STFC Committee Meeting

SUB-COMMITTEE ON TAX EQUITY FOR CANADIAN FAMILIES WITH DEPENDENT CHILDREN OF THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON FINANCE

SOUS-COMITÉ SUR L'ÉQUITÉ FISCALE POUR LES FAMILLES CANADIENNES AVEC DES ENFANTS À CHARGE DU COMITÉ PERMANENT DES FINANCES

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Thursday, April 22, 1999

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[English]

The Chair (Mr. Nick Discepola (Vaudreuil—Soulanges, Lib.)): Good afternoon. Pursuant to the motion adopted by the Standing Committee on Finance dated March 17, 1999, the subcommittee now resumes its study on tax fairness for Canadian families.

I'd like to welcome to the committee from the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada its director, Maryann Bird. I don't have the name of the person accompanying you, Ms. Bird. Perhaps you could introduce her as you begin.

Ms. Maryann Bird (Director, Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada): Yes, I will.

The Chair: We have approximately 45 minutes. I'd ask you to maybe take 10 or 15 minutes to make your presentation and to leave at least half an hour for questions from members. But I leave that to your discretion. Welcome, and please begin.

Ms. Maryann Bird: Thank you very much. I'm pleased to be here today. I want to introduce my fine friend and colleague, Jamie Kass, who is a member of the Child Care Advocacy Association.

This is my first time dealing with this very imposing room. I would have to say that I'm a bit surprised. I understood we were going to be one of the delegates, along with the Canadian Labour Congress and a number of others. Perhaps some other people will be joining us.

The Chair: If you want to wait, we can do that, but there's nobody—

Ms. Maryann Bird: No, I'll begin.

The Chair: Okay. As they arrive, we'll ask them to join us.

Ms. Maryann Bird: Fine. Thank you very much.

I'm speaking today on behalf of the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada. We are a small organization with a very modest budget, a small office in Ottawa, and board members from across the country.

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My remarks to you will be very brief. I have submitted some notes to you, and we may follow them up with a more extensive brief. We put this together in slightly less than 48 hours.

I have to start with the caveat that I am far from being a tax analyst. My work has been in the areas of both children advocacy and child care advocacy over the past 20 years, most of it in British Columbia.

Our fundamental position is very simple regarding the elements of tax equity and support for Canadian families with dependent children. Despite the complexities of a tax analysis I might have difficulty with, we believe tax deductions and tax benefits are only one part of the kind of support Canadian families need in order to nurture their children to their optimal potential. Such deductions and benefits must be accompanied by the development of a comprehensive continuum of quality early childhood care and education services.

There's lots of confusion about early childhood care and education and what child care actually is and means, and I think it's worth defining. When we talk about a continuum of child care services, we mean services from drop-in programs and family resource programs right through to full and part-time child care in both group and family child care settings, including school-aged care. We're usually talking about infant care to 12 years of age.

We believe that only when a Canadian child care system is in place can we really address the needs of families in an equitable way, given the workforce participation of parents today where by far the majority of parents with children under the age of three—in fact, under the age of ten—are in the workforce.

We would go on to say that with a comprehensive, publicly funded child care system in place, families would then have real and meaningful choices, rather than the patchwork they face right now. They would have the choice to access quality care where they work or study, close to where they live, and appropriate to their particular family needs. They could access preschool or part-time programs if they choose to and are able to remain at home. Then perhaps women will be able to work or to go to school secure in the knowledge that their children are well cared for and that they are not being penalized financially for doing so.

As well, the Child Care Advocacy Association recognizes the need for and supports stronger work and family policies, including extended maternity and paternity benefits and family leave provisions. We want to ensure that families can develop that vital bond with their children before they return to work or school.

With a comprehensive strategy of deductions and benefits coupled with the publicly funded child care system in place, we may be able to say in the future that as Canadians we value our children and support their growth and development in their early years and that we have strengthened parents' ability to care for their children in the way that suits them best. We believe there needs to be a variety of strategies so that parents can make the choices that suit them best.

In closing, I'd like to quote from a recent editorial:

If our governments truly believe that men and women should be able to “choose” to work inside/outside the home, then governments must provide the environment to allow for such a choice.

That choice means fair and equitable tax laws that support parents' ability to care for our most valuable asset—our children.

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One of the comments I might make just as I conclude is that it has long been the position of those of us in the child care field that taxes alone cannot develop the kind of child care system we need. We need to think of the kinds of funds required to offset the patchwork of services we have across the country and to put in a more comprehensive child care system that is easily accessible for all families.

Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Ms. Bird.

We will now turn to members' questions. I would like to begin with Mr. Ritz.

Mr. Gerry Ritz (Battlefords—Lloydminster, Ref.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, ladies, for your presentation here today. You've been speaking about early childhood care and education and the role of the parent and the state. I'm wondering if you have some definite distinctions, or is there overlap in some of those programs? We see a lot of programs that attempt to work in concert but that actually end up working at cross purposes to the welfare of the child. There seem to be a tremendous amount of overlap and grey areas. Everybody's struggling for the same end result, but what's the best way to get there? How do we husband our tax dollars in such a way that we get the most bang for our buck?

Ms. Maryann Bird: I don't believe there is overlap meaning that there is duplication, but I would be the first to agree that what we have right now is a patchwork. In some places we have quality child care services, and in some places we don't. In some places we don't have any for children under the age of three. There's a great need for spaces. There are waiting lists everywhere for infant and toddler spaces. Right now what we need is a comprehensive plan that just begins to address what you suggest.

A number of reports have come out, such as that of the National Council of Welfare, which talks about preschool children. The report, entitled Promises to Keep, was released last week. On Monday Fraser Mustard released a report about the real brain drain.

We really need to define our language. We used to talk about preschool. Then there came a time when we talked mostly about child care. Now we're talking about early childhood care and education. Quite frankly, many of us believe that is probably the most comprehensive phrase, because we now know from the research that a great deal of learning is going on in the early years. So we do want to make sure that our children are well nurtured, which is reflected in the word “care”, but we also want to acknowledge and support the fact that children learn so much by the age of five. That's why we must be sure that the preschool and child care experiences we provide for our children are of the very best quality.

Mr. Gerry Ritz: In your research did you find any disparities between urban and rural? You talk about there not being enough places, this type of thing. Do you have numbers that would back up that type of thing? Have you done any work on the costing of a comprehensive plan that would be Canada-wide?

Ms. Jamie Kass (Member, Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada): In terms of figures, I think that's something we'd have to look into.

A lot of reports have highlighted the lack of quality options in rural Canada. I think you'll find pockets of some very interesting work being done to make child care accessible to farm communities. But in actual fact I think you'd hear from rural Canadians that there's a real lack of quality options out there.

What was the second part of your question?

Mr. Gerry Ritz: I'm just wondering if you've done any comprehensive costing on your—

Ms. Jamie Kass: A recent study was just done—and if you haven't seen it, you should get a copy—that did a cost-benefit analysis of good quality child care. It actually costed out what it would cost to provide comprehensive early childhood education and care. I think it was $7.5 billion. It looked at what are the benefits from that. It was done by two economists, and it was released by the Child Care Advocacy Association within the year, I think. In fact, what it looks at is that there's two dollars of gain for every dollar of cost. These two economists went through quite a detailed look at the benefits and costs, and that would be worth forwarding to your committee.

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Mr. Gerry Ritz: Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Ritz.

[Translation]

Mr. Cardin, please proceed with your questions.

Mr. Serge Cardin (Sherbrooke, BQ): You mentioned important social measures such as early childhood care and education services, as well as how much they can cost. Have you analyzed that aspect of family taxation?

[English]

Ms. Maryann Bird: I can say from what I know that we have not had the resources to do the analysis. There are some reports out there, but our association has not had the resources to look at it from the tax perspective, except to say from a labour force perspective—and I'll look forward to our colleagues from the CLC—that we know there are many families with young children who are not working and the impact that therefore has on the tax system, because they simply do not have quality care for their children. We know also that there are some very interesting initiatives developing in Quebec that we hope to learn more about.

[Translation]

Mr. Serge Cardin: We could develop some good tax policies for families that must use early childhood care and education services. Don't worry, during future hearings, witnesses will undoubtedly support your point of view and provide us with the figures on the impact the proposals will have on taxation. Thank you.

[English]

Ms. Maryann Bird: Thank you.

The Chair: I'd like to now turn to Ms. Jennings, please.

[Translation]

Ms. Marlene Jennings (Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, Lib.): Thank you for your presentation, Ms. Bird. You just mentioned some interesting initiatives in Quebec and you said that you had not yet had an opportunity to study them in detail.

Was one of the initiatives you were referring to the 1, 2, 3 GO! program that the United Way set up a few years ago? That program was launched in Laval and then extended to the Côte-des- Neiges area in Montreal as well as to the municipality of Longueuil on the south shore, if I am not mistaken. It focussed on young pre- school aged children and relied on support from the entire community, including the private sector, our financial institutions, community organizations and schools. It was a comprehensive support system for the entire family, and not just children. It seems that the results were excellent. The Royal Bank is one of the partners in this initiative that is based on the Head Start Program that exists in the United States and that was picked up by Moncton here, in Canada.

Should we establish a publicly funded national child care system? Doesn't the private sector have some responsibility in this area? You just stated that in many families, neither parents or parent, especially in the case of single-parent families, can work because of the dearth of good quality child care services for their children.

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I think that large companies here in Canada have ways of helping their employees who must use child care services. That might not be the case for small businesses with two to five employees or even perhaps 50 employees, but these businesses could think about creating partnerships and setting up a type of network to offer certain services, such as child care services, while the parents are at work. What do you think of that idea?

[English]

Ms. Maryann Bird: I think Jamie is going to start.

