Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak to this motion today. I extend my congratulations to the member for Abitibi for taking the time, with all the issues he could have raised in this House, to put forward the family and investing in children as the issue he wanted to bring before the House and phrase it in a way that did not lock people into anything but rather gave us the opportunity again to talk about investing in children and the family.
There is no doubt that the Government of Canada has taken positive steps to invest in our children such as the increases in the Canada child tax benefit, cumulatively about $1.7 billion of additional investment. Is it enough? No, but it is a start and we are working in the right direction.
This is not a debate about child poverty. This is a debate about the principle of how to invest in children so we improve the probabilities of better physical, mental and social health outcomes of children.
Dr. Fraser Mustard, the founder of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, came before the Standing Committee on Health, of which I was a member, in October 1994. Dr. Mustard provided us with substantive evidence that childhood outcomes were not a question of being rich or poor but rather of other factors related to the quality of care during the formative years of infancy.
That is a very important point. Poor people can raise very healthy, well adjusted children. Rich people can have very poorly developed children. It is not simply a matter of rich and poor. Poverty is an exacerbating factor, not a causal factor.
I have spent a lot of time on this issue and I want to share with the House some new research that has come out this year regarding why it is important to have direct parental care. It came out in a report that was completed in April 1998 and published in June 1998. It came from Dr. Christopher Ruhm of the University of North Carolina.
The study was of population data from 1969 to 1994, 25 years of population data. It looked at nine European countries, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Norway and Sweden.
The study is long but the conclusion is not. The conclusion is very important. Dr. Ruhm found up to a 29.1% reduction in infant mortality where paid maternity leave, direct parental care, was given for the first year of a child's life. That first year is very important.
The study does elaborate a bit. When he broke down the 29% of the reduction in infant mortality, Dr. Ruhm found more specifically that there was a 25% decline in post-neonatal deaths. That means the first year. Of the 29%, 25%, almost all of it, had to do with the first year of life. Eleven per cent of the total was for the period from age one to age five.
This is an issue of quality of care and it has to do with a lot of issues. One really important issue is breast feeding. There is a lot of research regarding the importance of breast feeding. In February of this year the president of the Canadian Paediatric Society, on behalf of the society said to Canadians that they wholeheartedly support the international guidelines set by the World Health Organization and UNICEF that breast feeding should be given for one year at least for the optimal health of the children during that first year.
That is not an insignificant amount. They indicated that about 1.5 million children in the world die each year because they are not breast fed. That is an outstanding statistic that members should keep in mind.
There is no question in my mind that it is important that we invest in children and it is not just a matter of throwing money somewhere and hoping something is going to happen. The issue is trying to improve the quality of care given to children during the formative years.
In the Carnegie task force study of 1994 entitled “Starting Points” the research observed that good physical and mental health, the ability to learn, to cope with stress, to relate well with others and to have a positive outlook were all rooted in the earliest experiences of life. They concluded that where, how and with whom children spend their early years of life are the most significant determinants of health.
When we consider the impact on the brain development of a child and the fact that 80% of the lifetime development of a human being's brain is complete by age three and that the issue of abstract reasoning, problem solving and general logic in a child's brain is all wired and established by age one, there is no question based on current research that the first year of life is where we should be investing in our children.
There have also been a number of other studies but I will not go into them because members have them on the record. Many initiatives have been brought forward in this place. There have been bills, such as Bill C-256 in the last parliament, on income splitting between spouses so one could stay at home and care for preschool children.
There was Motion No. M-30 on the caregiver tax credit. It passed in this House in the last parliament. It proposed a caregiver tax credit for those who supplied care in the home to preschool children, the chronically ill, the aged and the disabled. It passed 129 to 63 in this House. I know who the 63 were and they opposed the motion on a technicality, of not supporting anything that involves spending money. The point is that when we had the debate in the House, member after member stood up during the three hours of debate and supported the issue that we have to support caregivers.
Some suggest that maybe this should go through the Income Tax Act. I will give one example of why this should not go through the Income Tax Act. It has to do with farm mothers. Under the Income Tax Act a woman working on the family farm is not considered to be working. Therefore she does not qualify for the child care expense deduction or any other deduction because she has no earned income. To do it through the Income Tax Act would be discriminatory against every farm mother in Canada.
It also does not address lone parent families. If the lone parent cannot work and there is a benefit through the Income Tax Act and there is no earned income, there is no way the lone parent could benefit from anything through the tax act.
The best approach is to go back to something we had earlier. It was called the family allowance. The family allowance was an allowance for parents because they had children.
Child care costs exist for no other reason than the fact that the child exists. Parents who provide direct parental care also have real costs in raising their children.
These are some important points which we should really take into consideration when we consider a motion like this one. This issue transcends partisan politics. Some issues are brought up by private members in good faith. They are not motivated by partisan politics, not motivated by trying to rattle somebody's cage, but motivated because those members are prepared to stand in this House and declare what their interests are and to declare to their constituents that they care about family and children.
Again I want to congratulate the member for Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik. The member has done this House a service by raising again that investing in children and the family is the dollar best spent by Canadians. I know that this is an issue which is shared by many people in this House. I hope that as we get more and more opportunities in this place to talk about investing in children and not just about child poverty but the poverty of physical, mental and social health, we will see that directing some sort of a benefit to our children is in fact the best thing for our children.