Mr. Speaker, I speak today in favour of Bill C-303 which establishes criteria and conditions that must be met before a transfer payment may be made to a province or territory to support an early learning and child care program. Of course, I support the bill. It is almost a replica of the Liberal program for early learning and child care which began in 2004.
In 2005, all 10 provinces signed on to our program, indicating a cross-Canada recognition of the societal need for this program and a commitment of cooperation to achieve it. These signed agreements were the first steps toward putting in place the foundation of a national early learning and child care program and serve as the framework on which Bill C-303 is built.
The framework includes the values of equality, universality, accessibility and development; values that are upheld in Bill C-303, values that we, the Liberals, support.
How strange it is that the sponsoring party of the bill, the NDP, chose just last December not to support an almost identical program but chose instead to join with the Conservatives and the Bloc and cause the government to fall. Canadian parents who have told us about the desperate shortage of child care spaces and were thrilled by our program were not amused by the antics of the NDP at that time. However, here we are, less than a year later, with an NDP bill seeking to resuscitate a program that it helped to kill.
We all know that one of the NDP members travelled to the Middle East in the summer. It was very well publicized. In retrospect, I think she must have taken the road to Damascus while over there. She must have seen the light, converted her colleagues on her return and now we have the bill.
Is it a sign of the NDP repentance for its cynical vote last December, a vote that dashed the hopes of Canadian parents desperate to find quality child care for their children? I do not know about that but I do know the Liberals are committed to helping parents.
We brought in the child care expense deduction years ago to help offset the cost of child care. We also introduced the Canada child tax benefit and the national child benefit supplement to help parents. We allocated $5 billion for child care for 2006 through to 2010. In the election campaign, we promised another $6 billion to take this program forward to 2015.
When one considers the additional money that would have been invested by the provinces and by the municipalities over those years, one can safely assume that Canada would have been building a good child care system for its citizens. Now instead, from the NDP, we have a piece of paper, Bill C-303, but no money. Only the government has money to allocate, which takes us to the Conservatives.
The Conservative Party did not want to spend $11 billion on early learning and child care and instead cancelled the hard won agreements with the provinces and now send out cheques to parents of $100 per month per child. There is no early learning component attached to this money and it is such a paltry sum that it might only pay for two or three hours of babysitting each week. In addition, it is taxable. Whatever parents do, I can say to them that they should not spend it because when April comes they will receive a bill from the revenue agency.
The Conservative program is a deception. It is called the universal child care benefit. It is not universal. First, the parents of more than 100,000 children do not receive it because information about how to access it was so poorly done.
Second, it has little to do with child care because the amount is so small it does not make a dint in real child care costs.
Third, it has absolutely no early learning component. Early learning, both social and cognitive, is the critical component in a good early childhood experience. The OECD report released last week shows Canada last out of 20 nations in public spending on child care.
Now, with the cancellation of the Liberal agreements with the provinces and territories, Canada is the only country in the OECD without a goal, a plan and a budget for early learning and child care.
The journalist, Susan Riley, said it in the Ottawa Citizen better than I can. Last March she said:
When it comes to practical results...and even Conservative fiscal orthodoxy, [the Conservative] child-care plan makes no sense. Critics say it won't do much to give young children a head start....
So why is the prime minister, and...the minister so unwilling to compromise? In the absence of other compelling arguments, the answer has to be ideological. [He] doesn't...believe “the state” should “replace” parents when it comes to child-rearing [and] said...“the only experts on raising children were called Mom and Dad”.
This is a divisive and dishonest characterization of a complex issue, and many working parents, who make up the significant majority, [of parents in Canada], know it. Same goes for the [minister's] insulting suggestion that the Tory program will help parents “who want to raise their own children”--as if moms and dads who have to work full-time are some derelicts, or not really parenting.
This language will appeal to social conservatives...having been forced to comprise on samesex marriage and abortion, this may be the Prime Minister 's gesture his long-suffering “family values” caucus.
She concludes that the Conservative cheques are “no substitute for a national network of well-designed, well-staffed [child care] centres”.
Here we are today with a piece of paper, Bill C-303, from the NDP and the government opposite ideologically opposed to implementing it. I predict that Bill C-303 will pass both in the House and in the Senate, but that the government will not reallocate the necessary funds to change the words of the bill into reality for Canadian families.
How can we work to bring that reality to Canadians when the bill is the opposite of Conservative ideology? Maybe we can fit it into another piece of Conservative ideology. Let us examine where the Conservatives are spending taxpayer money.
To an observer, it might seem they are in love with uniforms and weapons because most new spending is going to the military to increase the number of servicemen and women, to buy more transport for them and new equipment for active combat. In addition, border guards will get new guns and training to use them. The finance minister has also set aside considerable funds for prisons, in his words, “for the anticipated increase in the number of prisoners”. More people in uniform.
Yes, the government loves uniforms and guns.
Therefore, with my tongue planted firmly in my cheek, may I suggest that the government might fund child care if we make a few amendments to Bill C-303.
First, I think the government would like it if we made uniforms mandatory. Second, it would also like it if we made marching to martial music a part of the curriculum. Third, story time could revolve around war stories. Fourth, target shooting could begin at age three.
Yes, the government might support such a program but, unfortunately, the Liberals, the NDP and the Bloc would probably not because it would go against their shared desire to build for Canada a peaceable kingdom.
In summary, I do support Bill C-303. I reject the vision of the government for Canada's future. I prefer the vision articulated in Bill C-303 based on the Liberals' child care policy and plan.
