Garry Breitkreuz

[Points Of Order, March 10th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I believe that probably she was quoting another member here, possibly me. I think I have the right to ask for that to be tabled.

[Bill C-68, March 10th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday I met with police officers from my home province of Saskatchewan. They were all members of the Canadian Police Association.

They expressed many concerns to me, the most alarming of which was that they felt people were losing faith in the criminal justice system. One of the reasons they cited was cutbacks in resources to fight real crime, while hundreds of millions of dollars are being wasted on gun registration. Seventy-six per cent of CPA members in Saskatchewan voted against Bill C-68.

Biker gangs, native gangs and organized crime are moving into Saskatchewan. Drug trafficking is on the increase. They said people want to feel safe or they do not want to be there.

They said crimes are not going down, there are just fewer police to detect them. They said people are so frustrated they are not bothering to report crimes any more.

When is the government going to start putting tax dollars where the police think they will do the most good?

[The Family, March 5th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, this Liberal government continues to erode the power of parliament.

Parliament must be supreme. It must oversee the activities of the courts, the bureaucracy and cabinet.

Public and legal policy should respect the foundations of Canadian society like marriage and spouse that serve to bring appropriate consistency to the application of the law.

Currently Bill C-63 before the House contains a clause proposing to give cabinet the sole power to define what a spouse is and what constitutes a family.

If the government is considering fundamental policy changes, it should present its rationale and justifications and demonstrate how the public interest is served. Then we should debate it and allow a free vote.

The Reform Party defines marriage to be the union of a man and a woman as recognized by the state. Anything less than an open democratic process will only serve to undermine the credibility of the House.

[Supply, March 4th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, it is impossible to answer that question. I cannot get into the heads of the people on the other side. I have asked myself many times the question of what makes them tick, why they knuckle under to the whip and why they do not use their heads when it comes to debating and looking at the legislation. This flies in the face of democracy.

What we should be doing in the House is listening to the legislation and the motions being debated. That is our job as legislators, as parliamentarians, to listen to the pros and cons of a debate and vote accordingly. That is not happening. This is the most undemocratic place we can imagine because of the system that has developed here.

That has to change and unless we change this system, we will not change much else in the country. Our parents will still be discriminated against if they choose to take care of the children because of the system that exists here, where members of parliament are not allowed to vote freely on this. How they are kept in line is up to speculation.

[Supply, March 4th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, I respect the member opposite. However, he is trying to change the subject. He is trying to find an excuse not to support the motion. Look at the intent of this motion. Do not start going off on some tangent. I submit that if this motion had been introduced by the finance minister he would have stood up and supported it. He is going into all kinds of extraneous details that are not in the motion and which could be debated when the legislation is introduced but the general principle is what we are talking about today, fairness and equality in our tax system for parents who would choose to stay at home and do a very valuable job.

We have had everybody support the intent of that. They are doing a very valuable job and yet that is the problem we have here. The question I would like to pose back but cannot is why he is not supporting the intent of this motion. If it were introduced over there he would be supporting it.

[Supply, March 4th, 1999]

I hear a member opposite saying some Canadians. Look at what people think. Over 70% of mothers in the workplace would prefer to be at home with their children. Over 80% of Canadians, mothers and fathers, feel that the government is discriminating in the area of taxation against parents who would like this choice. That is very serious. That is what this debate is about.

I have heard all the rhetoric on the other side, the waffling and the excuses because they are not allowed to vote freely. I think we should put politics aside and do what is best for the children and for the families of this country.

[Supply, March 4th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, we as parliamentarians must do what is best for our country. The best thing for our country would be to do what is best for our children and our families. What is the best thing for our children? To allow them to have the right to have loving parents stay at home to take care of them without being penalized by the state for doing so. Are they being penalized? Yes. I want hon. members to look at the facts.

Roughly 82% of Canadians want the tax code changed; this according to the C. D. Howe Institute's latest report:

Current Canadian tax policy affords no universal recognition of children. In effect, it treats children in middle- or high-income families like consumer spending, as if parents had no legal or moral obligation to spend money on their care. This treatment is indefensible.

That is a quotation from the C. D. Howe Institute's November 1998 report.

They go on to say that federal tax, pre-1998 budget, paid by one earner families of four earning $60,000 was $10,319. That was the tax paid by a family of four. Federal tax, post-1999, for this same family was $9,589. The federal tax, pre-1998 budget, paid by two earner families of four earning $60,000 was $6,410 and after the 1999 budget this family paid $5,790.

Therefore, the C. D. Howe Institute points out that the one earner family paid 60.98% more in federal taxes than the two earner family before the 1998 budget. After budget '99, this difference jumped to 65.6%. With this latest budget the discriminatory tax situation increases 5%.

The C. D. Howe Institute goes on to say that at $45,000 these numbers jump even higher. At that rate the discrimination is 111% and after the 1999 budget it jumps to a difference of 136%.