Ms. Jamie Kass: First of all, when we were talking about Quebec, we were talking really about the new family policy and the exciting sorts of things that are happening in Quebec in terms of the $5-a-day child care program that the government has put in place. What they're doing is reducing using the tax expense deduction and taking that out as they put in place an affordable, quality child care system. I think we as child care advocates across the country are really looking to Quebec for many of the things we've been wanting our national government to do.

So that is in fact the approach we support. Some of the implementation stuff might be problematic, but the real approach the government has taken is quite exciting for us. We think that will be a real support to families, both families within the paid labour force and those that are working at home.

In terms of the issue of employers and corporations putting into child care, we've really seen very little movement in the country on this issue. I work for an employer-sponsored child care fund, and when you really look at it, there's very little you can do and you'll never be able to benefit all the members or all the employees that need it. We've also found that there have been many cases where employers have sponsored actual child care centres at the workplace, but with the limited funding they put into it, the workers themselves can't afford to use the service. That has been very problematic, and almost the same fragility that is in community-based child care is replicated in workplace child care. So we do see it as one part of a system, but we really don't see it as the primary part.

[Translation]

Ms. Marlene Jennings: I fully understand what you have just explained, and I am aware that initiatives like that will not meet everyone's needs and cover all bases, but shouldn't we have some kind of mechanism in our tax system that would encourage initiatives like that, such as setting up community child care centres, for example? You said yourself that there has not really been much development in that area. Do you think that tax incentives could encourage initiatives like those?

[English]

Ms. Jamie Kass: I think we'd still say that what we want is a publicly funded child care system. If you read the cost-benefit analysis study, it really lays out that the benefits far surpass the expenditures. So if we're talking about a tax on corporations to support child care, there might be openness to look at that, but if we're talking about individual corporations taking responsibility, we don't see it happening and we often don't see it as the answer.

From the work I've done, and I've done extensive work on this issue of work-related child care, parents primarily want child care that's based in their community, not in their workplace, when given a choice. Once they have school-age children, they want the children in their community schools, not transferred to their work site. So when you really try to meet the individual needs of parents, which is what you have to do around child care issues, it's very difficult to do it centred on the workplace rather than on the child and meeting the needs of the child.

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Ms. Marlene Jennings: Thank you.

Ms. Maryann Bird: There is one supplementary response I'd like to make. I do see that there is a place for employers in terms of supporting employees with progressive benefits. In terms of top-up and in terms of extending maternity and paternity benefits and in terms of appropriate family leaves, we all know, any of us who have had young children, or in my case now—and I hate to say it, but I welcome saying it—in the case of grandchildren—there are always times when, simply, your family needs you.

When you have a progressive employer, which always of course enhances morale, therefore productivity, when you have progressive work and family policies, you have a much stronger workforce and you are able to fulfil your family commitments. I really think there is room there to engage further discussions with the private sector.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

I'd like to now turn to Mr. Herron, please.

Mr. John Herron (Fundy—Royal, PC): One of the issues I want to speak about has been touched on a little bit, so I don't know if you can expand on it much further—the $5-per-day child care program the province of Quebec is currently engaged in. I know you've made some references to it and you're looking forward to looking at that issue in the future. Can you expand on that a little more, about how successful you think that particular program will be in terms of something that should be replicated elsewhere in the country?

Ms. Jamie Kass: Quebec has put in place a comprehensive child care program for $5 a day per child in regulated care, with either a group-centre-based care or family day care, where a child is cared for in a provider's home. They started with five-year-olds and four-year-olds at $5 a day. Then after a year they reduced it to cover three, four, and five, and now they're starting two and up. The idea is that they'll progressively... I think by 2000 or 2001, they'll be covering all children.

I think it's quite interesting to see what that's meant in the growth of a regulated child care system. There's a planned growth both in providers and in centre-based care, so that they're expanding the system by—and other people might have the details—I think 85,000 spaces over the next three years. They're having a planned approach. And it means they're putting in place a funded system, where centres hopefully won't have to worry day by day, year by year, whether their centre is going to receive funding; parents won't worry whether the centre is so fragile that it won't be there the next day.

Along with that, they're putting in place, but haven't done it yet, the whole issue of parental leave and a top-up on the parental leave. So it's a comprehensive approach. It's there for working families and parents who choose to stay at home. It benefits both. It's not pitting one type of child against another. It's saying that good child care benefits all children.

Mr. John Herron: That might be a bit of a segue into my next question. We've heard some witnesses state and some of the members state as well that one of the things that, from a public policy perspective, should be advanced is extending the current term of a maternity leave, ensuring that another option is provided for caregivers to provide for a long period of time. Is that something you would strongly advocate?

Ms. Maryann Bird: Absolutely. It's the position of our association. It's absolutely clear, and research shows and we know what parents look for: parents want choice. Some mothers may choose to come back to the workforce after a period of months, but many would stay home longer if they had a more extended maternity leave and were sure their job would be protected for them until they could return.

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We've always thought a comprehensive quality early childhood system would be complemented by family policy. The two kinds of policies go together—child care and family policy. They need to be seen as complementary bookends.

There are clearly some parents, some women in turn, who would choose to return to the workforce after a year or 18 months. If you look at some of the research in countries in Europe, you'll see where those policies are in place and work very effectively. We could provide you with more information in detail about that.

Mr. John Herron: We would be interested in that, I'm sure.

I received a letter, dated yesterday, this morning from a constituent. She is a single-income parent, a single parent, who receives child support moneys and is in the process of raising three children under the age of 15. She has an extremely modest income. This year was one of her banner years, as of late. She states she was able to earn $30,000, including the child support she receives, some UI claims and from working, still while trying to rear three children under the age of 15. It's been one of her better years in that regard.

With the Supreme Court reference in the case of Mrs. Thibaudeau, if she goes back to the court to appeal to qualify to have her payments not tax deductible, in the middle income, she would win—and she should. But the Kathy Armstrongs of the world—my constituent—would lose.

So I wonder if you could comment on some of the policy initiatives people have been talking about for those people on low incomes, in terms not having the capacity to participate.

Ms. Maryann Bird: Do you mean the capacity to participate in the workforce?

Mr. John Herron: No, I mean the capacity to participate in the benefits of the program. Some programs exist that sometimes look after middle-income Canadians, which is marvellous, and maybe upper-income Canadians, which is okay as well. But the low-income Canadians are sometimes the people who are most in need, and some public policy initiatives actually—it turns out in this case—may hurt them the most.

So are they other programs, from a public policy perspective, we should watch out for—initiatives we could take that would hurt lower-income families?

Ms. Jamie Kass: Certainly when the initiative's taken around child care, that's something you have to really seriously look at. Right now child care is really not available to many in her situation. She might be making too much to get a child care subsidy from any provincial government, but way too little to afford quality child care. So it is people in her income level who are not in fact assisted at all through a child care program.

Those are the kinds of people who fall through the cracks, because they often feel their tax dollars support it, but they can't afford to use it. That's why, when we talk about child care and affordability, we're not just talking about putting in place an expense deduction, but putting in place services that are affordable.

Mr. John Herron: Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Herron.

I've been very liberal in this discussion, but I ask committee members to review the mandate and the purpose of the discussion.

Mr. Ritz, you have a very short question. Then I'd like to turn it over for final questions to Mr. Szabo, please.

Mr. Gerry Ritz: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

On the cost-benefit analysis you've alluded to a couple of times here, you talk about a two-to-one return on a $7.5 million investment in that program. Do you have any statistics on how long it would take after implementation to see that two-to-one return?

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Ms. Maryann Bird: First, we would see any systematic approach to putting in place a comprehensive child care program come into place over a period of time.

Second, in earlier studies and research you would typically begin to evaluate this over a generation. I think you're looking for a shorter answer, but we've been saying for a long time that in child care and in services for young children, we put in very few dollars over the first few years and then more dollars go in for youth at risk. We're trying to say let's take a look at this, turn it around and put more dollars into the early years. In other words, if we put a greater degree of emphasis on preventative, quality, early childhood services in those early formative years, we will very well see the result of that investment by the time the children are in their teens.

Mr. Gerry Ritz: So the $7.5 billion program you're talking about is actually expensed over the generation, over 20 years, not per year.

Ms. Maryann Bird: It's per year.

Mr. Gerry Ritz: So over a generation of 20 years you're going to spend $150 billion, and you expect a $300 billion return in social gain. Okay. Thank you.

Ms. Jamie Kass: And in women's participation in the labour force.

Mr. Gerry Ritz: Thank you.

The Chair: I know Mr. Szabo shares an awful lot of those comments there, so we'll let him continue.

Mr. Szabo, please.

Mr. Paul Szabo (Mississauga South, Lib.): I want to thank the group for their presentation. I support extended parental leave. I'm very familiar with Dr. Mustard's work and a lot of the research on the importance of the formative years. He was before the human resources development committee and described the first year of life as dynamite, simply dynamite, in terms of neural development—brain development.

I have also heard and seen the studies with regard to the payback on investing in children in the early years—anywhere from $2 up to as much as $7, depending on the intensity or quality of care provided. I think you have brought to the committee a very important linkage because we're not talking simply about dollars and cents, we're talking about outcomes for children. In fact, we're talking about an investment and not just spending.

So it probably makes a great deal of sense to look for an opportunity to be prudent. But how can we, with our limited resources, target those resources to get the best possible return? I want to thank you for that. It's important for all the members here at this committee to become familiar with that.

This morning we had a presentation from Richard Shillington, who has appeared before the finance committee on a number of occasions, but he came before us this morning as an individual. He provided us with, among other things, a graph that showed, for all families with children, regardless of the level of income, that the percentage of spouses, or moms, who worked full-time was only 35%. It ranged from 30% to 40%, depending on the level of income. We could show you this.

