Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me today to debate this opposition motion, although the Bloc Québécois will vote against it.
The Conservative motion reads as follows:
That the House call upon the government to address the issue of childcare by fulfilling its commitment to reduce taxes for low and modest income families in the upcoming budget, and, so as to respect provincial jurisdiction, ensure additional funds for childcare are provided directly to parents.
I want to draw attention to the words “address the issue of child care”. I also note a very strong contradiction, in form and substance, in the reference to respecting provincial jurisdiction by transferring funds directly to parents.
Although we will vote against the motion by the Conservatives, this is an opportunity for us to debate the federal government's intention to intervene in the area of childcare, which reflects inefficiency, bad management and investments in areas outside its jurisdiction.
The Minister of Social Development, who was once a famous goalie, now seems to be tending goal for a centralizing and ineffective federalism which is preventing the provinces and Quebec from scoring for parents and families in Quebec. Yet, his child care system could benefit from better funding if the money was transferred directly to Quebec from this government's obscene annual surplus.
We will soon be struggling with a poorly designed and underfunded program that will not meet the needs of Canadians or Quebeckers, if Quebec does not receive an immediate transfer payment with full financial compensation. Since 1998, successive Quebec governments have invested significantly in children so as to create a child care system that helps parents, who benefit from support by competent workers whose salaries continue to rise, and that helps families improve their situation and also fights poverty.
We are proposing a pan-Canadian program in an exclusively provincial jurisdiction. Once again, instead of “Ottawa knows best”, we will see that “Ottawa knows nothing at all”. It knows nothing, but will manage a program as it manages its foundations, the famous foundations where, the Auditor General just told us, $7 billion is sitting, money for which the federal government is not accountable and about which it has no knowledge.
Once again, there will be investment in a child care program that will be costly but inefficient, as well as centrally administered, but with no guarantee, despite what the ministers have been saying one after another outside this House. We are told that 18 questions have been asked here in the House about the child care program. I think that we are now at over 20, with the ones from my colleague from Québec today. Yet there has never been a statement in this House that, yes, the day after the announcement of a federal child care program, even a poorly put-together one, for other Canadians, an agreement would immediately follow to provide Quebec with the funds it has unfortunately had to take from elsewhere. In so doing, Quebec no doubt has had to deprive students of text books and to make cuts to the health system, which is not as good as we would like it to be.
Quebec has had to make some hard choices in order to create its comprehensive and efficient child care system. When it is all in place, in 2006, it is going to cost $1.7 billion. Unfortunately, while Quebec could obtain compensation totalling $1.25 billion over five years, the feds are hemming and hawing indecisively, and it is the old who knows best, who can trample over others' jurisdictions the best.
As a result, we end up with a Canada that is less and less efficient, one that is built on ideologies, not on serving the people. This government is engaged in unhealthy competition with the provinces, arrogantly building itself up and thereby building up public cynicism toward federal Liberal MPs. I hope that the cynicism will stop there. This is an unfortunate situation.
I am a new member of Parliament. I may be a little naive. I thought governments existed to serve the people. I admit we have seen this type of shilly-shallying over the parental leave issue and over employment insurance. In fact, we just received the unanimous—or nearly unanimous—recommendation by a standing committee and the minister said it was not a recommendation, but a suggestion. Some ministers promised—and even the Prime Minister promised on television—that Quebec would definitively receive money for the child care program unconditionally. Now we see that in reality, the minister is waffling. He is the goalie, keeping Quebec from scoring.
I think the whole idea behind child care relates to the struggle against poverty. The federal government has a sorry record when it comes to dealing with poverty. The promises made 15 years ago were not kept in the 2000 campaign. This government is ineffective in fighting poverty. Those that would handle it better, that is, the provinces, including Quebec, do not get any help and do not have enough resources because of the fiscal imbalance. and because this government takes all the resources and plays the sorcerer's apprentice of child care. It is too bad that the great goalie, who was my childhood hero, is the one who is blocking Quebec's progress in the area of child care. It is distressing and sad.
I am the Bloc Québécois housing critic. I realize that in a few years, if we do not resolve this problem immediately, we will have to beg for another transfer to Quebec. This might generate all sorts of absurdities as well, such as at the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, which enjoys a $2.5 billion surplus and keeps it in its coffers, without helping people get a roof over their head at a better price, as its mandate suggests.
In a few years I do not want us still begging. We must have the right as Quebeckers to exercise our power to emancipate ourselves. The child care system in Quebec encourages employment, skill and parental involvement. It is not a state system as the Conservative ideologues would have us think. It is not a system that takes children away from their parents but one that supports parents' possibilities of having a decent life earning a living and thereby becoming better citizens.
In conclusion, the Bloc Québécois is opposed to the opposition motion and opposed to the funds going to parents. The Bloc does however fervently wish that this government would get the message, stop its shilly-shallying and decide right now to put its money where its mouth is, that is to say compensate Quebec immediately for implementation of the new child care program. We hope that the Canadian government will also get the message that more money needs to be invested for the other provinces as well, because the program it is proposing is cobbled together, underfunded and an embarrassment not only to Quebeckers, as far as respecting their jurisdictions is concerned, but to all Canadians.