Madam Speaker, it is a privilege to rise today on behalf of my constituents from Fundy Royal to speak to a very important issue. At this time I would like to commend the member for Edmonton—Spruce Grove. She has shown tremendous leadership on this file in offering what is a great, inclusive and encompassing alternative to what is a pretty draconian and invasive approach offered up by the Liberals and which will set us back quite a bit.
The Liberals have approached this issue with a big brother knows best kind of thinking. It is an idea that is fundamentally unfair to Canadians from coast to coast. It ignores parents who should be free, irrespective of any government interference, to make their own choices on how they raise their children. That would be pretty self-evident. Nowhere is more evident what parents would prefer, which is to be treated equally and for the government not to pick winners and losers in child care, than in my home province of New Brunswick right now.
As members know, negotiations have taken place and deals have been struck on child care, province by province. My province had some ideas. One was to treat all parents equally. That is an idea I support.
Many parents in my riding of Fundy Royal live in the rural parts of the riding. Parents leave for work in the morning or maybe in the evening on a night shift. They do not work nine to five necessarily. Some of them take their children to day care. Others take them to a trusted friend, someone who cares for children in their own home. Others perhaps take them to a private day care centre or perhaps one parent will stay at home with their children.
All those are legitimate choices that parents make. All those decisions are made. In New Brunswick, 33% of the parents stay at home with their children in the early years. About 35% place their children in someone else's home, a non-relative or a relative. Just over 20% of parents have their children in day care. There is a diversity of approaches that is consistent with our country. We live in a diverse country and I live in a diverse province. There are diverse approaches to how parents deal with child care.
However, the Minister of Social Development is proposing a system that only certain parents get to take advantage of, a system that penalizes those who choose to stay at home with their children, or who choose to have a grandparent or a friend care for their pre-school children. That is fundamentally unfair on many levels.
For one, imagine a scenario in my riding where one of the parents works an evening shift and does not have child care available, so they have a sitter. Maybe they make a meagre income. They are paying high taxes like the rest of us and they also are paying for someone to watch their children. Now we are asking them to pay to watch other people's children. That is the minister's system. Instead of benefiting all Canadians equally, we are picking winners and we are picking losers.
Last month the Prime Minister jumped ahead of the gun a bit. He was planning to fly into Saint John for a photo op. Officials in New Brunswick said simply that they wanted the ability to steer some of this money toward families who chose other ways of dealing with child care.
The minister's response to this was completely arrogant and completely out of touch. It illustrates big brother knows best. It illustrates all the reasons why people do not want this kind of program, the idea of some bureaucrat in Ottawa deciding how we in New Brunswick will raise our children. He said, “New Brunswick would never see any of its funding until it backed off its demands”. What were its demands? That all parents would be treated equally.
It varies from province to province, but in my province it means ignoring the child care choices of 80% of the parents. Is this any way to deal with federal-provincial relations? I do not think so. To bait provinces and then strong-arm them into conforming with the Minister of Social Development's utopian idea of what child care should be in our country will not work.
I guess in his way of thinking we need a child care program of ever expanding size. He will not contemplate what it will ever cost. It is one size fits all and it is a giant nanny state approach to child care.
The minister of family and community services for my home province of New Brunswick stated this. I think it is pretty telling in this debate. He said:
What works for daycare in downtown Toronto is not necessarily what will work in rural New Brunswick. That is why we need to ensure that agreement is flexible enough to meet the needs of New Brunswickers.
I agree with him 100%. Why would we not seek that flexibility?
As I mentioned, it results in a doubling of the burden on parents who choose other alternatives for child care. They have to pay twice and that is unfair. Middle class and poor working Canadians may be subsidizing families that have a much higher income. I fail to see how that is fair or equitable or desirable in our country.
Quebec has made its choice. New Brunswick has a choice. Every province has its own choice. Right now we know there is the potential in Quebec of a strike by child care workers. The minister today in question period said that the Quebec model was his inspiration. There are inherent dangers in a model where there is the potential, because of labour unrest, that families do not receive child care.
These ideas sometimes sound good. The minister says that it is $5 billion, and the government will provide child care without looking at the details. It reminds me of something we are going to be voting on tonight.
Tonight we will vote on funding on the firearms registry. Ten years ago another minister, eager to implement his utopian vision on the country, said “This program will cost $2 million”. We know tonight that we will vote on $64 million just to augment this fiscal year. They are 1,000 times over budget on that program.
If Canadians are a little concerned or I am a little skeptical about the Liberal math that says this will somehow to be achieved with $5 billion, we can see why history would tell us that we may want to take a second look at what the minister is saying.
I have every reason to believe that this Liberal plan will unduly and unfairly tax Canadians and certainly parents. It will result in a blow to bureaucracy that does not serve the interest of Canadian families.
This is in stark contrast to the approach advocated by the Conservative Party. We would treat families equally. We would respect the jurisdiction of provinces. We would respect that different families and parents make different choices on how they will care for their children. In a recent survey, we know parents indicated that institutionalized day care was their last choice.
I ask members to consider the situation in New Brunswick, to consider all families and not just some of them. I ask them to respect Canadians' choices for child care and respect the rights of parents to raise their children as they see fit.