Canadian Family Tax Coalition

by Jeannine Lebel

National President

In early October at the Focus on the Family National Conference, the idea was developed to form a national coalition to pressure the federal government to bring in fair play in tax policies. There were approximately 50 delegates representing twenty pro-family groups at this Conference. These participants recognized that pressure on the family has never been greater, and its erosion has a lot to do with government tax policies.

Discussions continued after the conference among several of the groups and, as a result of these discussions, the Canadian Family Tax Coalition was formed to lobby for fair taxation for families. REAL Women took on the responsibility of organizing a press conference for December 8th, on Parliament Hill. The press conference was attended by Jim Sclater for Focus on the Family, Peter Stock for the Canada Family Action Coalition, Tim Bloedow representing the Home School Legal Defence League and Diane Watts, our Ottawa Researcher and I representing REAL Women. The Ottawa office did an excellent job of preparing press kits and organizing the press conference.

The press conference was held in the main block of the Parliament Buildings. Although it did not last long, our members in Ottawa and across the country reported hearing clips of the press release on their local radio stations, and it made the national news as well, so we did receive some publicity. Also, the national media, located in the National Press Gallery, as well as the MPs offices are hooked up to receive live coverage and replays of all press conferences from the press room so that our message was well covered.

Subsequent to the press conference, Jim Sclater of Focus on the Family drafted a letter on behalf of our coalition to the Minister of Finance, Paul Martin, with information about our formation. The following recommendations were made:

1. Institute income splitting or joint filing for couples.

2. Replace the child care expense deduction with a refundable child tax credit.

3. Make the spousal exemption equal to the personal exemption.

4. Allow homemakers to contribute to their own RRSPs.

The four principal sponsors intend to continue pressuring Paul Martin, through our combined memberships. If he does not address our concerns in the 1999 budget this parliamentary session, the coalition intends to increase the pressure until he does.

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