Mr. Speaker, I rise with pleasure today to speak on the Conservative Party's motion on child care funding.
I believe it is very important that assistance should be provided to parents and that they should be able to choose the type of child care they want for their children. After all, parents know what is best for their children.
The Liberal one size fits all child care program has been criticized lately by the provinces. The criticism echoes what the Conservative Party has been saying all along; that the program fails to provide parents with the choices they need to address the specific and varying needs of their children.
This is why the Conservative Party will continue to support all existing child benefit programs, such as the national child benefit, the early childhood development initiative, the multilateral framework on early learning and child care and other federal government support of early learning and child care in Canada. Of course the Conservative Party would introduce a broad based tax relief that would directly benefit parents and would allow them to make their own choices about the care and nurturing of their children.
We believe parents deserve options. They want their children to be raised and educated in a way that reflects their family values, cultures and traditions. A Liberal institutional day care system will not allow parents to have such a dramatic impact on the care and nurturing of their children. It will not reflect their family values, cultures or traditions. This is very sad.
Let us not mention the fact that total child care expenditures have risen by over 20% in the last 20 years. Demand for child care services has risen and fees for full time day care are on the rise. The cost of living has also risen dramatically, causing the rate of employment for mothers with preschool age children to rise from 17% in 1967 to 65% in 1997. Eighty-three per cent of married couples with children both work, and the percentage of single mothers working has soared to 82%. That trend is continuing.
That is why choice is so important. Parents should not be forced to put their children in an institution that the government wants. They should be free to raise and educate them in a manner that they feel is in the best interests of their children.
Early childhood education is so important because this period sets the stage for long term emotional, behavioural and intellectual well-being. That is why we need to have the necessary childhood programs to prepare children to succeed in school, to improve the well-being of all of our children and facilitate the participation of parents in the labour force and continuing education.
However, the Liberal program is just not up to the job. That is why Alberta and Quebec are considering opting out. New Brunswick has requested autonomy for its system. The current systems in Ontario and Manitoba are more advanced than the Liberal program.
The minister came out of the meeting with his provincial counterparts on Friday, and believe it or not, there was no agreement on a national child care system. Why? Because the federal government refused to provide any financial commitment beyond the five years. The provinces have seen this song and dance before and they know how it ends. The federal government launches a massive new social program and when the bill comes in, it is nowhere to be found, except maybe in this case, on the hockey rink.
Provinces are struggling now to provide good quality education, elementary education with text books that are in good repair. The Liberal government wants to launch into a whole new institutionalized day care. We cannot afford our elementary system.
A Conservative government would cater to the needs of parents and their children with a plan that would last and a plan that the provinces could and would support.
The Liberal government has been promising Canadians a national child care program for over 10 years. However, it is clear that once again it is not up to the job. In fact, we heard the minister talk about and describe day care over the past decade as stagnant, fragmented and unregulated. Let us give the Liberal government a round of applause on this one. It is this way because this Liberal government has failed to deliver on its promises for the last decade.
I fully support our motion. I call upon the government to address the issue of child care by fulfilling its commitment to reduce taxes for low and modest income families in the upcoming budget and, so as to respect provincial jurisdiction, ensure that additional funds for child care are provided directly to parents.