Debates of May 4th, 2006

Opposition Motion--Child care

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

There is no permission on the part of the member for St. Paul's so we will proceed to questions and comments following the remarks of the hon. member for Trinity—Spadina. The hon. member for Mississauga South.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have a couple of concerns and the first one is with regard to the proposed tax credit that the government is offering to companies to create child care spaces.

The issue has to do with how we determine whether there will be regulatory type guidelines to ensure we do not have just glorified babysitting, which is what the OECD basically characterized existing child care in Canada, other than for the Quebec model. It is of concern. Babysitting is not what we need. We need child care.

The second and maybe more important question is, admittedly, a political question but an important one. I think it is important that the member explain why the NDP supported the defeat of the government knowing that it would kill the five year program. Why is it that during the election campaign the NDP did not make the case to Canadians that they would lose these early learning and child care spaces, particularly in Ontario?

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate that the member has chosen to use this issue, which is really, at the end of the day, about children and working families, and tries to blame the NDP. It was not the NDP that voted down the government. Canadians who were tired of empty promises and tired of corruption made that decision.

After all, it was the former prime minister who said that he wanted the election to be on the Gomery commission. It was perhaps two months later but I think the judgment of Canadians would be the same. Whether it was two months before or two months later, I do not see any difference.

However, let us get back to the question of $1,200. Unfortunately, because the $1,200 is taxable and because the child supplement of $250 is being eliminated, at the end of the day this $1,200 is not universal. At best, it is less than $1,000 and after taxes, whether provincial taxes or federal income taxes, there may not be a whole lot left.

Children need regulated, non-profit, high quality child care and that is not available through babysitters because most of them are not early childhood educators who have been trained in colleges for many years.

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

Mr. Speaker, there were a couple of remarks by the member for Trinity—Spadina that I found particularly interesting.

First, let me explain something for the member since she comes from a very urban riding. The situation is somewhat different in rural Canada. I have some good friends, who I mentioned in my S. O. 31 on Tuesday. Andrew is a farmer and Vicki stays at home with their three children, all of whom are under age six.

To drive from Willowbrook to Yorkton, which would be the nearest centre for child care, would be roughly a 30 mile drive. For this couple to drive, because Andrew also works for a feedlot, they would have to buy an extra car. They would have to spend the extra money on gas, which is over a buck a litre on average most days now. When we begin to add all that up, even if Vicki were to work, it would be very difficult.

Under the program that the member was proposing, this family would receive absolutely nothing, whereas under the current government, they will be receiving support.

Why is the hon. member proposing a plan that would clearly discriminate against people in rural and remote regions, giving them absolutely nothing? Why would she support a plan that would discriminate against rural Canada?

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have visited many parts of rural Ontario and I have talked with many farmers.

During the seeding period and harvest period, I am sure Vicki would welcome some kind of support so she too can help her partner in the fields. I do not know what kind of farm they have but I know all hands are on deck during those periods of time.

Rural child care could be in a different style. We are not talking about one size fits all. We are talking about flexible community based child care.

There is home based child care. Vicki would then not need to drive all the way to another child care centre. A group of parents can come together and operate a child care centre. However, the child care centre should be licensed and of high quality so our kids are taken care of properly. We are talking about flexible community based child care and not the kind that is envisioned by the Conservative government.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to this important subject this morning and to put a few thoughts on the record.

I spent a lot of time in the last Parliament working on this agenda, travelling the country, listening to parents, communities and advocates and hearing their very sincere requests for a national child care program.

I have to say at the outset that I am very concerned about the agenda of the government. I became even more concerned on Tuesday when I looked up in the gallery and saw Mr. Harris, the former premier of Ontario, listening to the budget being read. It was a bit of déjà vu all over again.

I was in Queen's Park in 1995 when the provincial Conservatives delivered their first budget and I must say that the damage is still reverberating in that province. It was the beginning of the dismantling and the consequent difficulties in our public education system, our post-secondary education system, our health care system and the list goes on. When all of these very valuable programs were put into place and substantial public money invested, they were challenged in the same way as the Conservatives and their supporters attack a new national child care program today.

However, I do want to address the inadequacy of the Liberal effort. The Liberals had over 13 years to build, thoughtfully and confidently, the best early learning and child care program in the world and to fund it generously with the surpluses they had generated year over year. Instead, they waited until the last hour, pushed by New Democrats in a minority government, to introduce a very half-hearted, lukewarm effort that was easy for the Conservative government to walk away from.