It showed that 65% of families with children, regardless of the income level, actually provides some amount of direct parental care in the home to their children. Some of those who work part-time could very well be managing by working shifts with the husbands. External or third party care might not be necessary, but the families might be making some sacrifices, in terms of their time with their children.

I thought I would raise that with you. Your statement that the majority of women are in the workforce may be true, in terms of full-time plus some other earned income on a part-time basis, but apparently, from the statistics, it is not true with regard to full-time versus those who provide some direct parental care to children.

Ms. Maryann Bird: I would want to look at those statistics. That certainly isn't what I'm familiar with.

Mr. Paul Szabo: Okay. It was a very important chart. It was very impressive.

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Dr. Mustard and others, actually the National Council of Welfare, in the big report they just came out with on the $7.5 billion or $8 billion cost shared with the provinces—and parents were going to pay a little bit—they were not contemplating ever providing national child care for three-year-olds. It was only three-year-olds and up. I think if you check that, for the first two years there was absolutely no provision for any services to infants and toddlers—zero.

Ms. Maryann Bird: It starts with three-year-olds, though, as I understand it.

Mr. Paul Szabo: It starts from three years of age.

Ms. Maryann Bird: It's three-, four-, and five-year-olds.

Mr. Paul Szabo: Correct. So even there with the $8 billion program, it doesn't take into account or provide any benefit for families who have children under the age of three. So the cost associated with a universal national day care for children is very substantial if you're using the National Council of Welfare figures. I wanted to point that out.

In Quebec as well, it's very interesting that their services actually start at age three and up. They were contemplating it, but now because of the oversubscription they have no more money to extend it. That's going to be problematic for the government, because they just maybe can't afford to follow through with their plans or their ideas simply because of the fiscal situation.

In view of all of that, that nobody either can afford or is even targeting zero, one, and two-year-olds, the first three years of life, can you advise the committee whether or not you have any suggestions to us as to how we can provide some equity for parents who in fact choose to have one of them stay in the home to provide direct parental care? Obviously an institutionalized day care is not going to benefit them.

Is there some other way that you could see to be inclusive of all families with children? We're talking about a children's issue here. What can we do for those who in fact provide direct parental care, who happen to represent 65% of all families?

Ms. Maryann Bird: Jamie will start, and I'll follow up.

Ms. Jamie Kass: First of all, let me just say that we don't see child care as institutionalized, and if it's institutionalized, we wouldn't say it's good care, okay?

If you haven't been in a child care centre, there are some wonderful ones in Ottawa. I worked many years in a group day care where we had six infants and thirteen toddlers in an old house in centretown, and this is not my view—

Mr. Paul Szabo: I didn't mean to be derogatory by using the term; I'm talking about the difference between—

Ms. Jamie Kass: I'm just saying that's sometimes people's view of what child care is, and I think we have to do something to break some of that.

Mr. Paul Szabo: Don't take offence. I'm sorry.

Ms. Jamie Kass: Well, that's my response when people use the word. It's like my response when people say—

Mr. Paul Szabo: How about “third-party care”?

Ms. Jamie Kass: —providers are babysitters. I think, well, have you seen a provider sit on a baby recently? This is changing our language and changing how we see a system.

I would say that part of what we see when we talk about early childhood care and education is playgroups, parent resource centres—

Mr. Paul Szabo: But the question was what can we do for those who provide direct parental care to their children?

Ms. Jamie Kass: Well, that's what I think we can do. I think that's a really important part—

Mr. Paul Szabo: For infants.

Ms. Jamie Kass: Sure.

Mr. Paul Szabo: Playgroups.

Ms. Jamie Kass: Absolutely. They're places where parents can get together, where mothers, if they are doing the primary care, can meet together and talk about parenting, to break down the isolation that women often feel in the home, community-based playgroups where people come together and there's equipment and toys and information and resources, toy-lending libraries where you can go in and look at different kinds of toys that are available and your kids can have different kinds of resources, and you might be able to check them out like you do from a public library. I think these are really important things to support women who are working at home.

I think what has happened often is that people see what they call “child care” as exclusive, as not being part of that system, but when we talk about it, we do see a whole range of services, parental support services that people with young children need.

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So when you go to a place where women have their children... I don't know if you've ever gone to the Y program for infants and their moms. They bring their kids and go through a swimming program with their kids, and they take their kids in the water. To me, that kind of thing is a supportive program.

So I think there's a whole range of supports we can provide to both women in the paid labour force who are on maternity leave and also those who are staying at home with their children.

Mr. Paul Szabo: Okay, I have one last question.

In urban Canada, I can understand that there would be a facility to be able to deliver community-based supports, but in rural Canada there's a slightly different situation, where the distances involved make it unreasonable and maybe not cost-effective to set up the infrastructure required for such programs because people are so spread out, and the accessibility, never mind the affordability, could in fact be the stopper.

Do you have any recommendations on what we could do to provide supports or equity for those who live in rural Canada?

Ms. Maryann Bird: There's a very innovative program going on out of Langruth, Manitoba. An expert in the rural child care area, a woman by the name of Jane Wilson, has set up a series of small child-care groups in a network of towns, where there are five or six children in each one of them. I'd be very happy to send you an overview of her program. It's very innovative, very responsive to the needs of small communities, and it still brings some caregivers and some children together for opportunities to socialize and support. It's based on what would be roughly called a “network system,” and she has developed this resource in a very innovative, very regionally responsive way.

In one of the places, it involves a family child care home that is a farm home. In another it involves church-related facilities, and so on. But what it does do is respond to the needs of rural families to make sure that their children are in safe, stimulating environments.

I think one of the things we would want to conclude with today is to suggest that child care advocates, wherever we are and whoever we are, always think of ourselves first as advocates for children, for the healthy growth and development of children. We've never considered pitting ourselves in any way in a different realm of the continuum from at-home parents, because we do see that some parents will choose to stay home longer than others, and at some point they may return to the workforce, at least part-time, and perhaps use school-age care when their children are older. There needs to be a range of resources that suit Canadian family needs today.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

I think that's an appropriate point you make in closing. Several people have already made that same point. I'd like to thank you for your presentation. We look forward to any other material you might want to provide to the committee.

On behalf of the committee, once again, thank you very much.

Ms. Maryann Bird: Thank you.

The Chair: I'd like now to introduce our next guests, from the Canadian Labour Congress, senior economist on social and economic policy, Mr. Andrew Jackson, as well as their executive vice-president, Ms. Nancy Riche.

I don't know who is going to be making the presentation on behalf of the congress, but the tradition is a five- or ten-minute presentation. We have only 40 or 45 minutes before our next guest, but I would like to leave as much time as possible for dialogue with members.

On behalf of the committee members, welcome.

Ms. Nancy Riche (Executive Vice-President, Canadian Labour Congress): Thank you very much.

I'll be the reader, and Andrew will answer the questions. I'll try to do this in ten minutes. I got only the last piece of the previous group, but I suspect we would be very supportive of most of their comments, and I would hope you would get a number of people saying pretty much the same thing.

We've passed out copies of the brief in French and in English. I'll read it for the record.

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The subcommittee has been asked to study the fairness of the current tax transfer system as it applies to families with dependent children. In this statement, I shall make some preliminary comments on current tax transfer issues from the Canadian Labour Congress perspective.

First, I should like to place the issues in a broader context. While we think it's important that a committee has been set up, we think some of the debate has been somewhat narrow. We'd like to speak to that.

It is important for the subcommittee to recognize that working families in Canada are overwhelmingly trying to balance work and family responsibilities in complex ways. In real terms, average family incomes have fallen by 4.5% since 1989, and the proportion of children living in poverty has risen from 15% to 20%. This is the result of the continuing jobs crisis, marked by high levels of unemployment and by the massive growth of precarious and badly paid jobs, particularly for women workers.

Some of the underlying trends were analysed in a recent CLC report on women's work. Partly for economic reasons, and partly because of their desire to be independent and to actively participate in the paid workforce, the great majority of adult women now hold, or are actively looking for, paid jobs. Now eight out of ten women aged 25 to 54 participate in the paid labour force, and two out of three women with children under age three work outside the home. The National Council of Welfare estimates that the poverty rate of two-parent families would double, from 10% to 20%, if it were not for the earnings of women.

The central point to be made, a point that cannot be overemphasized, is that the central issue facing most working families with children and working women is how to earn a decent income. The great majority of working families need two incomes, and dependence on one income is a luxury that can be generally afforded only by the relatively affluent.

Strikingly, the poverty rate for one-earner families with children is 25.6%, and it is 51.1% for single-parent families. Given this reality then, most families must balance paid work with family responsibilities, such as raising children and caring for elderly relatives and those with special needs. The unpaid work of women and some men in the home and in parenting makes a vital contribution to social well-being.

Governments and employers have made this task of reconciling paid work and domestic responsibility much more difficult than it should be and have profoundly failed to recognize the benefit to society as a whole of programs to meet the many different needs of children and working families. Canada lags far behind most European countries in putting in place an appropriate framework of policies and programs.

Working women and working families need extended paid maternity and parental leaves in order to make it possible for at least one parent to stay home with very young children. While we do have provisions for leave under UI, access is severely limited, replacement incomes are inadequate unless supplemented by employers, and most provinces allow for leaves from work of only 17 to 18 weeks, far less than in Quebec or in many European countries.

Working women and working families need provision for family responsibility leave from jobs. They need provisions requiring employers to pay equal pay and benefits to part-time workers so that parents can temporarily reduce their hours of paid work to spend time with young children. They need provisions to require employers to offer regular hours of work so that work and family responsibilities can be realistically balanced.

In these and other areas, there is a clear need for employment standards legislation to be strengthened to underpin and complement successful initiatives in collective bargaining.

Many appropriate recommendations can be found in the Donner report on working hours and the distribution of work and in the report Collective Reflection on the Changing Workplace. While both are government documents, I've brought them just in case the chair of the committee has not seen them and would like to have them.

