Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Wetaskiwin.
It gives me great pleasure to rise on this occasion as a member of the new Conservative government in Ottawa. The people of Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke have my sincere gratitude for giving me the honour and the privilege of being their representative in the 39th Parliament of Canada. Now that the Conservative Party is the government of our nation, I pledge that I will not forget the people who made this possible. They can be assured that I will continue to fight for the issues they tell me are important. I am their servant.
There are many, many individuals to whom I owe a great debt of gratitude for the confidence they placed in me, for their hard work and the selfless hours they put in, to build on the winning streak that has marked the re-emergence of democracy in Canada. The Ottawa Valley became the eastern beachhead of democracy in 2000 and marked the beginning of change as together we entered the 21st century. I extend my heartfelt thanks to our entire campaign team and to the many hundreds of other volunteers who demonstrated what a truly grassroots campaign Ottawa Valley style is really all about.
If anything demonstrates the difference between the new Conservative government and the old regime, it is in the treatment of families and children. During the recent federal election I campaigned on the promise to support parents' child care choices through direct assistance and by creating more day care spaces in the workplace. Anticipating a July 1 start, our plan would see every family with a child under the age of six receive an annual child benefit of $1,200 per child to choose the day care arrangements that best suit their needs. Our plan gives choice to parents to make their own decisions about their family in a way that best suits their needs.
What is not clear is whether or not the Liberal Party of Ontario plans to claw back this child care allowance the way it claws back the national child benefit from the neediest children in our province, those whose parents are on social assistance.
The Liberal Party oversaw a deal in 1997 which resulted in the clawback of the national child benefit supplement from the pockets of some of our neediest children. As a new program in 1997 to assist Canadian families with children, it replaced what many Canadians called the baby bonus. It was introduced as the Canada child tax benefit, the CCTB. It included a basic benefit and a supplement, the national child benefit supplement, the NCBS.
The NCBS program was supposed to reduce poverty among low income families with children. Negotiations between the federal and provincial governments around the implementation of the NCBS resulted in most provinces, Ontario included, deducting the NCBS amount from the benefits received by families who were on social assistance. This is what is commonly known as the NCBS clawback. Many provinces justify the clawback on the basis of fiscal imbalance.
In my riding of Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, social programs such as housing, welfare and child care have been downloaded to the second tier municipality, which in our case is the county, by the province without the funds and little say in the rules to run these programs. I note that in the county of Renfrew some of the 80¢ dollars that are provided by the province for child care were returned unused. Out of every dollar the province of Ontario received from the federal government, it was taking a 20% cut with the expectation that the 20% would be squeezed out of parents already overtaxed through their local rate paying from a property tax base that is already stretched to the maximum.
The net effect of the child care program being pushed by the opposition would see increases in property taxes facing taxpayers, particularly those on fixed incomes and forcing them out of their homes. It would make the dream of home ownership unaffordable to millions of Canadians who would not be able to afford a mortgage and crippling high property taxes.
Both parents are forced to pay household debts and work outside the home. This in turn drives up the need for even more day care which in turn raises taxes. This is a vicious cycle that conveniently forgets the people whom this discussion is all about, the children.
It has been recognized, even by the defeated Liberals, that the problem of allocating billions and billions of dollars for a day care program with no control on how that money is eventually spent is the greatest weakness in the top down approach to government programs. So much for providing benefits directly to the children. The drive to provide Soviet style institutionalized day care is being pushed from the top down, not the other way around that has been suggested by the opponents of giving parents choice in child care.
I mention this specific example to illustrate that for the previous 13 years, Canadians had been saddled with an interventionist government that without a doubt has been anti-family. The worldwide trend away from Soviet style institutionalized day care has been very pronounced in those countries that were formerly part of the old Soviet empire and are now democracies. Our plan to provide benefits directly to families is in tune with the experience of other democratic countries.
On a positive note, our new Prime Minister has recognized the fiscal imbalance as a national concern. The current Ontario government campaigned on the promise to stop the clawback, a promise it promptly forgot once it became elected. While I am encouraged by the support of the provincial NDP in Ontario to defend the $1,200 per child benefit for children under six, I look forward to the fourth party in the House making a similar declaration of support. Even child poverty activists in their own party acknowledge that the best way to help families in modest circumstances is to provide direct assistance, not another government program filtered through many fingers with little time left at the end of the day for the supposed intended recipients.
Canadians are paying attention to this debate about choice in child care. Carolee Slote from Pembroke called to ask me to tell our new Prime Minister and all members of Parliament to “stay the course” on our campaign pledge on child care. Carolee asked me to give this message, “I am a stay at home mom. My children are just as important as the children of parents who work outside the home”. That message is one I have been hearing from my constituents on a continual and regular basis.
This weekend past, community leader Del O'Brien stated that it could not be emphasized enough how the Conservative child care plan will help children in rural areas, whereas the other did not. He is pleased overall to see how rural Canada is finally receiving the attention it deserves under the new Conservative government.
Our country has many resources, but none are more precious than our children. They represent the hopes and the dreams of families, communities and the entire nation. They are our future. I am pleased to be a member of a government that cares about supporting our most vulnerable members of society.