I tried and my caucus tried to get the Liberals to take some leadership with the provinces, in an accountable, transparent, full court press, and enshrine a national child care program in legislation, rooted in the principles put forward by communities, advocates and parents, a program based on quality, universality, accessibility, developmental and available to people challenged with disabilities, and a program delivered through a not for profit network across the country.

I met with the previous minister on many occasions and spoke to him precisely about this and asked him to consider our contribution. I think he was very sincere in listening to me and trying to factor that in but, alas, it seems there were forces afoot in the Liberal government of that day that would not allow him to go the distance. If it had been adequately funded, this would have provided real choice to families everywhere, in cities, towns, rural, northern and remote Canada.

I travelled the country last year meeting with and listening to parents, communities, advocates and experts. The experts we listened to were parents who had become frustrated with the lack of opportunity and choice for them in terms of child care and became active and involved. Some of them became involved in child care for their own children and now are grandparents fighting for child care for their grandchildren. They spoke overwhelmingly in support of a national child care program. They did not say that parents were not the primary care givers and ultimately responsible, or that parents were not good teachers and nurturers, but that many parents wanted more and needed help because of the changing nature of our society and our economy. Two parents working with no extended family close by and not sure who their neighbours were wanted assurances of quality, safety, consistency and learning.

People know the value of early learning, people like Charles Coffey, David Dodge and others from the financial world who speak about this. They talk about the value of early learning in later life as children become adults and participate in the economy and the way that they can contribute if they get that early start. They know the nature of work and that the workplace is changing, which calls for creativity and flexibility.

I was in Saskatchewan where I heard from farm families who asked me to make sure that they were not left out. Farming can often be dangerous. With both parents working, oftentimes off the farm, they want a safe, secure place to have their children nurtured and involved in early learning activities.

The offer in the budget by the government is totally inadequate. To emphasize and expand on the remarks by one parent of the argument made, “This will not provide more choice. It will reduce the potential in fact for greater choice”. Look at the response of a couple of families in my town of Sault Ste. Marie after the budget came out the other day.

One mother said, “I am a mother of three. I have a three year old, a two year old and a newborn baby of nine weeks. I am currently in subsidized housing and on maternity leave from my job. My husband has made the choice to stay home and raise our family. I am what you call a typical low income family here in Sault Ste. Marie. This is all well and good to say, but Mr. Harper is not helping low income Canadian families with his $1,200 per year per child subsidy. Even if I wanted a tax break, even if I wanted to put my children into day care, I could not afford it, because unsubsidized day care costs on the average $25 a day or more and only if the space is available”.

Here is another situation, and I dare say all members have the same situation in their ridings of people who have children but they are over six years of age. This is from a family in my community, “As you know, the province is using the last year of federal funding to fund the next four years and therefore, the cost per space has decreased significantly”. This is from a person working in child care, “In Sault Ste. Marie this is having a negative over all aspects of child care, including the elimination of summer programming for school age children”.

A woman with two kids over six wrote to say that she gets no allowance from the government and now hears that the programs for the summer have been scrapped because of the funding cuts. She does not know what she will do.

People in other communities are saying the same thing. A woman in Sudbury said, “It will take a lot more than a 1% reduction in the GST or a $100 a month child care allowance to endear greater Sudbury voters to the fiscal agenda of the Stephen Harper government”.

“A hundred dollars a month does not even come close to paying for a month of child care”, said Chris Kattle, a father of three children, “Creating more spaces is a better way to go. The way things are now, we have to give up our spaces every June and find new ones in September. There is no continuity or consistency for our girls”.

In the April 12, 2006 issue of The London Free Press, a letter to the editor stated:

While the Liberal program, like most of their promises, was too little, too late and too long between promise and delivery, it did move the affordable day-care challenge forward. The Tory program shuts down those gains and turns back the clock.

Their proposal, while allowing people to keep a bit more money in their own hands (the rich more so than others), does nothing to create the spaces needed, to ensure the spaces are licensed and to make them more affordable.

The City of London's research supports the position put forward by NDP MP Irene Mathyssen that more people can benefit from the same dollars by expanding the current program rather than shutting it down. Stephen Harper's Tories ignored ideology to appoint--

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

Order. The member several times has quoted from a letter in which the Prime Minister has been referred to by his name. Members cannot do indirectly what they are not supposed to do directly.