Issues around part-time work have been on the agenda for at least twenty years. What is missing is neither analysis nor recommendations, but a willingness on the part of government to act.

The other major initiative that has to be taken is to establish a national not-for-profit child care and early childhood education program. The kind of program we support has been described elsewhere and in fact many times, and you've probably heard it most eloquently from the previous presenters. It would be built by federal-provincial cooperation, and it would be varied and decentralized to meet the many different needs of children and working families. An early childhood education program would, it should be stressed, be open to the children of parents who choose to stay at home with their children.

• 1625

It is against this broad background that we should assess the fairness and adequacy of the current tax-transfer system.

First, under the current system individuals are taxed on the basis of individual income, not on the basis of family or household income. We believe this system should continue, since it recognizes the right of women to economic independence. Moving to a family-based income system would be highly objectionable, since it cannot be simply assumed, as many do, that income is shared between men and women within the household, even when both parents work outside the home.

Research has in fact shown that many women retain their financial independence within relationships. Moving to a family-based income tax system would mean that the lower-earning spouse, usually a woman, would be taxed at her husband's higher marginal tax rate. This would effectively discourage many women from working outside the home and encourage the return of an outdated single-male-earner family model.

While it is important to recognize that many women with children may choose not to work outside the home, at least for a period of time, it is also important to remind ourselves that family relationships are unstable. It is clear that the breakup of family relationships has particularly negative consequences for women who have little job experience. Further, families are by no means necessarily relationships of equals. Research by feminist economists has shown that the power of a woman to make decisions within the family both over spending and over other issues is influenced by the contribution women make to household income.

The key point is that the tax system should not act as a barrier to the economic independence of women. Our system of individual taxation should be retained, even if it does mean that families with the same income sometimes pay somewhat different amounts of tax, depending upon the division of earnings between partners.

The second key feature of the current system is that while it is individuals who are taxed, benefits for children are provided on the basis of household income. The Canada child tax benefit and the GST tax credit for children are highest for very-low-income families and are phased out as household income rises. There are a host of specific issues raised by the design of these credits, but the underlying principle of household income testing is arguably a reasonable way of dealing with the pressing issues of child poverty and low income.

In an ideal world, we would restore family allowances at a level sufficient to cover the costs of raising children and make the income tax system sufficiently progressive that very-high-income families received only a modest after-tax benefit. However, the cost of introducing such a system would be high, and large amounts of money would have to be paid out to families and then taxed back.

While the CCTB is a reasonable general approach to recognizing the real costs of raising children while addressing child poverty, there are a number of issues that must be addressed. First, social assistance recipients, the poorest of the poor, should be eligible for the full benefit, and the benefit should be paid regardless of the source of income. Second, the basic benefit, along with GST credits, has to be significantly increased and fully indexed to inflation if we are to seriously deal with child poverty. Third, the benefit should be phased out more slowly as family income rises. A problem with the current system is that most of the benefit is lost by the time a family reaches an average income level. So families with children are taxed almost as heavily as families with no children, even though significant expenses arise and more people have to live on the same income. It should be remembered that the introduction of the child tax benefit in place of family allowances and tax deductions for children resulted in a large income loss for middle-income families with children.

The third major feature of the current tax system is the deduction for child care expenses. This does not discriminate against families where one parent stays at home, since the deduction is for expenses incurred in earning an additional income. However, the deduction is unfair, in that it must be claimed by the spouse with the lower earnings, meaning that the actual cash benefit is highest to our affluent families, where the lower income earner is in the highest tax bracket. Much worse, the deduction is of little use to the majority of working families, who pay for informal child care for which no receipts are issued. While major issues would be involved in a transition, the CLC takes the position that the deduction should be eliminated as part of the creation of a national not-for-profit child care and early childhood education system open to all families.

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To conclude this statement, the committee should not overly emphasize small apparent inequalities of the tax system in terms of the way different families are treated, but should address the most pressing issues. The reality of working families today means that attention should be paid to creating a better balance between work and family responsibilities through employment standards and through the creation of a national child care and early childhood education program. Higher child benefits must also be paid to low-income and middle-income families.

Moving on this agenda would better allow families to make choices within current social and economic realities. The committee should not heed the voices of those who want to use the tax system to restore an idealized family of the past, to limit options for women, and to block collective responses that benefit today's children and families and society as a whole.

The Chair: Thank you, Mrs. Riche.

I'd like to turn quickly to Mr. Ritz for his first set of questions.

Mr. Gerry Ritz: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you for your presentation here today.

Looking at page 4, right up at the top, you talk about how “Our system of individual taxation should be retained, even if it does mean that families with the same income sometimes pay somewhat different...” That is, discrepancies in the tax code. And then further down, in the latter part of the last paragraph, you say that “A problem with the current system is that most of the benefit is lost by the time a family reaches an average income level, so families with children are taxed almost as heavily as families with no children”.

There seems to be, to me, a bit of a discrepancy there in what you're talking about, unless I'm missing the point. I'd like a little clarification there, if I could.

Ms. Nancy Riche: I'll try. I could be missing the point too, because he's the economist.

I think in the top paragraph we're talking about the income tax, and in the last paragraph we're talking about the child tax benefit that is reduced. We think it should be retained, the higher up the scale.

Mr. Gerry Ritz: But one is based on the other. How do we break the two apart so that we don't have this—

Ms. Nancy Riche: Am I correct? I think I'm correct, but...

Mr. Andrew Jackson (Senior Economist, Social and Economic Policy, Canadian Labour Congress): Nancy is indeed correct. The first point is if we have an individual-based tax system, you can have two families with the same family income who will pay somewhat different tax, depending on how it's divided between the men and women. But it's the family income that counts for how much child tax benefit they get. So they would be in the same position there.

Mr. Gerry Ritz: I have one other short point. You state in your brief that:

The third major feature of the current tax system is the deduction for child care expenses. This does not discriminate against families where one parent stays at home, since the deduction is for expenses incurred in earning an additional income.

What types of expenses do you think are incurred in earning that additional income that actually would fall into the tax code?

Mr. Andrew Jackson: I think what we're trying to say here is that where one partner is working outside the home, usually the woman, child care expenses will be incurred, and that obviously those are the expenses that apply for the deduction. So I think the deduction for expenses is a deduction for money that is actually paid out; therefore, it does not discriminate against families where usually the woman stays at home.

Mr. Gerry Ritz: Thank you.

The Chair: No more questions?

Mr. Gerry Ritz: No.

[Translation]

The Chairman: Mr. Cardin, please.

Mr. Serge Cardin: You said that the child tax benefit is based on family income and that it decreases as the income goes up. Ideally speaking, should the amount of the child tax benefit be based on one salary, and if yes, which one?

[English]

Ms. Nancy Riche: We supported the child tax benefit being based on family income. Our point was that the middle-income family loses it too soon in the process. We would maintain it, but we support that it be based on the household income, not on one or the other.

[Translation]

Mr. Serge Cardin: Are you in favour of universality, or in other words that parents receive benefits regardless of their income? Or would you prefer benefits to decrease more gradually?

• 1635

[English]

Ms. Nancy Riche: No, that they less gradually decrease, that we would allow the benefit to continue for a longer period of time.

As expenses increase for children, as they get older and they're losing the benefit by virtue of the increase in their income—again, when they have more expenses for children, they're losing the benefit. We would continue the benefit.

Mr. Andrew Jackson: We'll just recap a bit of history. I guess if we go back a number of years, we were strong supporters of the old family allowance, which was a universal entitlement. It was paid out to all families and then it was taxed back on the basis of household income. So the net benefit to the high-income end was—

Mr. Paul Szabo: It wasn't taxed. It was taxed in the hands of the higher-earning spouse.

Mr. Andrew Jackson: Yes, you're right. And it wasn't taxed at all until 1973, in fact, and then it was trebled in value.

Mr. Paul Szabo: There was no clawback. We didn't get into that ugly clawback until a little bit later.

Mr. Andrew Jackson: Yes, you're right. It was taxable in the hands of the high...

I think the point is that as a central principle, if you could imagine a system in which we paid out family allowances to everybody, which actually covered the costs of raising children, then you would basically be eliminating child poverty to the extent that parents at least made enough money to support adults.

Basically, if we had a decent minimum wage plus a good family allowance, we'd be dealing with the poverty issue. And then if you had a progressive tax system, the cost of that would be quite limited, to the extent we're really taxing it back. But to create that system, realistically, you would be paying out billions and billions of dollars and then taxing it back. We argued about that for a long time.

I think what we're saying, realistically, here and now, is the child tax benefit is there, and it's a reasonably good compromise. You pay out more at the bottom, you phase it out.

There was a recent paper by Ken Battle, from the Caledon Institute of Social Policy, done for the tax policy conference. I think what he shows clearly is that compared to the system we did have, middle-income families are getting much, much less in child benefits than was the case.

I find it kind of ironic. It was the right that was saying “Get rid of family allowances, get rid of these child tax benefits”, and now ten years later everybody is screaming that this is unfair to families. It's been a very strange shift in the debate, I think.

[Translation]

The Chairman: Do you have any further questions, Mr. Cardin?

Mr. Serge Cardin: You say that the child tax benefit is for all intents and purposes a good compromise. If you had the choice, would you prefer going back to the family allowance principle, with of course the amounts being adjusted in keeping with today's needs?

[English]

Mr. Andrew Jackson: I think if you want to set out what would be an ideal system, as a benchmark to move toward, I would say that would be the best system, and then complement it with a set of child care services to families with children.

What everybody is saying is people need to recognize the contribution of families who are raising children. If you pay out a significant benefit to all families, I think you recognize that contribution. Then realistically, you tax then on the basis of total household income.

