Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise to speak to Motion No. M-30 which would give a tax credit to home caregivers.
It is particularly a pleasure to speak to this motion because it gives me an opportunity to demonstrate to Canadians who may be interested that we who are members of political parties, be it the Reform Party, the Bloc Quebecois or the Liberal Party, are not necessarily ideologues, that we do not necessarily follow or hold all the views of our respective parties.
In this case I am referring to the position taken by my own Liberal Party on day care during the last federal election. The Liberals came out very strongly in support of government subsidized day care. The NDP came out even more strongly. If I remember correctly, the NDP promised to spend $1 billion on subsidized day care which the NDP said would create some 70,000 jobs. The Liberals promised much less than that; their program was a couple of hundred million dollars which would create about 10,000 jobs if I recall correctly.
From the outset I was opposed to both concepts in principle. I made it very clear when I ran for election that I did not support everything in the red book, and I certainly did not support the Liberal position on day care. The fundamental reason was that in my mind the promise of 70,000 jobs for $1 billion was a promise of 70,000 marginal jobs basically for women to look after children other than their own. I did not see the practicality of that.
The desire for subsidized daycare has its origins in the socialistic movement of the previous decades, of the 1960s and the 1970s. It was based on two premises. One premise was that parents, particularly women, should not have to sacrifice for their children, for raising families. The premise was that they should be able to have children and also have a worthy job. The other premise, an important one, was that the state could provide some fundamental social caregiving like the family in looking after children.
It has become very clear in the course of the 1980s when we see what has happened to the great totalitarian socialist states like the former Soviet Union and even communist China, that institutionalized family services do not work. In the end they create problems. They create young people who become adults who are not effective citizens.
The services become unmanageable in their actual implementation. Look anywhere in the experiences of the Soviet Union and communist China and lesser so in some of the Nordic states and we will find there have been many problems in trying to successfully implement state run family care. It is not a concept that we recognize as being very successful any more.
The proof of the pudding is in my own riding. When I campaigned from door to door particularly on Hamilton Mountain, a great number of the lower income families obviously had both parents employed. As I went along the streets, I saw that block after block the streets were empty, the houses were empty. The driveways usually had spaces for two automobiles. Most of these parents probably had their children in day care if they were not in school.
As the member for Mississauga South pointed out, the emancipation of the other spouse, be they male or female, basically puts two people in a position of marginal income at the sacrifice of the children. The statistic is basically that a person earning $25,000 with two children in day care makes a net profit of $100 a week. I submit that is not worth the trial, tribulation and even the damage which it inflicts on young children.
In my area there are some subsidized day care facilities. I have visited them as a member of Parliament. What do we do when we enter a subsidized day care facility and see the children playing not on real grass but on plastic grass? Money has been raised to support these day care centres and in someone's incredible wisdom the things which children relate to have been removed; simple things
like real grass and real dirt. In other words, the paid caregivers do not want the children to get dirty. I would say that has the potential of being a traumatic experience for children. I cannot accept it.
I have three children. I have also been the parent who has stayed at home while my wife worked. I have been the primary caregiver. My children were preschoolers. I worked at the Toronto Star . I would come home very late at night. I made a point every night before the children were in school to go directly home to read fairy tales to them. Actually, I can imitate just about every voice in every fairy tale. I can do Pinocchio, I can do the good fairy and all of those voices. Also Long John Silver. The pay off was that my children were capable of reading by the time they were in grade 3. They were reading fluently all the books which they had before them. I submit that was because I was the caregiver who read them those stories.
I have had occasion to go to schools to read to children after school was out. They could not go home because their parents were working. They did not have their own mom and dad to read to them, so they had to rely on a stranger. In this case the stranger was a member of Parliament. It is not the same thing. It is not as good.
What the motion directs us toward is looking once more at where we stand as a country with respect to traditional family values and the importance of the family. The motion is a direction to Parliament to set aside the socialist ideologies of the past and to look to the future, remembering that there are genuine values in the traditional family. As we go into the next century these values are going to be even more accentuated.
We have now entered the computer age. I live in a little village far from Toronto, a remote village in southern Ontario. It does not have a lot of amenities. There is a mother who lives across the street who has developed a tremendous business as a computer troubleshooter. She has one room set aside in her home and she is on the phone with businesses all over the world. She makes a good wage.
That mother is also the primary caregiver. She has three small children. She is able to look after those children. She has a career and a sense of worthiness, a sense of participating in society, and she also has the opportunity to give her children the natural care which they deserve. I do not see any reason for the government not to recognize the value which she is contributing to society by being at home and looking after her children.
The present situation is that when one member of a couple, be they male or female, elect to stay at home, the government gives them nothing. The present tax situation is such that the government encourages both parents to work and as we have seen, it is only to marginal advantage.
Finally, tomorrow I face an audience of about 300 people in one of the largest halls in my riding to discuss the Young Offenders Act. There was a terrible shooting in my riding about two months ago in which a young man was seriously wounded by teenagers with a handgun which fired a hollow nosed bullet. The young man is now paralyzed. This has raised an enormous concern in my riding with respect to possible amendments to the Young Offenders Act.
We will discuss the act. But behind our discussion about changing the Young Offenders Act and increasing the penalties and the opportunities for rehabilitation for young people is the fundamental problem that in the past 20 years we have left the family unit behind and we have failed our young people. I think that shows up in the increased incidents of youth crime.
I support the motion 100 per cent. It is a fine motion and I congratulate the member for Mississauga South for bringing it before the House.