I failed to call the member to order on the first two occasions. I have since had a consultation on the matter because I was not sure exactly what the rule was, but I would ask the member not to do that again. If he must read letters in which the Prime Minister is referred to, he could refer to him as the Prime Minister.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the letter ends with:

[The Prime Minister]'s Tories ignored ideology to appoint a Liberal to their cabinet, so how about asking them to rethink their approach to child care?

Let us not play politics with our children. We all know parents are the best and primary caregivers of their children. That is why we are not opposed to giving them more money to do that, but $100 a month taxed and clawed back is unjust in its design, giving more to the rich than the poor. It will not pay for child care or create one new child care space, so choice will not be enhanced.

The tax credit to industry will not create more spaces either. We saw what happened, or did not happen, in Ontario. It will most certainly not create new spaces in rural, northern or remote Canada and therefore, no new choice for parents.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed listening to what the member had to say.

I am actually very blessed to have a lot of experience in this field and a lot of understanding. My wife is in ECE, as is my sister-in-law. They have a long history of working in licensed child care centres. As such, I have a couple of questions, but first a comment specifically relating to my riding.

My riding is a big winner under this plan. The riding of Peterborough was slated to receive $2.5 million and will now receive about $7.8 million. My riding is very happy as a rural riding to be treated fairly and equitably with other ridings around the country.

I wonder if the hon. member is aware that licensed day care centres often employ people who are not ECEs, people who have no formal training whatsoever in day care. As such, they are no more qualified than anyone else is to provide early learning.

I would like to hear a comment from the member with respect to that.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would certainly be interested in seeing how this magic happened in Peterborough. I am sure every community across the province will be phoning Peterborough to find out how that in fact happened. It is certainly not happening in my community. It is certainly not happening in Sudbury, London, or Windsor.

In fact, I am told that across the country the two biggest provinces are experiencing decreases in funding, some $269 million in Quebec and close to half a billion dollars in Ontario. Where Ontario is going to get the extra money to actually give Peterborough more is something I would like to hear more about.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the member how the efforts of the NDP in a minority government influenced the commitment in the 2004 Liberal platform for $5 billion in early learning and child care.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is really a very simple answer. We made the Liberals deliver. The Liberals had been promising that since 1993, in four Parliaments, and they did not deliver. What was the difference in Parliament in 2004? In 2004 the difference was a minority government with a significant presence by New Democrats who believed in a national child care program.

The very simple answer is we made the Liberals deliver.

[Guy André, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to respond to the statements the member made in his speech.

To begin, as you know, we have a daycare program in Quebec. It is in place, it provides daycare services in rural areas—where I am from—and it gives people access to services.

We are somewhat opposed to the NDP position, which calls for a national daycare network. We already have a Quebec daycare network. Currently, we are requesting full compensation from the federal government, money that can then be transferred directly to the Quebec daycare network.

Why refuse this request? Why hire more bureaucrats in Ottawa to supervise the daycare network in Quebec when we are already running it ourselves? We are only asking for full compensation so we can support our existing network.

Where does the member stand on this issue? Does he agree that Quebec should receive full compensation to support its daycare network, which is not for profit and is partially in line with his position? Basically, we want Quebec and the provinces to support this network.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I agree. I think Quebec should be compensated. Quebec should be congratulated. Quebec is the model that we are looking at. It is not perfect. There are some challenges, as we all know, in that particular program, but Quebec has spent the money. Quebec has made the commitment. Quebec listened to its parents. Parents in Quebec rose up and demanded a provincial child care program. Quebec delivered, and it delivered in a really creative, flexible way. As the member said, there is child care in rural Quebec, in northern Quebec and in remote Quebec.

The criticism of the national child care program made by the Conservatives is that choice is not being provided in those parts of the country when in fact we would provide choice. There would be choice provided if it was done properly. To simply give parents $100 more a month that will be taxed and clawed back and to talk about a tax credit for industry to create more spaces will not create choice.

Quebec has the answer. Let us look at Quebec. Let us compensate it for the good work it has done, and then let us focus on the rest of the country and get it done there.

