Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Income Splitting : Support Families, Not Social Engineering

The conference on income-splitting organized by Sara and supported by Garth Turner is coming up on January 30th. This will be the first real-life political event I attend, and I'm pretty excited. Despite living in Ottawa for 5 years and near Ottawa for 5 more, I have (shame on me) never been on The Hill. So it will be an experience in lots of ways, I'm sure.

However, the real point is that as I posted here, Canadian tax policy is currently an instrument of social engineering that pushes people into the paid labour force, often against their will. Current policy fails to recognise the family (or the household, if 'family' is too last-century for you) as the basic unit of society. In real life, people live as families, and make decisions and arrangements as families - including their childcare arrangements. Equitable taxation that treated the family equally, regardless of their choices, is clearly fairer than the present system that forces many parents into low-paying jobs outside the home because they can't afford to stay home.

So, please support this conference even if you can't attend.

Here's the details:

What does Ottawa think of Caregiving?

Join us to discuss how to recognize it throughIncome Splitting
(Open to Public/Free admission)
Conference Room, West Block, Parliament Hill Ottawa
Tuesday, Jan 30 2007 10am to 2pm
http://sharingincome.tripod.com
online petition http://www.petitiononline.com/share/petition.html
Contacts:Beverly Smith 403-283-2400
Garth Turner 613-996-7046

Please RSVP:
Sara Landriault 613-720-6609 sara.landriault@gmail.com