Mr. Speaker, I was originally going to pose a query here in adjournment proceedings resulting from the Treasury Board President's insult against Canada's youth when he said that I was too young to serve in the House of Commons even though 30,488 constituents in my riding decided to replace the existing defence minister with me. However I have decided to take this discussion one step further and deal with an issue that is important to many young families that I represent in the constituency of Nepean—Carleton.
In particular, in places like Nepean, Greely and Riverside South we have thousands of young families with toddlers running around. The government will be interested to know that Nepean has 23 hockey teams in the same age group, which is why it is so important for me to represent the interests of young families.
Further to that point, the government has announced $5 billion for a national babysitting bureaucracy over the next five years. I find it difficult to understand why those dollars should be taken out of the pockets of hardworking taxpayers, hardworking women and families, so that the government can send those dollars to a bureaucracy and ultimately to a group of unionized staff to set up a brand new babysitting bureaucracy, a brand new day care administration run by the government.
In representing the views of my constituents, I would rather see those dollars go directly into the pockets of parents to deal with child care needs directly. We could cut the bureaucracy out of the process by just giving those child care dollars directly to the people who care and know most about the interests of their children, those of course being the parents. We have millions of child care experts all across the country who already exist. They are called moms and dads.
I wonder why the government refuses to trust parents. Why does it continue to take billions of tax dollars out of the pockets of middle class working families and force on them a national babysitting bureaucracy which those parents did not choose and do not want? Why will the government not put the child care dollars directly into the pockets of parents? Some might choose to use those dollars for day care. Others might decide to keep one parent in the home. Still others might hire a neighbour, a family member or a community based option to deal with their child care needs while they are at work. However that should be a choice for parents. It is not the right of the government to take that choice away.
Why would the government want to take away a fundamental right of parents to decide what is best for their children by forcing on them a day care system that is not universal, excludes stay at home mothers and fathers, excludes community based care, excludes faith based care, excludes family based care and excludes 90% of options? It only provides funding for a small minority who will end up choosing a government run facility to institutionalize their children. Why would the government want to take away choices from women and families?