Ms. Nancy Riche: I'd just like to add to that a bit. Number one, one of the reasons Newfoundland joined Confederation was the family allowance, or baby bonus, as they called it then. But I think all of these discussions in the context of tax benefits or family allowance must also be coupled with an umbrella discussion of a philosophy about families and children and children's role in society. While some of this will get to it, our brief really wants to talk about the broader context.

We can deal with this piece in committee because it was raised in the House and there was a motion and that sort of stuff. And we can argue family allowance and that, but we won't get to an answer about what the state or what society feels about children by fixing these little pieces. So it's also important—yes, we'd go back to family allowance if we really believed in society's responsibility for children too.

• 1640

If we can get back to the thinking that this country used to have, as opposed to choices and everybody's an individual and sink or swim and if your kids end up not eating tonight, well, you made the wrong choice... This is the problem, and this is what brings us here: the continuous battle that these reduced taxes that couldn't get in any other way have now come in in some really quite dishonest attempt for people to pretend they care about women who work in the home.

I find this one of the most sinister things we've had to deal with in terms of the citizens for tax reform, or whatever it is they call themselves out there. They couldn't win on this, couldn't win on that, and they really think that somehow or other women are going to jump to this and say the right wing is concerned about them and is allowing them choices. Well, quite frankly, folks, I think that's bullshit.

What they're saying is go back to the home, women, where you should be, and we'll keep you there until we want to put you in cheap, lousy jobs out there so you can, as they used to say, buy the refrigerator. In the meantime, yes, we would agree with family allowance.

The Chair: Thank you.

Ms. Jennings, please.

Ms. Marlene Jennings: I really enjoyed your presentation, particularly—

The Chair: But you stick to parliamentary language, though?

Ms. Marlene Jennings: I always do.

Ms. Nancy Riche: Oh, is that not parliamentary? I'm not a parliamentarian.

The Chair: Only if you're a parliamentarian.

Ms. Marlene Jennings: That's right, and that's part of the reason I enjoyed your presentation. You're not bound by the same rules as I am. I also enjoyed your—I won't call it a diatribe, because it wasn't—very clear statement on the issue of the right making themselves out to be the defenders of women and women's rights.

I agree with you when you talk about the issue that there needs to be a national policy for early child care and education. I also agree with you when you say the fiscal system as it now stands is based on taxation of the individual, and that's one of the ways this society and this government has helped in a small measure to ensure some form of economic independence for women.

I can tell you that the Liberal women's caucus, when there was talk of moving the seniors benefit to a family-based calculation of revenue rather than individual, worked on that for over a year, about 18 months. We were able to convince the government not to go that route, that it would in fact be disadvantageous for women. The studies had all shown that senior women are particularly fragile when it comes to providing for themselves economically.

When you talk about the child tax benefit and the need for the cut-off to be graduated, not to take place as rapidly, that the cuts should be lessened, do you have any kind of study that would actually show how it is right now and how you recommend it to be? For instance, right now if you have a family income of say $40,000—and it's hypothetical—you're cut off at that point. Your point is that the middle-income families are the ones that have actually suffered the most by the change in the policy, and that perhaps it should only be phased out at $60,000 or at $70,000 family income. That is what we are talking about: when we talk about middle-income families we're talking between about $35,000 a year up to about $70,000. Can you provide us with that?

Ms. Nancy Riche: No.

Mr. Andrew Jackson: The short answer is no. I think the dilemma is clearly that we do have a major problem with child poverty, which has to be addressed, and it's very difficult to say that extending the benefit to middle-income families and that they get more should take some priority over improving it at the bottom.

• 1645

I think that through the alternative budget and other statements we've sort of said that passing on that benefit in full to families on social assistance should be an immediate priority. Since there is some sequencing of priorities, I think if we fully indexed the benefit to inflation in the phase-out, at least we would stop the hidden erosion of it that is taking place now. So I think those would be good places to start.

Ms. Marlene Jennings: When we talk about full indexation, slowing the phase-out, and increasing the benefit at the lower income levels to attempt to reduce child poverty in a meaningful way, on a hierarchy of priorities, if it had to be done in a stage-by-stage way, which would be number one, number two, and number three?

Ms. Nancy Riche: These are a really tough questions.

Ms. Marlene Jennings: I know they are, but those are questions we have to deal with as well.

Ms. Nancy Riche: You can do all three. You're the government.

Ms. Marlene Jennings: No, we don't have the money to do it.

Ms. Nancy Riche: Come on, I know where you can get $27 billion by next March. It's through the UI fund.

Ms. Marlene Jennings: You know as well as I do that it's virtual.

Ms. Nancy Riche: I know.

It's very difficult, but I think you start from a different place.

Ms. Marlene Jennings: Okay.

Ms. Nancy Riche: If the child tax benefit is phased out at $29,000, that's pretty low. A $35,000 salary is pretty low. So that's important. But I think if we start—

Mr. Paul Szabo: If you're making $70,000, you can get the child tax benefit.

Mr. Andrew Jackson: The last dollar—

Mr. Paul Szabo: No, you still can get some. It doesn't totally disappear until after $70,000.

Ms. Nancy Riche: But I think if we start from a—

The Chair: There are only a few minutes left, and I'd like to use the time wisely.

Ms. Nancy Riche: Wait now, can I just respond?

This is what I was trying to say before. If we take it one, two, three, it's going to be difficult. I know this is not your mandate, but the committee could say that what we want to do is go as far as we can on the elimination of child poverty. Now, which things can this committee recommend? So instead of picking one of the three, there may be a piece of each of the three. That's better than trying to find one spot, because I think that's really tough. I wouldn't want to be making the decisions. But perhaps we could start from a different place.

This committee is a tough committee, a hard-nosed committee that deals with numbers and stuff, so compassion coming out of the subcommittee on finance would be a real breakthrough.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh.

The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Riche.

Ms. Nancy Riche: Do we have to go now?

The Chair: Mr. Herron, please.

Mr. John Herron: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank the witnesses for their presentation today. I'll use that as a backdrop, but I disagree with a couple of points that were put forward. I come from the environment committee—

Ms. Nancy Riche: So what do you know?

Mr. John Herron: —so what do I know in that regard?

Earlier today one of the witnesses pointed out that the workforce is changing to a large degree and that women are playing an increasingly higher role within the economy. You mentioned in your brief on page 3 that you were concerned that if we were to visit the issue of income-splitting, we would perhaps advocate an outdated single-male-earner family model. I think even that description would be far more outdated, because I think it's quite conceivable that in the information age the female in the relationship has just as much or potentially perhaps a higher aptitude when it comes to earnings.

In my opinion, for what it's worth, through you, Mr. Chair, with that being the analysis, using a family unit as a taxation base may not necessarily be an “anti-woman's day in the kitchen” kind of approach. This is not the era of Ward and June Cleaver any more. It's a different era we're heading in in terms of the economy. I'm a little concerned about that perspective.

The other comment—

The Chair: We have only about ten minutes left, and there are three questioners including yourself, so maybe you could ask your questions and leave some time for answers.

• 1650

Mr. John Herron: This will simply be my comment. You pointed out that $35,000 in salary isn't really that much. In a family unit it's conceivable that if one person were to earn $70,000, I don't think our system of taxation should have...

On page 4 you say:

Our system of individual taxation should be retained, even if it does mean that families with the same income sometimes pay somewhat different amounts of tax depending upon the division of earnings between partners.

I think that might be a relatively dangerous comment.

My last comment is with regard to the so-called right not having a compassionate heart. I don't think anybody should misrepresent the sincere attempts of some individuals from different parties and why they tabled this motion in the first place. I do believe this is a child care issue as well.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Nancy Riche: I'll start and Andrew can finish.

I didn't say the right didn't have a compassionate heart. I could have said it. I said that I hoped this committee would be compassionate.

I want to talk about women in the workplace. I don't want to be flippant. Yes, we have a higher aptitude, but that's not reflected in the jobs women are getting and the salaries they are being paid. There has been countless research done in terms of the value of women's work. Yes, a few women are rising up, there's no doubt about it, but generally speaking, in this country today women are earning 70¢ for every dollar a man makes—unless they're unionized, and then it's different and it gets better.

The changing reality of the workplace—and it is a reality, and we're not saying we'd like to stop it, but we can't stop it—is that women are still ending up in the jobs that are the lowest paid. They are ending up quite often in the jobs that do not have regular hours of work, that are shift work. We have people in this country now who are on call 24 hours a day. It may be a comfortable feeling to say that women have a higher aptitude and can make all this money. That's not what's happening out there. That is not the case.

So I think we have to understand that the new workplace is not doing good things for women. They are in fact still in the same sectors of sales, service, and clerical. They're still making a lot fewer dollars than men are for jobs of the same value, if you like. We are starting to understand the concept of equal pay for work of equal value, and it's not working for women.

On the taxation, I'll just say right off the top that we don't think it's erroneous. We agree with this statement.

I'll pass it over to Andrew to talk about taxes on the individual income.

Mr. Andrew Jackson: Having an individual-based tax system does mean that you can get somewhat different tax rates, depending on how the income is divided between the two. I think that's just a consequence of having an individual-based tax system. If we're going to have an individual-based system on the grounds we've mentioned, I don't think it's a great inequity. It's just a consequence. That's just the way it is.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Herron.

Ms. Dockrill, please.

Ms. Nancy Riche: Don't worry that I disagree with you.

Mrs. Michelle Dockrill (Bras d'Or—Cape Breton, NDP): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to stick with the first question I've asked all of the witnesses. One of the first presentations we had, Nancy, was by the Status of Women. I thought the first page in the presentation was really important, and I'll just read it to you. It says “Dependent care is the key issue—how do families meet income and care needs?” The second part of the presentation said “The answers may not all be in the tax system”. What I hear you saying is that you agree that the answers are not all there.

