Mr. Speaker, the government is offering $100 a month while the cost of full time child care can reach $90 a day. A few more dollars in people's pockets does nothing to create new spaces. This is not a choice; it is only an illusion of choice.
Meanwhile, the move to cancel the agreement that the provinces negotiated in good faith and signed with the Government of Canada is already taking choices away from Canadians. There will be no choice for the single mother who thinks she is going back to school this fall if the spaces that were going to be created are not.
The waiting lists are just getting longer and longer. There will be no choice for the child care worker in Alberta to attend a course in order to earn an early child care educator certificate if the jobs are not there after she earns it. There will be no choice for the Saskatchewan nurse who decides to stay home until her child is in school if the proposed program for all four year olds in that province is cancelled. That nurse will not be in the workforce this fall.
That is the real, personal, and immediate impact on Canadians, economic and social, as a result of the cancellation of the early learning and child care agreement. It is long term social and economic costs. We know that if we do not invest in our children, we pay dearly down the road in health care costs, special education and corrections. When parents who need help do not get it, we all lose. We lose money.
For every public dollar we invest in preschool children, we save $2 later. We save $7 later for the children from our most vulnerable families in corrections, special education, and mental health. We lose when at risk children grow up to become dangerous to themselves and to society.
I am not alone. The majority of Canadians want this program. All 10 provincial governments have made their choice as demonstrated through agreements they have signed. Parents and advocacy groups have been clear.
In January nearly 63% of Canadians voted for a party that supports a national system of early learning and child care. These parents know that such a program will give all of our children the opportunity to thrive while giving them as individuals the peace of mind that they need to be full participants in the workforce if they so choose.
Almost all Canadians are aware of the importance of child care services in early childhood development. Ninety-four per cent believe that the first six years of life are the most important for brain development. Eighty-nine per cent believe that poor child care services hinder development regardless of family history. Seventy-nine per cent feel that well-trained child care workers provide better service.
Child care services have overcome significant obstacles in the public eye. Two-thirds of the population now feel that these services foster child development. Only 17% perceive them as “child-minding” services.
Child care services are also viewed as an essential service.
We are now paying horribly in Toronto for the ideologically driven cuts that Mike Harris made to homework clubs and family counselling. That has resulted in a problem with guns and gangs, Those kids felt, after joining a gang, that it was the first time they ever belonged. The first time they had ever been told they were good at something was when they were found to be good at shoplifting.
I have talked to those kids. They know that had there been a homework club, had there been family counselling, and had there been the kinds of interventions in the community, their lives would have been very different. I believe the government must stick to the facts and must do what is evidence based. Trying to pit parents against child care workers as though it is either/or, is absolutely unacceptable.
I encourage the minister, the Prime Minister and the entire caucus to go to an early learning centre and talk to the moms and dads there who want more resources like that for their families. Every day they are grateful and every day they want the government to do the right thing and honour the agreements. This government will be accountable for the results, socially and economically, the number of child care spaces, and the readiness to learn measurements as the children hit school.
Cancelling agreements with the provinces has major social and economic consequences.
I want the government to be put on notice that we are watching for the results.