Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise in this chamber again, now back for the second term. While it is not my first time to rise and speak in this session, now that I have the opportunity, I do want to thank the electors of the riding of Ajax--Pickering for the tremendous privilege of being in this House and getting the opportunity to represent them in this different capacity as an opposition member.
Certainly, I share some of the sentiments I heard from hon. members around the need to work collaboratively, to discuss issues, to hopefully find consensus, and to the best of our ability make this minority government work.
However, with regret, there are some issues that do need to be raised as a number of issues were simply missed in the throne speech. I hope that the fact they were missed does not mean that they are going to be ignored because they are extremely important issues.
I would start with early childhood development but more broadly on the issue of education. Fundamentally, what the throne speech misses, what the Conservatives as a party miss, is the fact that early childhood development is not about day care. It is not about simply taking care of children. It is about creating a continuum for learning that starts from the youngest age, goes into post-secondary, and then into lifelong learning.
It is about the fact that when children are in those most formative years, they need nurturing and caring environments. Whether those environments are provided at home or in an early childhood learning environment, the fact is parents need real choice.
Simply providing something in the neighbourhood of $3 a day is not going to achieve that. If we were to say to parents, “Instead of providing public school, we are going to give you $3 or $4 a day and good luck to you”, would Canadians think that was appropriate? Absolutely not.
In the same way, it is totally inappropriate to treat early childhood development in that way. It is a lazy policy. Instead of trying to deal with creating spaces, creating nurturing environments, and creating real choice for Canadian parents, the government is going to send them a cheque in the mail and say good luck. That is not good enough and we need to do a lot more.
In my constituency we have a huge preponderance of families. The vast majority, where both parents are working, require high quality child care facilities, and this is an issue that must be redressed. It is simply not acceptable to scrap the agreements that we entered into as a government in the previous session, toss them out the window, and say, “Here are a couple of bucks. I hope things work out for you”.
On the issue of post-secondary education, I was extremely disappointed in the document. We recognize that our competitiveness and our strength as a nation is dependent upon the type of education that we are able to receive and upon the quality of that education. We have been making great advancements, not only on the education side but also in research and development with the partnerships we have been working on with post-secondary institutions. This document ignored that. It simply said it is not one of the priorities and that is not acceptable.
Our future and our strength as a nation are very much dependent upon our ability to invest in the education of young people, in post-secondary education and in those facilities, whether it is our fifty-fifty plan or, more importantly to me, the idea that we make post-secondary education accessible for all. That is not just about tuition. That is about saying that regardless of their background, they have the opportunity to go. If they are coming from extremely wealthy families, reduced tuition may not be the smartest thing to do. Maybe what we need to be doing is focusing on those individuals who come from less fortunate circumstances who need the assistance to get the education they need to thrive, have a successful and happy future, and contribute to our economy.
Perhaps the most tragic oversight in this document though, the one that perplexes me to the greatest extent, is the environment. The reality is that our environment is in mortal peril. If we were go to our Arctic, we would see the dramatic changes that are occurring. We would see what is happening to our climate when the ice continually recedes and turns into water which then absorbs more energy and fuels that process even more. We would see permafrost give way and the carbon then be released. We would see the fact that our planet simply cannot sustain the carbon that we are putting into the atmosphere. It is reaching a point of saturation and there is a recognition that we as a globe have a crisis that we must face.
What do the Conservatives do in the wake of this crisis, at this time of great need and leadership? They say they are going to abandon Kyoto. They are going to slash funding to environmental projects. They are going to ignore it as an issue and not reference it as something that we need to put front and centre.
The environment deserves to be put front and centre. It is an area that we have taken leadership on and we need to continue to do that. We need to go back to our Kyoto commitments. We cannot say we will not bother because it is difficult. Instead, we have to find out how to get there, how we can be leaders in this area. We need to find out how we can get to the point where we can lead the world in terms of what we are doing with respect to the environment.
We as parliamentarians must be the voices for those who do not have a voice, whether it is a child in the back of a classroom who has been forgotten and needs additional help, whether it is a person who has been forgotten on the street who no longer has any hope, whether it is somebody in a neighbourhood where they do not feel they have a future, or whether it is young people who say to themselves that this society does not have a place for them.
Beyond just speaking for our constituents, it is our role as parliamentarians to also speak for people who do not show up, whose problems have major implications for this nation but who do not have the ability to articulate for themselves.
Citizenship to me in Canada must mean hope and opportunity. It must mean hope and opportunity for all of our citizens, whether they are an aboriginal on a reserve, whether they are a young person in a difficult urban environment, whether it is someone who is homeless, or whether it is somebody with a learning disability. Every level of government has a responsibility to ensure that we do not leave Canadians behind. We really must do more to improve on this.
Another oversight is cities and communities. I am deeply proud of what we were able to do in the last session of Parliament. We were finally able to recognize that municipalities deserve a seat at the national table. They deserve to have their issues taken seriously. They deserve to be recognized as the engines of growth in our economy. Municipalities have been under-resourced, ignored, and dumped on, and for the first time they were taken seriously, given resources, listened to and brought to the table.
How disappointing for those municipalities to look through the Speech from the Throne, that flimsy document, and see virtually no reference to the cities and communities agenda. After all of that progress, the government is going to let it slip away because it is not a big enough priority. I submit it is a priority and it should be put front and centre.
Some of the issues that the Conservatives have chosen to deal with are half measures and I will take accountability as one example as we dealt with it today. The truth is it is selective accountability. The Conservatives talk about restrictions on lobbyists, but they have a lobbyist on the front bench as the defence minister.
In my opinion, if the government is going to deal with the issue of lobbyists and say that once someone leaves government they cannot become one, it should also deal with the other side. If a lobbyist has been lobbying for a certain company and then gets elected as a parliamentarian, the notion that they would sit as a cabinet member is ridiculous. This is a clear example of selective accountability.
With respect to tax cuts, the Conservatives have said on the one hand that they are going to give Canadians some money back. That is great. Canadians are going to get 1% back on the GST. On the other hand, the government is going to take away the tax cuts that would actually give more to low and middle income families. If someone is looking to buy a jet this is great news, but it is not great news if someone is going to buy groceries.
We need to take a look at this document and ask two questions. How do we really make a difference in the lives of Canadians? What are the real priorities of Canadians? I can tell the House that this document did not speak to the priorities of the constituents of my riding. I will fight with all my effort to ensure that what we work on in this session of Parliament is a reflection of the true needs and priorities of Canadians.