Madam Speaker, it is a true pleasure to speak today to Bill C-4, a way to assist non-profit organizations.
I also want to compliment you, Madam Speaker, for being the Deputy Speaker. I know Victoria is very proud, being from a neighbouring riding.
Mahatma Gandhi said that poverty is one of the worst forms of violence. We know that it robs a person's soul, and sometimes robs the desire to live, particularly if there is no hope or see any way or opportunity to actually get out of a poverty trap. In response to that, we have some 161,000 Canadian not-for-profit organizations, and 19,000 of them are under federal jurisdiction.
I would also like to salute that this represents some 12 million volunteers. These volunteers donate some two billion hours of their time free of charge every year. That is a staggering testament to the courage and charitableness of Canadians from coast to coast. There are about two million full time equivalents of people who are hired and who work in the not-for-profit sector, which represents some 11% of our economic workforce.
The budget actually neglected this very important part of our economy. The fact of the matter is those volunteers, those NGOs have a huge duplicative effect. Where they have that duplicative effect is in helping those who are most underprivileged in our society, giving them a hand out, and enabling them to be able to elevate themselves.
They feed those who are hungry. They clothe those who do not have proper clothing. They care for those who are sick. They donate their time to enable our environmental and cultural heritage to live on into the future. They are Canadian heroes, unsung, quietly going about their work, day in and day out, week in and week out, year after year.
In this bill, and in the budget, it neglects to deal with some of the fundamental problems that the NGO community faces in Canada today. To showcase some of the great non-governmental organizations we have, I started up a website. It is called Canadaaid.ca. I would encourage viewers out there to check out Canadaaid.ca.
This website actually showcases people here at home who are doing work in Canada and abroad, people like Gerald and Nicole Hartwig, who are building schools abroad.
The Compassionate Resource Warehouse and Dell Wergeland, who you know, Madam Speaker, being from Victoria, do an extraordinary job. They have sent hundreds of millions of dollars worth of needed supplies to those who are most impoverished in the world. They have done it all with volunteers, many of whom are actually our veterans.
What charitable organizations face is an overweening and excessive degree of reporting. They all agree that fair and accountable reporting must occur. Imagine being part of a small NGO, a small group of volunteers working hard to help those who are impoverished. What happens is they often have to pay thousands and thousands of dollars that has to come from their donations to pay for the overweening administrative obligations that are placed upon them, much of which is unnecessary.
The fact of the matter is that the CRA, Revenue Canada, is disconnected from the NGO community. It has not sat down and listened to their needs and worked with them to enable them to have a proper structure that they can report fairly, openly and transparently as to what moneys they are receiving and how they use them.
I would strongly encourage the Minister of National Revenue to sit down and encourage the bureaucrats to work with the NGO community. This is absolutely essential, if we are not going to choke the ability of NGOs to work and help those who are most underprivileged.
Also, I do not think the Canadian public is aware of this, but Revenue Canada had cuts, particularly in the charities branch. What happened was, in response to that, Revenue Canada let go a lot of its employees and rehired people who had less professional capabilities. What happened as a result of that is burnout amongst the people who could not handle the work, and charities were not able to engage Revenue Canada in a meaningful way.
The other side of this is right now we have overzealous members of Revenue Canada fanning out across our country. They are going after charitable organizations tooth and nail. They are driving them into the ground so much that they will have to close their doors. In fact, some of them have had to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in accounting and legal fees to simply answer the questions that Revenue Canada has asked, most of which are completely useless and unnecessary.
In their zealous desire to go after these charitable organizations, they do not see are the downstream effects. They are hurting the very people who help those in need. Charitable organizations do the lion's share to help those who are most needy. Governments are not going to do it, and in many cases it should not. However, what has filled the gap are these large numbers of charitable organizations, working with minimal amounts of funds to do great things and massively expand the care they provide to those who need it.
This has absolutely become a crisis. I know full well that charitable groups in my riding are about to close their doors. The impact on those who are most impoverished will be quite significant.
