Human Resources Committee on Dec. 8th, 2020

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Minister, with all due respect, human rights should not be a partisan issue. You've heard me say that before.

I say that because I have people who are perishing in my community. We saw what happened in Montreal. We see what's happening in East Vancouver. I don't think it's appropriate at this time, particularly in the time of COVID, to discuss that rather than discuss what is needed to ensure people are housed.

Is your government going to put more money forward to ensure that people are housed going forward so that, should we see ourselves in a pandemic again, people will not perish because their human rights are being violated?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Give a short answer, if you can, Minister.

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Yes, I will give a short answer.

Look, we've spent $193.5 million for 3,127 homes in Vancouver east, so we are there. We will be there, and we'll continue to be ambitious with respect to meeting the needs across the country for affordable housing.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you, Minister.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Ms. Gazan.

Next is Ms. Falk, please, for five minutes.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm passing the floor to MP Schmale.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Thank you very much, Mrs. Falk.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister, I want to continue on the theme where we left off. When you're talking about quality, and you're basically saying, or at least Minister Freeland said in the outline of the fiscal update, that Quebec was going to be the model that the federal government was going to use. If quality is determined by the government and a government child care model is imposed across the country, shouldn't parents have the opportunity to choose what they think is quality, whatever that option is?

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

I want to thank the honourable member for really giving me an opportunity to express our government's position on this.

Quebec is a model but so are other like-minded OECD countries that have moved forward on this.

Speaking of choice, it is the Conservative vision that removes choice from women. When you deny people access to affordable and high-quality child care, what happens is that mainly female parents are not able to access the workforce, so by providing affordable child care—

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Okay, you lost me there.

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Let me finish.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

You've gone off the rails here.

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

You asked me a question. I have to finish.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

I completely disagree with what you just said.

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

You can disagree with me, but I have to finish my answer.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

How is ensuring more money in parents' pockets and competition in the marketplace with maximum flexibility in choice reducing the ability for parents to choose their course of action?

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Parents are facing as high as $2,000 a month for child care. The Conservative vision does nothing to address that challenge of affordability, while doing nothing—

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Neither does yours. Yours is five years out, plus.

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

We have a philosophical difference of opinion, which is that you believe that not providing affordable child care spaces and investing in early childhood—

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Just because the government isn't providing it doesn't mean it isn't going to be there. Parents have the ability to choose.

You and your government actually enhanced the child care benefit, so it's not as if you said, well, this is just crazy. You actually invested in that—

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

What we did was we stopped sending cheques to millionaires. That's what we did. You were sending cheques to millionaires.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

You did the same with the CERB and the seniors' benefit, so way to go.

Why don't we focus on how we're going to maximize the ability for parents to choose what is best for them?

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

We are not creating a national system that is mandatory for parents. Parents do have a choice to do what they want with respect to their situation, but what we're offering is actually what you're talking about, the choice. It is your lack of vision that is not offering them the choice of affordable and high-quality child care. That is the issue. The issue is they're facing a monthly bill of $2,000.

Under our plan, we will make child care affordable, and every single country—

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

How? I'm curious.

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

I'll answer that. By investing in the creation of affordable child care spaces and investing in the workforce. Every single country that has done this has benefited immensely and has closed the gender gap between men and women in the labour market.

You talk about choice. That's the choice we're offering parents, not sending cheques to millionaires, which is what the Harper Conservatives did when they were in office.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

How are you going to ensure there's choice in the marketplace if the government is dictating what “quality” is?