[Paul Martin, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this is my first speech in the House since the last election

First of all, I would like to thank the voters of LaSalle—Émard for placing their trust in me for the sixth consecutive time.

I rise today to discuss the importance of the Government of Canada honouring and building on the early learning and child care agreements signed with all 10 provinces over the course of the last year. Today the government is moving to implement a different plan, one that has at its core a theoretical payment of $1,200. There is a tactical elegance to this proposal. It is easy to understand. It is easy to remember. Furthermore, families need support, and I for one will not argue when it is provided.

However, the government claims that these cheques will provide tangible and fair assistance to families who need it. Furthermore, simply by distributing these cheques, the government says it will be giving Canadians a choice in child care. Again, the tactical elegance is who could possibly be against choice.

Therefore, in my remarks let me address not the government's political tactics, but on the basis of substance, the two important questions that we need to deal with. Is the government's plan truly fair? Does it provide real choice?

As the Caledon Institute of Social Policy predicted, and unfortunately it predicted correctly, “The new child care allowance will be a flawed scheme creating deep inequities”. For example, the Conservatives are going to cancel a young child supplement which goes to the most needy families. Why? They are going to do it to partially pay for the new benefits for better off families. They are doing this in the same budget that has actually increased income taxes for low income Canadians.

It is difficult to understand the perverse thinking that would take money out of the pockets of the working poor so that their better off brethren might benefit.

When we take a closer look at the proposed annual benefit, it boils down to a few dollars per day after taxes. That is fine if we wish to leave our child at the day care for 40 minutes per day and no longer.

For some families, especially low-income families, this benefit heralded by the government will be even smaller after taxes and clawbacks of other government benefits.

It amounts to a few dollars per day to help parents raise their children, whether they go to day care or remain at home. What choices do individuals have with these few dollars per day?

Giving parents a few dollars a day does not provide choice. It is not a child care strategy. It is not a child care solution. It does little to help those with children in care and it does nothing to help those who have trouble finding affordable quality care for their children.

Over the course of the last number of years, the federal government has pursued and implemented initiatives that were designed to make a real and positive difference in the lives of Canadian families.

We created the child tax benefit, over $10 billion a year in crucial income support to some three million families. We created the national child benefit. We created the young child supplement, so that families who need help most get it. We expanded maternity and parental leave benefits, so that mothers or fathers can spend up to a year at home with their babies. During the past two years, as the member for St. Paul's has said, we reached an agreement with every province to put in place a nationwide system of early learning and child care based on the principles of quality, accessibility, universality and development.

The member for York Centre and I travelled to provincial capitals to sign these agreements. Child care workers, families, volunteers, provincial premiers of all political parties, and ministers of all political stripes were there to welcome the birth of this program. Yet, the new federal Conservative government has attempted to characterize it as the state interfering in the parenting decisions of Canadian families.

This is not about and has never been about government telling Canadian parents how to raise their children. The government demonstrates an abysmal lack of understanding of how Canadians live today and the challenges that many families face when they make that allegation. Parents make their own decisions and what they have decided, out of necessity or out of choice, we ignore at the expense of the next generation.

At the present time, well over half of all Canadian children age five and under are in child care of some sort. Too often this occurs against virtually insurmountable odds, arising out of the difficulty in finding or affording quality care. When parents cannot find quality care, their children suffer and the family suffers.

A national child care program, in which all governments cooperate, is the nation standing behind the choice that more and more families have already made. Handing over a couple of dollars a day to Canadian families is not going to give them the ability to afford quality care, nor is a grant to build new spaces without recognizing the ongoing costs of operating those spaces anything more than a political patch for a deeply human need.

In short, the government speaks of providing choice, but it is a false choice that it is offering Canadians. It is a false choice it is offering families in need. Whereas, the national program that was signed last year by the federal government and all of the provinces provides the foundation for that choice.

So far in the national debate that is underway, concern has been focused primarily on the need to create new spaces, but as the member for St. Paul's said earlier, there is another aspect to the debate that is every bit as important. It is an aspect that in my belief has been insufficiently touched upon since the election. It is the need for early learning, the recognition of the importance to be paid to a child's development in the crucial years of zero to six.

As Dr. Fraser Mustard and the Hon. Margaret McCain said in their study entitled “The Early Years”:

We consider, in view of this evidence, that the period of early child development is equal to or, in some cases, greater in importance for the quality of the next generation than the periods children and youth spend in education or postsecondary education.

