada. Average family incomes for single parent families headed by women are significantly lower than those of two parent families. When parents separate the cause of maintaining two households will mean that at least some members of the family will suffer from reduced income.

Unfortunately the predominant pattern is that women, who are the vast majority of custodial parents, and their children experience a marked decrease in standard of living while men who no longer live with their families experience an improvement in their material circumstances.

The Divorce Act sets out to maintain a similar standard of living for both parents after separation or divorce. Yet the standard of living for custodial parents and their children tends to decline as much as 73 per cent, whereas the non-custodial parents rises as much as 42 per cent.

When a father makes a child support payment he is transferring money he has earned toward the care and maintenance of his children. There is no difference between a parent living with their spouse and providing them with grocery money, paying for piano lessons or shoe laces than there is for a parent living separate from the their spouse or a parent of their children and making the same financial contribution.

There is no similar tax exemption for married persons or persons living common law whereby one or both of the spouses provides financially for the family. If the children were living with anyone other than the parent and those caretakers were receiving financial support, they would not be obliged to claim it as personal income and be taxed accordingly and that is happening in this country all the time.

I have demonstrated to the House this evening the failings of the Income Tax Act on child support payments. I will run through six predominant areas.

First, I have demonstrated how Canadian society has changed demographically, socially, politically and economically. The deduction-inclusion policy on child support payments has been in existence since 1942. It is time that it be revisited and revamped to fit today's Canada.

Second, the taxation principle which holds that where a deduction has been claimed there must be an inclusion is false, absolutely false.

Third, tax subsidies from the deduction-inclusion principle only exist in some cases and it is often very minimal. Furthermore, there is no provision to ensure that where a savings exists that money is forwarded to the children to improve their standard of living.

Fourth, history has demonstrated that the availability of a tax deduction for the non-custodial parent has not proven to be an incentive for the support payer to make payments in full and on time. I believe that was one of the reasons that they instituted that in the first place.

Fifth, the standard of living for custodial parents and their children tends to decline while the non-custodial parents tends to rise. Taxing support payments works contrary to any efforts to raise these households out of poverty.

Finally, child support payments should be seen for what they are, a continuation of the non-custodial parent's obligation to the raising of their children.

Canada's tax policy taxes child support payments, unlike what we see in the United States, Australia, Britain, Sweden and in many other countries. While the average child support order covers less than half the minimum cost of raising a child, the government deems it fair to take up to one-third or more of support payments that are meant to feed and cloth children. It is time that we as legislators in the House of Commons, in the Parliament of Canada stood up and put a stop to this and bring justice and fairness into our tax system, particularly as it relates to the future of our children.

[Tainted Blood, March 22nd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, as a result of a 1983 blood transfusion, a Nepean constituent became infected with HIV and consequently developed AIDS. He carried this devastating disease unknowingly for 10 years before he was diagnosed with full blown AIDS. As a result of not knowing, his wife is now an AIDS carrier.

Federal and provincial assistance has been offered to only those directly affected by HIV tainted blood. They fail to recognize the secondary victims of this tragedy. This couple had no way of knowing that he was carrying the HIV. Had they known, cautionary measures would have been taken.

The primary victim has received financial assistance to help him in his time of need but who will help the secondary victim, his wife? I implore the Minister of Health to reopen the federal extraordinary assistance plan to take into consideration secondary victims of the tainted blood scandal.

[Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Suspension Act, March 21st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I listened very carefully to the three speakers from the Reform Party and their rationale for wanting to abort the process we are proposing in the House of Commons. I am somewhat shocked at some of the things I heard. Here is a party that purports to want to save taxpayers' money. They are talking about increasing by six the numbers of representation in the House of Commons. We know it costs at least a million dollars a year for every member of the House. I have great difficulty in how they rationalize that.

I would like to get back to the previous speaker concerning the fact that there has not been any public input into this matter. I wonder how much public input there was into the electoral commission. If I could use the example of the province of Newfoundland, it has had a population increase in the last 10 years of something like 600 people. Yet the boundaries of every riding in the province of Newfoundland have been redistributed at great cost to the Canadian taxpayer. I wonder how much consultation there was with the people of Newfoundland.

There is no doubt in my mind that British Columbia needs a redistribution of its boundaries so that the ones with the heavily populated areas are shifting some over to the less populated areas. My colleagues in the city of Toronto will probably have by the next election 300,000 electors in their ridings. That is an incredible burden for those members of Parliament.

If we look at the ridings in the national capital region how can we justify this shifting? They are not increasing anything. They are not doing anything. They are just shifting and creating additional costs.

How can the previous speaker, as a member of the Reform Party who is constantly and consistently preaching restraint to this side of the House, talk about expending millions and millions and millions of taxpayers' dollars because of recommendations by a commission that never consulted in the first place?