These are numbers from an external source. These are not numbers that we have put together. They clearly indicate how discriminatory this Liberal Party has been against parents who choose to have one parent stay at home.

They go on to say that federal tax, pre-1998 budget, paid by one earner families of four with a total income of $50,000 was $7,116. The federal tax for this family after the 1999 budget was $6,464. Also, before the 1998 budget the federal tax paid by two earner families of four earning an income of $50,000 was $3,716. After the 1999 budget this family paid $3,160. So a one earner family paid $3,400 more or 91.5% more in federal taxes than a two earner family before the 1998 budget. After the 1999 budget this difference rose to $3,304, for an increase of 104%.

That is what this debate is about today. These are the facts. If hon. members go out into society they will find that one of the greatest irritants parents have is our present discriminatory tax policy.

We need to allow parents to have the choice without being penalized. Do not penalize single income households. I have heard all kinds of rhetoric from the other side where members are trying to excuse themselves because they have been whipped into voting against this motion. It is a motion that is supported by the vast majority of Canadians. Allow them to make a choice. Allow parents to stay at home to care for their children without having to pay a penalty.

The government has had the opportunity to change this discriminatory policy that favours dual income households and it has not yet done it after five years.

The first root of the problem is that the government wants to manipulate society. I ask myself: Why does it not do this? It wants to restrict people in their choices. Labelling stay at home parents as child care dropouts indicates how government members are thinking.

The second root of the problem is that taxes are much too high and the government does not want to reduce them. It is most reluctant to respond to the desire of Canadians to have their taxes reduced.

In fact taxes are so high that these taxes drive parents out of the home in order to pay the bills. In order to provide the food, shelter and clothing that are needed, parents today are forced to supplement their income by having both parents work out of the home. This limits parents in their desire to do what they feel is best for those they cherish most, their children.

According to the experts, this restriction on the parents' desire to directly care for their children has raised costs in four areas. Costs to society increase because parents are restricted in their choices. In their desire to spend time with their children, psychologists have told us that it is absolutely necessary that they be with their children, yet the social engineering of the Liberals has raised costs in four areas. These four areas are education, social costs, justice and health care costs.

If the Liberals allowed parents to exercise their choice freely without being manipulated by the tax system we could lower our level of taxation in this country. Why? Because education costs could be reduced. Health care costs could be reduced. Justice costs could be reduced. All of those social costs could be reduced. What would appear as maybe a loss of income to the government would actually have the opposite effect.

The accusation was thrown at us by the Liberals that we would like to remove paid child care as a tax deduction. We have never said that. We would not oppose a tax reduction for parents. But we do object to the fact that parents who stay at home to care for their children are not treated equally. The parent who stays at home is not allowed to reduce their taxes accordingly. The government does not give equal treatment to parents who choose to stay at home. That is the main point of this motion. That is what we are going to be voting on. We need to look at the intent of this motion. Many of the speakers on the opposite side have avoided the intent of this motion.

In conclusion, let me talk a little about the brain drain and how that is affecting families. Canada is one of the most highly taxed nations in the world. According to the Fraser Institute, the total tax rate runs at 49%. High taxation is driving our young people out of this country. A single person would have 38% disposable income in the United States. In Canada they only have 22%. That is a huge difference.

What effect does that have on the family? Grandparents who would like to see their grandchildren are unable to do that. Grandparents have an important role to play. This government makes it more difficult to have extended family relationships because our young people are forced to leave to go to the U.S. to find jobs.

Not only are we incurring huge costs educating young people, young people who could contribute to our quality of life and our economy, we are forcing them to leave the country. We are also harming extended family relationships. That is very serious.

If we thought through the tax policies of the government we would see how it has completely disregarded the pleas of Canadians for tax reduction and fairness in this area.

[Gun Control, March 4th, 1999]

Talk about being misled, Mr. Speaker. While the minister wastes hundreds of millions on this totally useless project, Statistics Canada recently reported that the number of police officers per capita had dropped for seven consecutive years.

In 1998 there were fewer police officers per capita than in 1970. Meanwhile, the number of criminal incidents has more than doubled since 1970.

Why did the Liberals blow hundreds of millions on a gun registration scheme when millions are needed to put adequate numbers of police officers on our streets and highways to fight this dramatic increase in crime?

[Gun Control, March 4th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals have earmarked millions more in next year's budget to implement new gun control laws. Taxpayers can add these millions to the $200 million already spent on the government's gun registration scheme.

The government said that it would only cost $85 million over five years. Would the Minister of Justice please explain how her department could have bungled things so badly?

[Questions On The Order Paper, March 1st, 1999]

For each of the last twenty years: (/a/) how many actual violent crimes have been investigated by the RCMP: (/b/) of these offences how many involved the use of firearms: and (/c/) how many of the firearms used in these criminal incidents were categorized as non-restricted, restricted-registered, restricted-unregistered, or prohibited firearms?