I strongly recommend that the government implement the solutions in this bill, which are necessary for a streamlined, effective way to ensure that transparency within the NGO community.
The other thing the government ought to do is enable people to donate more to charitable groups. Right now, during this time of great need, during this time of the economic turmoil across our country, there has never been a greater time to encourage donations to the NGOs, which help those most in need. Right now for charitable donations up to $200, we receive a 15% tax credit. For donations over $200, it is 29%. It makes more sense, and I have a motion is this regard, to ensure that charitable organizations receive the same tax benefits as political parties. Donations to political parties receive much higher tax benefits than those given to charitable organizations. Why not make them equivalent?
Alternatively, the government could allow Canadians to donate up to $15,000 to charitable groups and receive a 50% tax credit. Anything above $15,000 would go back to the 29% tax credit, which is in effect now, for donating more than $200. This would inject adrenalin into the charitable donations. In fact, when we asked Canadians, and there were some interesting studies on this, if they were able to get a higher tax credit, would they donate more, 53% said yes. Why does the government not do this? It would provide a significant benefit, at minimal cost, with a huge multiplier effect for those most in need.
The other thing that could be done, and my colleague mentioned it before, is allow foundations in Canada to develop in a more fruitful way. The United States has much larger foundations, with more money. We could do that in our country. This would provide a huge benefit for the civil society sector to utilize funds to help those most in need and it would also to invest in the cultural and environmental legacy in our great nation, which would be beneficial for all of us.
Do members not find it an affront to common decency that people who make less than $20,000 a year pay tax? How do people survive on less than $20,000 a year? They cannot and as a result they get caught in the poverty trap. Why do we not amend the tax code? I know we could this because I spoke to our finance critic about it when we were in government. I have a private member's bill called the “Canadian low-income supplement”. The bill would ensure that people would get a $2,000 rebate, cash in hand, if they made less than $20,000 a year. That number would decline to zero at $40,000. This would put real money into the hands of those most in need. I strongly encourage the government to pursue that course of action.
On EI, my colleagues have provided solutions to increase EI benefits and decrease the amount of time that one has to work. I also encourage the following.
For those who have lost their jobs, we do not know whether the government will provide EI benefits for them. Just because those people lost their jobs before the budget went through, does it not make sense that those people, who have been victims of the global economic tsunami, should have the same economic benefit changes in the budget? We would like to see the government come clean on that. We think it is an act of fundamental fairness. Whether people lose their jobs next month or lost them two months ago, these people need help. They do not have money to survive.
My colleagues have introduced some very sensible changes, for a two year period of time. Those changes would help those most in need, and those people spend the money. They need to put food on the table. They need medications when they are ill. They need to pay rent. They need a roof over their heads. They need to pay their mortgages.
Furthermore, if people have houses and have lost their jobs, why are they ineligible to receive EI? They have mortgage payments. What are they going to do? Sell their house, and go where? Are they going to go on the street? Are they going to find a place to rent in our community, as an example, where the available rental units are less than one per cent? They cannot do it.
Our objective is to enable people to maintain as much of a reasonable standard of living as they possibly can during this economic turmoil so they will not be hurt, and hurt they can be, hurt they are.
On the issue of first nations, I have five first nations communities in my riding. In some of those communities, in which they have some really superb first nations leadership, the conditions in which those people live is frankly inhumane. Whether it is the Pacheedaht reserve or some others, in Sooke or Beecher Bay, we have some great leaders. Those people need to be encouraged, yet they are not, in part because of the following.
First, the government put a two per cent cap on funding for first nations communities. Does that make sense when the population of first nations communities is growing by more than two per cent? That does not even take into consideration the increase cost of our standard of living. It does not account for inflation. In effect, because of this cap, they are going backward.
Inflation alone is tearing away at that. Increased population growths will also tear away at that, so there is less money today than there was five, six or seven years ago. That makes no sense whatsoever. It is fundamentally important that the government release that two per cent cap and give the moneys needed, with a multiplier that is congruent with inflation plus population increases.