My colleague talked about extending maternity benefits. Recent statistics I've seen somewhere here indicate that 44% of mothers now qualify for maternity leave. I know that the CLC has done a lot of research with regard to the EI, and I'm wondering whether from your research this figure can be attributed to the changes in the unemployment insurance rules.

Ms. Nancy Riche: We can't say for sure. Some of it has to do with the lower birth rate, but the lower birth rate is lower than the number of women qualifying for maternity benefits under UI.

• 1655

For example, if the birth rate went down 2%—and these are not the actual figures—the number of women qualifying for maternity benefits under UI would go down by 27%. It's the combination of both. The big thing is, of course, the second child... or actually, the big thing is having had those number of hours to qualify. As we just talked about, if you're in a part-time job, you're not able to.

As an example, people who work as teaching assistants, and most of them would be women, who work for ten months a year on a 30-hour week and are laid off in June cannot qualify for UI because they do not have the number of hours. And if you're pregnant, you have to have 700 hours. So it's a bit of both. Certainly the UI changes have an impact.

Ms. Michelle Dockrill: On the second part of that, do you feel, again, from your research, that the changes to the EI have forced a large number of women back into the workforce while their children are young?

Ms. Nancy Riche: Are the changes in UI affecting women going back to work? I don't know.

Michelle, ask me that in a different way, because I'm going to say no.

Ms. Michelle Dockrill: Have the changes in UI forced the women back into the workforce earlier?

Ms. Nancy Riche: Earlier. You mean after maternity? Well, I'm not sure, only if they think they're going to have another baby and they need the 700 hours. If they don't think there's going to be a second child very quickly, they may not...

In your head, you never think you're going to need UI. You don't go to work planning to go on unemployment insurance. Most recently, with all the publicity around it, I would be really concerned that with what we've seen and the media's attention to it and the fact that women have lost on the second child, they may very well go back.

But I think there's a bigger question: the low amount of income you get on maternity leave. It used to be 66 2/3%. It's down to 55%. If you've been on lay-off in the last bunch of years, it's 50%, and a lot of non-union employers do not top up. A number of union employers top up UI to 95% of salary, but non-unionized would not. I think what it does is keep women working long after they should be off on maternity leave, and yes, with the changes, that may force them back, because they're not getting anything. They might be getting 50% of income.

To go back to the previous questioner, if they're in low-paying jobs, 50% of low pay is even lower. So the answer to your question is yes. I had to work it through in my head.

Mrs. Michelle Dockrill: I have one more question.

You talked in your presentation about the child tax benefit and the fact that, as we know, it's great to say that it's given but then we recognize that the province takes it back. Do you think that's a priority that has to be addressed within this whole broader context?

My point is that it's really not benefiting a large number of the children it should be benefiting, because it's given in one hand and it's taken back.

Mr. Andrew Jackson: I guess the federal-provincial agreement has been that the provinces are allowed to deduct the increase in the benefit from the provincial social assistance payment, provided it goes into services. Effectively what it has meant is that the poorest of the poor have been excluded from the benefit.

I think where you have to look at the issue is in terms of depth of poverty as well. Obviously it varies a bit by province, but families on social assistance with children are well below the poverty line. It creates a wedge between social assistance families and working poor families, which in some ways is not an official distinction, because so many people move back and forth between those categories anyway.

The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Dockrill.

To conclude, Paul has a very short question, but he warns me that the answer might be very long.

• 1700

Mr. Paul Szabo: We received some information this morning from Richard Shillington on the participation of women in the labour force, showing the different ranges of income of the husband, and also on an average. The figures he provided seemed to be at odds with what you provided. So I wonder if you would undertake to provide the reference or source of the statistics that are on page 1 of your submission, so that we could have a look at where the numbers came from and how to compare them.

To give you an idea, the total average was that only 35% of women participated in the workforce in a two-parent family in full-time jobs.

Mr. Andrew Jackson: Well, I think full-time jobs...

Mr. Paul Szabo: In any event, the question is would you undertake to provide the reference?

Mr. Andrew Jackson: Sure, I'd be happy to provide that, but the numbers are out of the labour force survey.

Mr. Paul Szabo: Okay. My question has to do with the child care expense deduction. I'm almost in agreement with you about reintroducing the family allowance. It seemed to be valued or cherished, and I think a lot of people missed it when it went, because you couldn't see it any more and you weren't getting it regularly. You had to wait until you got a refund cheque for the tax return.

I want to ask you whether in your opinion the child care expense deduction is an employment expense or a social benefit.

Ms. Nancy Riche: Mr. Jackson will answer that.

Mr. Andrew Jackson: I think the reason it's there is because under the tax system we recognize that you should only be taxed on a net income, right? If you incur substantial expenses involved in earning that income, that's appropriately recognized by deductions. I think that's the origin of it.

Frankly, I think it has grown because of the fact that we failed to put in place the child care system. It seems to me that the child care community has been advocating a national program for a long time and we've been using that deduction to kind of fill the gap and make it do something it was never really intended to do.

Mr. Paul Szabo: Thank you. I just found it interesting that you were advocating replacing it by going back to the family allowance—in fact, instituting a social benefit to replace an employment expense. It's a contradiction, but I understand.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The Chair: Thank you.

Ms. Riche, you volunteered to provide us with two reports, the Donner report as well as the Collective Reflection on the Changing Workplace report. If you don't mind leaving those with the clerk, I would appreciate it. We will endeavour to have them made available to all committee members.

Ms. Nancy Riche: Yes. They're easy to get at HRD.

The Chair: Okay.

Ms. Nancy Riche: They're two reports that were very good, and nobody seems to care about them. One was done by the Department of Labour itself.

The Chair: All right. Thank you to both of you for your fine presentation.

We have with us now, from the Ottawa-Carleton Child Poverty Action Group, its president, Lynn Sherwood. And presenting on an individual basis, we have Sylvie Brin.

Have you decided between you who is going to present first, or would you like me to choose? Very good.

Ms. Lynn Sherwood (President, Ottawa-Carleton Child Poverty Action Group): I'm here representing Ottawa-Carleton Child Poverty Action Group. We are a non-profit voluntary organization in Ottawa-Carleton of social service professionals and some social service agencies. We have no paid staff. We have no budget from anybody. We're involved on a purely voluntary basis.

I have been a social worker for 30 years. I've been working with individuals and families in the Ottawa area during all of that time.

When we were asked to make a presentation to this group, we had 48 hours notice. I knew Richard Shillington had a lot of really groovy graphs, so I thought it would be better if I could get one of the people we work with to speak on her own behalf for the kinds of things we deal with as social service professionals on a daily basis.

A lot of my work is involved in trying to bridge the gap between the universal programs you guys dream up and the reality of the lives of the broken people who come to my office for help.

• 1705

I have a vision in my mind of universal programs as being a huge dragnet that goes through the ocean of Canada, scooping up everything in its path, and myself as being some kind of person who's assigned to deal with the wounded and broken bodies that are caught in its net and thrown aside entirely inadvertently without the big fishing boat even noticing what's happening to these folks.

I asked Sylvia if she'd be willing to present, because she's a very articulate woman who exemplifies the kind of situation we deal with on a daily basis. I have no real solutions; I have a lot of ideas. I think we need to be thinking about a new way of going at things, not simply tinkering with the system, which does not respond to the needs of the individuals it's supposed to serve. I'll turn it over to Sylvia now.

Ms. Sylvia Brin (Individual Presentation): Hi. I'm Sylvia Brin. I have two children. My youngest child is three and my oldest is four. I work on a full-time basis for the federal government as a secretary, and I earn an annual income of approximately $32,500.

Every day I worry about my personal finances. I wonder if I'm going to be able to afford to put food on the table, clothe the children, ensure that they have what they need to be healthy and happy. I wonder how I'm going to keep my head above water.

I had to leave the father of the children because he was physically and emotionally abusive toward me during the entire time we were together. There was no remedy to the situation. I struggle day to day with managing the responsibilities of work, caring for the children, keeping a decent home, and coping with the problems that life throws my way.

After I left my spouse, Revenue Canada contacted me in order to ask if I had been living with anyone in 1995. I had done my federal income tax for that time period, and had received a refund. My spouse had not filed his income tax for 1995 and therefore I had to reimburse Revenue Canada. This amount was deducted from me so that I received less money from the monthly child tax benefit. Revenue Canada has advised me that until my former spouse files his 1995 income tax claim, no credits for dependent children would be given. Therefore I ended up having to pay tax on my income with no deductions for dependent children. Nothing further can be done until my former spouse files his 1995 claim.

Furthermore, I lived in Quebec in 1995, so a second income tax submission was required for the province. I have not filed the 1995 Quebec tax forms because an accountant friend has told me that an accurate claim cannot be filed if my former spouse does not provide the necessary information. It is likely that I would have to pay $1,000 to Revenue Quebec for 1995. However, if my former spouse had submitted his 1995 claim, then I would probably be in a refund position. My lawyer has requested this information from my former spouse on numerous occasions. Nothing has been provided to date.

In more recent months I lost the subsidized day care that I had and discovered that it appears to be impossible to obtain subsidization at the day care centre that the children are now attending. This has put an additional financial strain on my situation. The day care that I currently have costs $1,200 a month. I earn a net amount of $1,800 a month. This is a $600 difference. The Ministry of Social Services was supposed to provide a maximum of $1,048 a month to supplement my income. In the month of March I received $818. From November until February, I received approximately $400 to $500 a month from social services instead of the maximum amount of $1,048 that I was told I would get.

It appears that the Ministry of Social Services has deducted the national child tax benefit supplement from what they have been giving me. I am guessing that since I filed my 1997 income tax late, and received a large lump sum, this was deducted in large amounts from the amount the Ministry of Social Services has been giving me.

