Madam Speaker, I am really pleased to rise in support of the motion. It is critical and comes at a critical time in our development. As our society changes there is more and more stress on families. We do not have the ability to stay home and look after our children. The environment I grew up in was a mother at home with eight family members.
I would agree that the motion is not about money. It is about time and about how we allocate time to the nurturing and development of our whole society because each individual adds or detracts from our collective.
We cannot expect to have healthy communities and a strong country if what is coming up behind us is a lot of individuals who have lived in poverty, who are uneducated and who have been neglected by their parents. They do not fit in because they do not speak the same language as us or communicate in the same way.
If we are to have any positive effect on the future of our country, I would agree with my colleague who introduced the motion that we have to do it at an early stage. We have to be diligent, aware, conscientious and particularly caring if we are to have a constructive and co-operative intervention at an early age and be serious about it.
We have the example of what is happening in a town in B.C. There is outrage. The intent on all parts is to work together to do something positive to protect those who are vulnerable, our children. We have to focus on our children and put the rights of parents second.
It is a very sensitive issue both culturally and individually. I have worked with people who have had their children taken away from them. Extreme trauma is suffered by both the children and the parents.
If there is a will ,there is truly a way for us to overcome these obstacles. We should not say that it is a provincial responsibility or the mother's responsibility and has nothing to do with us. We need to work together because it has everything to do with us.
When Reena Virk was killed we all felt horror and outrage. Where did we fail? The motion is an attempt to look at where we failed. What on earth went wrong to create that level of violence among Canadians?
If as a collective group, as citizens of the country, we want individuals who are physically strong, who are emotionally strong and who have psychological health so that their energy is directed toward being teachers, carpenters, architects, lawyers or doctors, we have to go to the beginning. A large part of that is to recognize the role of motherhood and the role of fatherhood within society. From there we should link it to every policy we make so that we strengthen families, so that each family in turn produces children who are strong, who are a benefit to our country and who are people we can be extremely proud of.
It has been said that we cannot teach love and caring, but we can. We can teach by example what love is and we can teach how to care. Through every gesture which shows care and protection we show love. It is up to us to do that.
If someone does not know how to do that, there have been examples given of how one mother will work with another mother, which is a very natural process, or one father will work with another father. Just think of all the men and women who act as coaches. They teach sportsmanship and how to work together in difficult situations. For children sporting events are difficult situations. If we teach them principles and values at that stage they will follow through to how we treat each other in the House. We can teach how to love and how to care. We cannot legislate those things, but we can certainly make sure that people know how to do them. We can set the example.
If we want to address these issues we have to recognize what they are linked to. A lot of it is poverty. We have to address what our government can and should do about poverty. We have to address what we can do to make sure people are educated and fed. We have to intervene when there is abuse, whether it is physical, emotional or verbal. Again that relates to teaching.
If we are to address alcoholism we need a drug strategy. We need to be serious about it. We need to address it at all levels, from its beginnings to the violence and the criminality which result from alcoholism.
We cannot change the fact that there are many people afflicted with fetal alcohol syndrome and fetal alcohol effect but we can prevent it. We can be very serious about preventing it and making access to alcohol a lot more difficult than it is, rather than it being a ritual or some sort of right of passage of drinking and carrying on at a certain age. That does not have to be part of our society.
We should remove stress from families. Our role as government is to see how we connect, how our policies link to each other, instead of dividing everything into separate parts and saying you are responsible for this, that department is responsible for that or the provinces can do this. We should be open minded enough to look at where we can really make a difference in the lives of families so they have the time they need to look after their children who are a part of our community and society.
Once again I would like to say it is not just about money. It is about time, the time we need to bring up our children. We must recognize that and make sure it is possible for people to bring up their children and not have to do it alone.
It is very difficult to be left alone with many young children. We should recognize the hardship of that and that it is unnatural. We need to help each other in bringing up our children. It benefits us all, or it will be to the detriment of us all.