I would hope that the recognition of the importance of early learning in terms of its unique benefit to the child as a person would be enough to carry the debate, but in case it is not, let us look at a harder equation, one which might appeal to the government.

The Governor of the Bank of Canada has said that early learning is the single most important investment a society can make in its own future. James Heckman, the Nobel laureate economist, put it as follows:

We cannot afford to postpone investing in children until they become adults, nor can we wait until they reach school age–a time when it may be too late to intervene.

He went on to say:

Since learning is a dynamic process, it is most effective when it begins at a young age and continues through adulthood.

Finally, a recent study from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis in the United States, hardly the hotbed of left-wing social engineering, concluded that early childhood development should be at the top of a government's priorities, that such investments in children yield high public and private returns in terms of better schools, better workers and reduced crime. In short, learning begets learning; and skill begets skill. What greater gift can we give to our children?

The agreements that the Liberal government put in place with the provinces are not just about child care. They are about better care, with a real emphasis on development. The focus is not only on creating spaces, but on creating opportunity to providing a real head start for Canadian children.

We live in a country that, like many in the industrial world, is facing the challenges of an aging population. We have fewer young people supporting more older people. It is therefore more crucial than ever that the children of today and tomorrow are afforded the best opportunities, are given every advantage, and every possible chance to succeed.

This is true for the children of all Canadians. It is one of the most powerful economic arguments for the higher social principle of equality of opportunity. An argument that is made all the more powerful when one considers the needs of aboriginal Canadians who represent the youngest segment of our population and the needs of new Canadians who represent the fastest growing segment of our workforce.

The simple fact is that if we want to ensure that the children of all Canadians are given a head start in a world of ever increasing global competition, then we had better understand that what the current debate is really all about is how we provide all our children with the opportunity for early learning, not just a select few. Unfortunately, the government is walking away from a system that would do just that.

The presidents of a number of school boards and teachers federations said after the budget that “By failing to uphold the federal-provincial child care agreements, the Prime Minister and his government have chosen to forego a once in a generation opportunity to give our children the kind of start that assures their readiness to succeed in school and in life”.

The research is overwhelming, consistent and irrefutable, that children's readiness to learn at the start of grade one is the single greatest predictor of how they will do in school in every grade, whether they will graduate successfully, what their earning potential will be, how positive their contribution to society will be, and how healthy they will be. Every child deserves the best possible start in life.

Our social policy depicts our country as we would like it to be. This policy bears witness to a profound conviction: we feel that Canada's success depends on our common belief that we must not leave anyone behind.

Together we are stronger than any one individual on our side, and over the years it is this belief that has been the basis for so many Canadian success stories.

Today, we must act on this belief once again so that the requisite resources are made available to continue building a national day care system, a system adapted to the individual needs of the provinces and one that respects their areas of jurisdiction.

Over the last decade, we have accomplished remarkable things in Canada. We have eliminated the deficit. We have reduced our debt by over $60 billion. We have surpassed all other G-7 countries in terms of economic growth, employment and standard of living.

In the last decade, Canada's achievements have put us at the forefront of the world's evolution. We must not become complacent. Every day we are confronted by new challenges. We will meet these challenges only if we support Canadian families by building this generation's legacy to the next, a national program of early learning and child care so that Canadian children, regardless of income, can enter school ready to learn and succeed.

For years, we as a nation struggled to live within our means. We fought to curb the chronic deficits that ran up the national debt and hampered us from investing in the things that mattered most. But we did the hard work of eliminating the deficit. We did the hard work of putting in place the foundation for a nationwide system of early learning and child care, the first new social program in a generation and one that we must continue to build on.

What we have gained must not be lost. I ask indeed, by what intellectual rigidity does the government now tell us that child care is not a priority and that early learning is not a worthwhile goal? Today, we have the means to prepare Canada to succeed and our children to succeed. We have the opportunity to invest in our shared future. To achieve these goals we have to come together. We must recognize where lies the common good and that is the role of the federal government.

For sure, let the new government build on, let the new government improve on, that which has been achieved, but let it not seek to destroy that which has already been set in place with the provinces.

The role of government is not simply to govern for today. It must govern as well for tomorrow. That is what our first action on taking office was, to eliminate the deficit. That is why when we eliminated the deficit, our first budget was to bring in the education budget, and it is why the national child care and early learning program is so important. This is an approach that has produced the best country and one of the strongest economies in the world. We must not abandon that now.