I have made numerous calls asking the social workers how I can be expected to survive on what I am being given. Sometimes it feels like the load is too great, but I realize I have to keep on going, because I want a better life for myself and the children. I have felt great disappointment and frustration with a system I believed was put in place to help me, which instead seems to be beating me back down with each effort I make to get on my feet again.

• 1710

I did not make such a plan for my life, and I did not plan to bring two children down this path with me. I'm here today to give you a little snapshot of my life. I hope my experience in some way plays some small part in putting the wheels in motion for positive change.

I've provided copies of this, including a list of monthly expenditures. From my calculations, without including food or miscellaneous—for example, the car breaks down or something like that—I would be in the negative by $133 a month. So I'm accruing debt. Instead of getting back on my feet, I'm sinking further into a hole.

Two of the issues I heard you address were regarding UI. With UI, I worked right until the end with both pregnancies so I could be with the children for a longer period of time before I returned to work. The greatest problem I had in returning to work was being able to find available care, because the waiting lists for child care are two years long. How can you plan that you're going to be pregnant a couple of years from now? So how do you plan to have day care a couple of years ahead of time? You can't add your name to the list until you actually know you are having a child. Also, day care is so unaffordable that had I not had the subsidy, I would not have been able to return to work.

The Chair: Thank you.

Ms. Sherwood, would you like to conclude or add anything, or is that it?

Ms. Lynn Sherwood: This situation is the kind of daily issue I deal with in my practice. Sylvia has a great many personal issues to deal with in getting her children reorganized, coping with her spouse, and all the problems associated with that. Not being able to keep her head above water financially, when she's nominally earning a good salary, is the icing on the cake, from her point of view.

One of the biggest problems we see is federal universal programs, no matter what they are, are intended to support people, but you can't keep avoiding responsibility for what the provinces decide to do. You give a child tax benefit and the province taxes it back.

I have clients on welfare and I debated bringing one of them here today. She doesn't get a national child benefit. Her net income was something like $11,000 last year. She's getting $920 a month to live on, and the government's clawing back her little bit of extra money. These kinds of indignities and insults to people make their burden a great deal harder.

I have another client whose husband was sent to jail. She has three children. She had to declare bankruptcy. She's getting $830 a month and has been put on the Ontario works program because her youngest kid is five years old and they figure she ought to be able to get out there and get a job. She can't.

The bankruptcy trustee charges her $125 a month to administer it, plus they're clawing back her national child benefit and her GST rebate. She comes to me for food vouchers every month. This is ridiculous. It doesn't work, and we have to do something different. Sylvia's situation is a perfect example of it.

That's all I can say.

The Chair: We'll turn now to members' questions and maybe we can get into the subject matter a bit more.

Ms. Sylvia Brin: I'd like to ask just one question.

The Chair: Yes.

Ms. Sylvia Brin: What kind of job performance would you expect to get out of a secretary who's going through this amount of stress all the time? What would you expect the effect to be on my job performance?

The Chair: Are you asking me that question? I mean, it's obviously a very difficult—

Ms. Lynn Sherwood: During the winter Sylvia was living in Bells Corners and working in Hull, right?

Ms. Sylvia Brin: I work at Place de Ville. I had to drive to Vanier for child care and then back downtown again.

The Chair: Every committee member around this table sympathizes with you. We have a severe, strict mandate. This is only a subcommittee of the finance committee. Maybe during the pre-budget consultation report hearings in the fall you would like to make another presentation there where we look at full budget measures we would like to recommend to the minister. That might be more appropriate.

• 1715

We have a very strict mandate, as I said before, and it is to look at equity in the taxation system with regard to families with or without dependent children. So that's what we're looking at, and it's a very restricted mandate. This committee may not be able to address an awful lot of the concerns you and some other presenters have expressed today, but I still welcome you to continue to make presentations in the fall.

Anyway, let's get into the questions. You might be able to get some insight.

Ms. Sylvia Brin: Okay.

The Chair: Mr. Ritz, please.

Mr. Gerry Ritz: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for your presentations here today. I'm not sure where to go with questioning. You certainly have more questions than answers in what you're presenting here today, and we're sitting in the same situation.

You seem to be caught in that web between federal and provincial passing the buck, where nobody takes responsibility. Your Revenue Canada 1995 reassessment certainly raises some questions from my standpoint. It's certainly something that needs to be looked at. It's taking the heart and soul out of anything the federal government is going to send to you. I would really want to check that file. Take it to your MP and have the whole thing reviewed. If you have an accountant who does work for you, or a friend or something like that... There seem to be some questions there that I would certainly go after them on. I don't know the whole situation, but it seems to me that—-

Ms. Lynn Sherwood: May I comment on that?

Mr. Gerry Ritz: Certainly.

Ms. Lynn Sherwood: The accessibility to Revenue Canada is horrendous. There's a 1-800 number. I've never been able to get through on it. The fax machine doesn't take faxes. There's no one to contact. Sylvia's working full-time. Her boss gets somewhat irate if she's on the phone half the day. How does she do this?

The Chair: She contacts her MP.

Mr. Gerry Ritz: Right. We do this type of thing all the time. That's what we're here for. We have different numbers for Revenue Canada from what are available to you. We can sometimes cut to the chase a little faster.

Ms. Sylvia Brin: I did call Revenue Canada, and I was told that, first of all, because of the ATIP there's no access to any information regarding his financial information. I don't have his social insurance number, and even if I did, I don't have the numbers to add to my claim. I can't force him to give me the information in order to submit my claim.

The Chair: Revenue Canada would have access to that information, though.

Ms. Sylvia Brin: But I don't have his social—-

The Chair: No, but they would, and if you work with your MP you would at least be able to present your case. And they are known to be sympathetic—

Ms. Sylvia Brin: I can try.

The Chair: —contrary to public opinion, in certain situations like this.

Mr. Gerry Ritz: They do have a new direction, the fairness initiative and so on like that, and there are some applications that can be made. Not everyone is successful, but it is certainly worth a try. That's really the only direction I can give you here today. If you can't get through, give one of us a call.

Ms. Sylvia Brin: All right.

Mr. Gerry Ritz: We'll see what we can do.

[Translation]

The Chairman: Mr. Cardin, would you like to ask any further questions?

Mr. Serge Cardin: Mr. Chairman, I am not going to gloss over this so quickly. It is important to listen to the comments of people like this woman, who is a single head of household, as part of our study on tax equity for families and to take into account the way she has been treated by the Department of National Revenue. It is unacceptable to see the Department tell a Canadian citizen that she must wait until a person who is no longer part of her life files his tax return before a decision can be made on her file. In my opinion the department is acting inappropriately; people should not be treated that way. This woman's comments also concern tax equity and services that the single head of household should be entitled to. She is not being given the benefit of the doubt and she is being asked to wait until a third party files his tax return before her file can be dealt with adequately.

The experiences our witnesses are sharing with us during this consultation will shed light on important aspects. This woman has explained the problems she has had to face in a very convincing way. Her comments fit in well with our study on fair tax treatment for a family which, in this case, is a single parent family.

The Chairman: Would you like to comment on this?

[English]

Ms. Sylvia Brin: No.

The Chair: Ms. Dockrill.

• 1720

Mrs. Michelle Dockrill: I have one brief question.

There has been some discussion here today about revisiting what I think Nancy referred to as the baby bonus. I wonder if you'd like to comment on that maybe being something this committee should look at seriously, reinstituting something similar to that.

Ms. Lynn Sherwood: I can comment on that. Most of the people I work with work on a very limited cashflow basis, and they need money on a monthly basis. Whatever you call it, I think it needs to be provided on a monthly basis. If the people can see that they have this coming in on this date, then they can plan for it.

The baby bonus has a sense of entitlement to that money. We were talking about it at a meeting yesterday. If a family with that extra money coming in can put it in a bank account for the education of the child, that's great, and if they need it to buy bread and milk, that's what they need it for. It's more dignified, and it's less paternalistic and controlling.

Mrs. Michelle Dockrill: That's fine.

The Chair: Thank you, Michelle.

Ms. Jennings, please.

Ms. Marlene Jennings: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank you both for coming before us. I'd particularly like to thank you, Mrs. Brin, for providing us with your life experience. When we're living a difficult situation, particularly a financially difficult situation, it's not easy to talk about. It took a lot of courage on your part, and I commend you for that, because I think what we heard today is important.

Yes, we do have a strict mandate here. However, one of the issues you raised, when you talked about having a $32,000 annual income and you don't even receive the child tax benefit because of the low cut-off, was raised also by the Canadian Labour Congress: that middle-income families have been particularly hit by this benefit.

Given the economic situation as it now is, we probably will need to stay with the child tax benefit rather than go back to the universal baby bonuses I grew up under. You talked about putting it in a bank. In my family it didn't go into a bank. My father worked as a porter on the train. He was paid once a month, and by the end of the month, before his pay came in, that cheque served to buy the groceries for the last week. When that cheque came in late, I can remember myself and my brothers and sisters eating bread and gravy for supper. So I do know whereof—

Ms. Lynn Sherwood: Yes.

Ms. Marlene Jennings: Yes, I do know, and that's why I particularly wanted to commend you, because it's not easy to talk about that, particularly in our society, which is a relatively affluent society when we compare it to other countries, so we don't necessarily see the poverty that can exist.

In terms of your issue, I do strongly encourage you to follow the recommendation of Mr. Ritz and Mr. Discepola to contact your local MP, bring your Revenue Canada issues there, and see if that MP can assist you in working through that with Revenue Canada to come to a reasonable and fair solution. That's the first thing.

It may require that you take some time off work. Ask for your employer's comprehension, and if that's not possible, ask your MP to open up their office on the weekend or in the evening.

The third point I want to make is on the issue of affordable child care. I think you probably most exemplify the need for some form of publicly funded or subsidized child care. You've hit an income level that by no means makes you a rich or affluent person, or anywhere near that, particularly in the Ottawa area. If you were living, perhaps, in some small rural area, it would be more than sufficient to have a comfortable lifestyle, but not in an urban area like Ottawa.