The implication of not doing this is the following.
Do members know that aboriginals families, and this is particularly offensive, receive between $2,000 and $9,000 less per child than non-aboriginal families? Why? What does that mean? It means that those children cannot have books. They cannot get computers. They do not get other school supplies. They cannot hire teachers. The schools are overcrowded. The infrastructure collapses. Some of the schools are toxic. We would not want to see any child trying to study in those schools. Frequently there are not even enough schools to train the kids. How can these children, many of whom are living in impoverished circumstances, get out of that poverty trap?They cannot.
I would also like to see the government look at the Indian Act and work with the AFN and other groups to modify the Indian Act, which is a racist document and a rock around the neck of aboriginal communities in their desire to develop. How can they possibly develop if we have that type of act? They have many more hurdles to overcome in order to develop, so how can they take care of themselves?
There is fabulous leadership in Chief Gordon Planes in Sooke and Chief Russ Chipps in Beecher Bay. They have some great initiatives that they would like to pursue, but they cannot because of the Indian Act and the obstacles it presents to them.
I was on the Pacheedaht reserve in my riding a little while ago. I could put my fist through the walls. There is mould, they are toxic and falling apart. This is in our Canada. Canadians often do not see this because we have to take a bit of a detour to look at it. I ask them to please look at this. See what is in our neighbourhoods and communities. Look at what we have in our country. They will find conditions rival to that in third world nations half a world away.
This is our Canada and it is a pox on our houses that this is allowed to continue. This cannot be allowed to continue. It must be addressed as issues of fundamental fairness and basic humanity. I would like to see the Minister of Indian Affairs go to these schools and clinics, take a look at the conditions in which these people live. I would like him to say that this cannot continue and work with first nations leaders to resolve this. Many of these reserves have extraordinary natural resources that can be developed, but it must be allowed to happen.
On the schooling issue, while there was some money for infrastructure for schools, which I complement the government on, they also need money for soft costs such as for the teachers, books, computers and access to schools. The children in the Pacheedaht reserve have to travel hours into soup to go to school, which means they cannot avail themselves of normal child activities and programs such as music, physical education and team sports that help to build them as they go through life.
It is fundamentally important for the government to grasp this. We are willing to work. We have some great people in the Liberal Party, and in all parties, who are very willing to work with the government to implement the solutions to address these issues, which are human and critical and which must be resolved as an act of basic humanity.
The public expects us to come in here and do things quickly, which we would all love to do. The frustration that I think all of us in the House feel comes from the desire and our willingness to address the concerns of our citizens, meeting the glacial pace in which things move around here. In fact, they move somewhere between glacial and full stop. That is how fast things move. However, the implication of that is the failure to address some very critical things. In 1998 the House passed a resolution for a head start program for children. This is the most fundamental and easiest way to have an important impact on our children.
In the last minute and a half I have, I want to talk about international affairs.
There are some wonderful people at CIDA. However, the government needs to resolve an internal issue in coordination. The treasury board needs to change in order to liberate CIDA so it may work on the necessary international development projects. Our government needs to look outside of itself and understand that Canadians have the willingness, desire and ability to deal with our fundamental and large international challenges, rooted, in part, in the millennium development goals and those objectives that we signed onto.
The three Cs, corruption, conflict and a lack of capacity, are not dealt with adequately internationally for many reasons. The failure to do that causes impoverished countries to continue in their poverty tracts. We have an opportunity to tap into Canada's capacity and the willingness of Canadians to donate their services to build up capacity in developing countries. We need to develop integrated plans such as building up primary health care systems in developing countries. Rather than looking at HIV-AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, we need to work on building an integrated public health care strategy. We know the simple things have the most effective bang for the buck in development and improving population health. Corruption has to be dealt with by improving the public service. We have the ability to transform and translate our public service abilities to these countries.
In closing, we have a great ability within this House and our country to deal with the fundamental challenge of poverty here at home and abroad. I strongly encourage the government to work with the rest of us to tackle this inscrutable enemy of humankind.
