House of Commons Hansard #22 of the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was billion.

Topics

6:30 p.m.

Oshawa Ontario

Conservative

Colin Carrie ConservativeParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health

Mr. Speaker, our party and our government will not take the advice of the Liberal Party when we talk about parents and families. The Liberals are simply wrong, Mr. Speaker, and I will tell you why.

Our party and our government, this Conservative government, is the party for strong families. We are the party of choice in child care. We are the party that respects parents and families. We believe Canadian parents know what is best for their children and for their families. This is just common sense. Each family is different. Each family makes it own choices.

What we are interested in is providing Canadian parents with choices and with leaving more money in the pockets of those parents so that they are better able to make the choices they want to make for their children. The Liberals are not interested in any of those things.

Due to our government's actions, a typical Canadian family has $3,000 more in its pocket than under the tax and spend Liberals. Under our government, we have achieved and will continue to make the largest investment in parents and families by a federal government in Canadian history.

Our policies for families are bringing tens of thousands of lower income families off the tax rolls completely, making sure that they have more money and more choices to take care of their children. Our policies for parents and children of more choices, more money in their pockets and less government lead to stronger families. Stronger families mean better communities, and that means a better Canada.

As I said, the Liberals are not interested in providing these choices, or in leaving families these resources or in less government. They think a government knows best. They think Liberals know best, but they are just arrogant and out of touch.

The Liberals continue their dubious beer and popcorn attitude. The truth is, the Liberals do not believe Canadian parents can raise their own children. The Liberal MP for St. Paul's said just last week that staying at home to raise one's kids does not constitute a real job.

The Liberals want to take away choices for families. They want to tell parents what is best. They do not believe parents raising their kids constitutes child care or real work at all. Their central assumption is that children will be loved and cared for just as much, or even more, by anyone except a parent. The Liberal leader must think so; he wrote about it.

In his book, The Rights Revolution, he said, “So-called family values, as propagated in the rhetoric of North American popular entertainment, pulpit sermonizing, and political homily, are a downright tyranny”. The family as tyranny by the leader of the Liberal Party. He does not think parents are naturally good at parenting. He wrote that he thought families were so often destructive institutions.

All the Liberals want to do is ship our children off to state-run, state-approved daycare warehouses, and they focus on what a relief that would be for parents. Not us. Not Conservatives.

We are not interested in a left-Liberal, one-size-fits-all plan to nationalize children and that forces one choice on parents and families. The Liberal size fits no one.

6:30 p.m.

Liberal

Maria Minna Liberal Beaches—East York, ON

Mr. Speaker, I do not even know how to answer that, because it is so offensive. It is offensive and insulting to the families of this country, to people, to women and all families.

No one ever said that families with women who stay home to look after their children is a bad thing. It is a great thing, but not every family has the option to do that. Fifty per cent of our labour force is female now, and they are in the labour force whether we like it or not. The fact of the matter is, they need to have quality, affordable early education and child care for their children.,

It is also about the development of the child, by the way, which is something the Conservatives do not understand. Nobody is talking about institutionalizing children. I will not even try to answer all of the idiotic, I am sorry to say, comments the member has made in the House, with all due respect.

The fact of the matter is that it is about choice. When families cannot go to work because there are no child care spaces for their children, they have no choice.

6:35 p.m.

Conservative

Colin Carrie Conservative Oshawa, ON

Mr. Speaker, I understand my Liberal colleague's frustration. It certainly is a dangerous thing to admit that Liberals really are not on the side of parents and families. They would not want parents and their families in their ridings to hear about it, that is for sure, but that is why I have to bring it up.

Not only do Canadian families not support the nationalization of their children, but Canadians also cannot afford Liberal state-run schemes. Their scheme will cost billions upon billions of dollars every single year. They do not even know how much it will ultimately cost. The Liberal leader said that too.

The Liberals are just in it for themselves. The Liberal leader said to reporters, “It's a legacy issue for the Liberal Party”. This is not about the Liberal Party. This is about Canadian parents and Canadian families.

6:35 p.m.

Conservative

The Acting Speaker Conservative Barry Devolin

The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, the House stands adjourned until Monday, April 12, 2010, at 11 a.m. pursuant to Standing Orders 28(2) and 24(1).

(The House adjourned at 6:36 p.m.)