Quality child care is an issue, day care for children so that you can see to your family's needs and also protect yourself for when you become a senior, so that you will be able to build up some resources to have a decent lifestyle.

• 1725

As much as I respect my chair, I don't agree that the issues you raised don't fall into the mandate. I think you are a living example of some of the issues we are going to have to deal with.

Thank you again.

Ms. Lynn Sherwood: May I make a comment?

I understand about limited mandates of committees and all of that, but the Parliament of Canada is responsible to the people of Canada.

Ms. Marlene Jennings: That's right.

Ms. Lynn Sherwood: The people of Canada don't live in little boxes; they live very messy lives. None of this can be limited. If we try to limit it, we don't do it right.

I work on a committee with Richard Shillington. I find his understanding and analysis at the theoretical level fascinating, and I try to relate it to the lives of the people I work with. I find that what you're doing is taking a sledgehammer to do neurosurgery. Nobody wants neurosurgery done with a sledgehammer. It may be much cheaper, but I really think the complexities must be respected. We can't keep things simple. You can't say this is federal, this is provincial, this is municipal.

Ms. Marlene Jennings: That's a message we've gotten clearly, that our Canadian people don't want to just hear “that's not our jurisdiction”. That's one of the reasons that under this government we are seeing more and more federal-provincial agreements and accords in different areas where there is a certain amount of shared jurisdiction. This is to simplify things and to have one response within a certain geographical area. Sometimes it's a national accord, with all of the provinces signing up. Sometimes it's province by province. But that message has been heard. It doesn't mean it happens overnight, but it has been heard.

Ms. Lynn Sherwood: I see the accountability for government agencies decreasing since CAP has gone.

Ms. Marlene Jennings: Okay.

Ms. Lynn Sherwood: These kinds of issues that Sylvia is facing are expanding exponentially. It's getting pretty scary out there.

Ms. Marlene Jennings: Okay. Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Szabo, please.

Mr. Paul Szabo: Thank you very much for the information. I think it's useful.

I wonder, Ms. Brin, if you could tell me how much you receive on a monthly basis for your child tax benefit.

Ms. Sylvia Brin: I think it was $151.

Mr. Paul Szabo: It's $151? Okay.

Ms. Sylvia Brin: I would have to verify the taxation forms at home.

Mr. Paul Szabo: Someone making $30,000 a year... Now, this will kick in at $2,000. You'll be getting roughly about $1,000 a year per child. That's about $2,000. It is going up. That's good news for you. That would bring it up to a little more.

I think we're all trying to be MPs and help you out here, because we don't want to see you in this condition. The problem seems to be that you're not getting child support.

Ms. Sylvia Brin: No, I'm not.

Mr. Paul Szabo: If you were getting child support, the current schedule would give you about $8,000 that would not be taxable.

Ms. Sylvia Brin: Yes.

Mr. Paul Szabo: That's about $666 a month. I would think that probably would solve your total problem—to get another $666, not taxable, in your wallet per month.

Ms. Sylvia Brin: How do you force somebody who doesn't want to work—

Mr. Paul Szabo: It's not a matter of force.

Ms. Sylvia Brin: —and who has never done anything about support?

Mr. Paul Szabo: I don't want to pry, but did you charge your husband?

Ms. Sylvia Brin: Yes. He was charged. He was convicted. He received a $200 fine.

My lawyer has asked for income tax information. It has never been provided. He refuses to work. He's now living common-law with somebody who he says is supporting him.

Mr. Paul Szabo: You can't get blood out of a stone—that's what you're telling me.

Ms. Sylvia Brin: No

Mr. Paul Szabo: Okay. You represent a very common occurrence that we're seeing.

Ms. Sylvia Brin: Let me mention one more thing. I had the Revenue Canada enforcement branch contact me last summer, and I of course gladly handed over my ex's telephone number, address, and whatever other information they might be interested in having. I haven't heard anything since.

• 1730

Mr. Paul Szabo: Okay. I sense that Revenue Canada is not going to be able to help you very much if he has no income. You're just not really going to be able to get any additional stuff. But if there are any problems with the child tax benefit, I know that your MP would be able to help. Thank you very much for the intervention.

With regard to our mandate—

The Chair: I think Ms. Sherwood wanted to answer.

Ms. Lynn Sherwood: I just want to say that this is another example of a sloppy mandate, because it's one thing to talk about income, but it's another thing to talk about the danger to Sylvia and her children if we push this guy too hard. It then could involve the criminal justice system, and he is potentially a very loose cannon.

Mr. Paul Szabo: There's no way to push him. If he's not working and if he refuses to work—

Ms. Lynn Sherwood: The thing is that if you do push him, he'll hurt her and the children.

Mr. Paul Szabo: Why would you push somebody who's not working? I don't think we're suggesting that at all.

Lynn, since you do work in this area, I did want to ask you about the issue this committee is addressing. It's trying to deal with the tax burden with regard to parents where some choose to have both work and they could engage someone to care for their child or children and get a child care expense deduction and where some choose to have one of them withdraw from the labour force for some period of time to provide direct parental care but get no equivalent benefit. Do you have any opinion on whether there's discrimination here or whether there should be some assistance extended to level the playing field, or do you feel the current system is just fine?

Ms. Lynn Sherwood: I've been listening to this debate for some time, and I'm of two minds about it. I think there is an issue of money. I figure that you have either time or money. In my life I have either time or money, but I never have both. Somebody who chooses to have a parent stay at home has time. They have someone who can go to the school meetings and the doctors' appointments and do all the stuff that makes life civilized. I wonder if that's being included in the equation, that maybe there's not an equivalent.

Sylvia is both parents. You wouldn't believe what she had to go through to get her kids picked up early from day care so that she could be here today and how much nonsense she had to deal with. There's nobody at home to take care of the children when she isn't around. I wonder how much that is worth. I think there ought to be a way of making some equivalence between time and money and what time gives people in terms of quality of life. That's the kind of thinking that goes through my mind when I hear about these situations.

Mr. Paul Szabo: Thank you.

The Chair: Do any other members have questions? Mr. Herron, do you have a question?

Ms. Brin, if you have incurred any expenses because of your children being in day care, you could provide a claim to the clerk of the committee. If you have any expenses because of your testimony here today, we would be pleased to reimburse you for those.

Yes, Mr. Herron.

Mr. John Herron: Once we're finished with the witness, I want to talk about the terms of reference of the subcommittee.

The Chair: Please let me just finish then.

I would like to thank you for your presentation.

I'm the chair of a committee, and I have a very strict mandate. What I was trying to do was to possibly direct you to other sources that could help you. In no way was I trying to give you any false hope that this committee might solve your problems.

I do want to thank you for sharing, as you said, a snapshot of your life. Unfortunately, there are too many people like you in the same situation. I see in front of me a very determined young individual, and I know that you will succeed. You have made a difference to this committee, for sure. Maybe we will be able to start the wheel in motion that you desperately seek. So thank you.

As we say in French, bon courage à vous deux. Thank you very much.

Committee members, I've given you a schedule for next week. I'd just like to point out that the Monday afternoon meeting is a tentative one. It may be changed, so don't rely on that.

• 1735

Mr. Herron, I believe you had a point or question you wanted to raise.

Mr. John Herron: I have discussed with my colleague from the NDP the terms of reference for the subcommittee. I'm referring to the document you put together—the narrow terms of reference the committee is engaging in. Obviously it's a daunting task if we get out of control, because there are a lot of different issues. It is the subcommittee on tax equity for Canadian families with dependent children. On reading that and the terms of reference, this does not really apply to the situation where there are two persons in a family without children. I may have missed something, but that was included as well.

Earlier today, I referred to a letter a constituent had sent to me referencing the change in the Thibaudeau case in the Supreme Court. The chair provided me with a fair amount of latitude in that regard. I think you thought it was perhaps beyond our mandate, per se. I think that issue is a taxation issue. The woman I spoke about earlier has three dependent children, so she's a family with dependent children where the taxation system has put her into hardship, almost from an equity perspective as well. As we go on, this is going to be more and more of an issue, beyond just the pure income-splitting debate that has been the catalyst of the subcommittee itself.

The Chair: I do not in any way want to stifle the initiatives of this committee. We have a mandate and a reporting date we must respond by. I'm just trying to make sure the agenda advances and the dialogue continues. I'm in your hands. I've been very lenient, as you have seen, but we have to respond in a mandate to the full committee also.

Mrs. Dockrill.

Mrs. Michelle Dockrill: Just to support my colleague, I was looking for clarification. Correct me if I didn't hear you correctly, because I thought I heard you say families with dependent children and families without.

The Chair: You're correct.

Mrs. Michelle Dockrill: Okay. That was why we wanted the clarification. That was not what I thought we had the mandate to do; it was definitely dealing with children.

The Chair: Correct.

Mr. Szabo.

Mr. Paul Szabo: John, you may be interested in the position paper coming from the Minister of Justice on the Special Joint Committee on Child Custody and Access. The issue of taxation was raised in that report. Again, we may have some further information.

I read the letter you had there. Your constituent wasn't terribly accurate on a couple of pieces of information. I would caution you that it only takes one parent to appeal for the order to be changed under the new system. If she's going to get $6,000 less, as she claims, the less she says about it, the less chance her husband will go and force that. She could be much worse off. I would tend to caution her not to be too aggressive on this issue.

Mr. John Herron: She has already shared that letter with the media. They got it just before I did.

Mr. Paul Szabo: If I were her MP, I'd say—

The Chair: Now the discussion is getting beyond the scope of this committee. Thank you. These are cases MPs can very well handle with their own staff in their own offices.

Is there anything else members want to bring up? In that case, I thank you all.

The meeting is adjourned.