Human Resources Committee on May 17th, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Is there any more discussion on the amendment proposed by the NDP? Seeing there is none, I'll call the vote.

(Amendment agreed to)

(Clauses 6 to 8 inclusive as amended agreed to)

(Clause 9 agreed to)

(On clause 10—Advisory council)

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

We did not approve amendment L-11, but we should have included that.

I've just been informed that the challenge we have is between amendments L-11 and NDP-3. There are some conflicting lines. Could you two could talk to each other and determine the wording you want to have?

Go ahead, Ms. Chow.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Can you give the amendment numbers again?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

They are L-11 and NDP-3, which are at pages 12 and 12.1 in your packages.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

I will withdraw mine.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

Ms. Dhalla, would you like to move L-11?

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

Yes, it would be my pleasure.

(Amendment agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

(Clause 10 as amended agreed to)

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Shall the short title carry, as drawn up in clause 1 of the original bill?

Mr. Lessard.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

I have a question before we vote. It concerns the original title of the bill, as tabled. Mr. Lake moved an amendment and he didn't withdraw it.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Yes, it's motion 13.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

This clause is on the short title. Mr. Lake's was definitely on the long title.

The short title is the Early Learning and Child Care Act.

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

Can we have a recorded vote on that, please?

(Clause 1 agreed to: yeas 6; nays 3)

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Shall the preamble carry?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Next is what we've all been waiting for—the actual title.

We have a proposed amendment. I'm going to rule this title out of order as being somewhat frivolous, although very clever.

Mr. Savage.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

I am prepared to vote with Mr. Lake in support of this amendment if he'll accept a friendly subamendment to the amendment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

I thought we were going to get out of here early today.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

I'm proposing he might want to change it to “a mechanism to withhold transfers to the provinces if they do not do what the dirty, rotten, mean-spirited Conservative federal government tells them, except for Quebec”.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Am I ever glad we ruled that one out of order.

[Lynne Yelich, Conservative, Blackstrap, SK]

That makes the case of how ridiculous this bill was.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Anyway, we're going to rule the original amendment out. I'm going to look at the original title, and my question is, shall the title carry as it was...?

Mr. Lake.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

I do want to speak to the title. Obviously it's important for a title to describe what a bill actually does, so that is why I moved my amendment. I thought it would be accurate to—As you know, I would have worded the amendment to read: “A mechanism to withhold transfers to the provinces if they do not do what the federal government tells them (except for Quebec) act.” And I think that pretty much describes what this bill does.

I know there are people on the other side who have visions of a $20 billion institutional nine-to-five day care program that would come out of this, but this bill doesn't actually do that. All it does is provide a mechanism to withhold funding from the provinces and now, with amendments, to also withhold funding from aboriginal groups. That was the idea behind changing the title. I think it's important to be very clear to Canadians what we're legislating for here.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Mr. Brown.

[Patrick Brown, Conservative, Barrie, ON]

I was disappointed that Mr. Lake's amendment was ruled out of order. I thought he was very insightful in coming up with a very well-worded description of the bill—and hearing if there was any interest around the table. I know a lot of us have heard different intentions of why the bill is here. I think everyone comes from different perspectives on child care.

One thing I've raised a lot at the table is the fact that I was concerned that Dalton McGuinty really took it to the children of Ontario when this government gave him $97.5 million in the most recent federal budget for child care and he decided to only spend $25 million on it.

Part of my concern with this bill was that it simply gave another government the same tool to do what Dalton McGuinty did, and said, “I want to abandon the children, I want to abandon child care.”

I'm not sure, Ms. Chow, or anyone else, if there is a way to incorporate that in the title. I realize you come to this from a different perspective, but maybe part of the title should include the provincial Liberal tax on child care, because I think that's why Ms. Savoie originally came to this position.

I'm not sure what the wording would be--certainly not as eloquent as Mr. Lake's title--but whether it's worded to prevent Liberal assaults on child care—I'm still against this bill, because I worry that on a federal level they'd use this as a tool to gut child care. But realizing where you're coming from, it might be a nice gesture to include in the title “preventing Liberal premiers from attacking child care from the very generous contributions given by the Conservative government to child care”.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

I do believe I did rule this out of order, but I realize we wanted to get on record all the things that went into thinking up what this title was all about.

So let's move forward with the vote on this. Shall the title carry?