Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to thank all hon. members who took part in the debate. It is obviously very important that we have this exchange of ideas.
The one area that I have to comment on is the intervention of the parliamentary secretary. The parliamentary secretary unfortunately took an early memo that was prepared by staff and signed by the minister and sent to me using a billion dollar figure. Subsequent to that we have had numerous meetings to discuss the real finances.
If we compare what the real finances are to what the parliamentary secretary has said we find a substantial difference.
In fact the billion dollar figure assumes that every stay at home parent who is presently there would take advantage of this bill but nobody else would, in which case it is a full drain. It also does not eliminate all those parents that either make too little
and are in the lower tax brackets or too much to even qualify. That reduced the figure to about $500 million.
They gave no credit for the creation of child care spaces. I wonder whether or not the parliamentary secretary would agree that if the government is prepared to spend $12,000 per space to create child care spaces, some credit ought to be generated by those who free up those spaces.
The government used figures when it discussed with me in the worst possible case. This is the fiscally responsible thing to do. I hoped there would be some movement, some understanding that in fact there is real value for work in the home to be recognized. It is an honourable profession. Some tax reform is going to be necessary sooner or later. I want to assure the House that I for one am not going to stop fighting on behalf of all caregivers, whether they be parents working in the home, the seniors, the chronically ill or the disabled.