The early learning and child care debate is not a debate only about the families of today. It is about the Canada of tomorrow. The choice that we make on child care and early learning will speak to the kind of society we want to have. The federal government has a duty to contribute to a culture of learning that goes to the heart of when learning begins, and to ensure that each child will get a better start, a better chance of thriving in the later years of school and in life. It is the right thing to do for children. It is the right thing to do for Canada.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

I see that quite a number of members of Parliament are interested in some questions and comments. I would like to keep the questions to a minute or less and the response by the member to a similar time.

The hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources and Social Development.

[Lynne Yelich, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources and Social Development]

Mr. Speaker, my question will be brief. Our right hon. Prime Minister campaigned on the child care program. Our hon. finance minister announced the program. The right hon. member has held both of those positions and had 13 years to deliver it. He held both of those positions. Why was that child care plan never delivered if it was such a priority for the Liberal Party, as he has said?

[Paul Martin, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, if I may correct the hon. member, in fact, the Prime Minister did not campaign on a child care plan. He campaigned on a family allowance plan. This is not a child care plan and no expert in Canada will characterize it as such.

The second point I would make is that there is no doubt that the government in place has the right to bring in its legislation. Two-thirds of Canadians voted against the government. Two-thirds of Canadians, those represented by the rest of the members in the House, support early learning and child care.

As was said, when we were the government and the current government was in opposition, it believed that the government should listen to the House. Two-thirds of the members in this House support early learning and child care.

As far as the other question is concerned, I would simply ask the hon. member, would she take a look at what the Liberal Party did? We inherited a huge deficit from the Conservative government of $42 billion. We had to deal with that.

Then, after we had dealt with it, look at what we brought in: the child tax benefit worth $10 billion, $3,000 for every child; we brought in the child care expense deduction; and we expanded it to $7,000 and then we expanded it to $10,000 for children with disabilities. It is like the old days. I could go on and on.

[Yvan Loubier, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is shameful to hear the hon. member for LaSalle—Émard speak as he has done.

We have before us the father of the fiscal imbalance. He did not hesitate in the 1995 budget to make savage cuts to transfers for post-secondary education. The result has been that colleges and universities today find themselves faced with problems.

Neither did he hesitate to slash programs for the most disadvantaged people of society by savagely cutting transfers for social assistance. He has never invested in social housing. He stole $50 billion from the surplus in the employment insurance fund.

He speaks about poor children. We have poor children today because we have poor parents. He is the artisan of that poverty.

When he was finance minister, the hon. member for LaSalle—Émard did not hesitate, from 1994 to 1998, to change the tax laws and change the regulations to favour international marine shippers, including his family company. Thanks to that he has saved himself over $100 million since 1998. How then can he come and lecture us today?

[Paul Martin, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is totally incredible to hear the hon. member’s speech. We are here to discuss the issue of child care and the protection of our children. We see the Bloc is not really interested in protecting our children. It is not interested in early education. It is always the same speech.

As a Quebecker, I am very pleased to say that the model used for this program is one that is based on a Quebec success. As I see it, the hon. member should be more proud to be a Quebecker and to say to Canadians: “That is our vision”. He is afraid to do so. What is he ashamed of?

For my part, I am happy and very proud to be a resident of the province that put all this in place.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to that fine, well researched, prepared speech and I am having one heck of a time choking it down when I consider, since 1993, the former Liberal government traded on child care to achieve three majority governments. The hon. member opposite gave billions of dollars in tax breaks to corporations. Other members of the former government played fast and loose with public money to the point where they lost the confidence in the House. Now we hear them trying to blame the NDP, which is really a stretch.

The Liberals lost the confidence. We did not. Now like spoiled children, they continue to try to gain crass political points, and it is sad to see. It is hard to understand. To this point in time they are in denial and they do not seem to realize the Canadian public gave them the boot.

[Paul Martin, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in my remarks I did not blame the NDP. I really thought what might happen is the NDP would rise, understanding the responsibility we all have to deliver a national child care program for Canadians, and would be positive on this. However, what I see is exactly the same kind of speeches that we heard in the last House when the NDP did everything within its power to cooperate with the then opposition to ensure that child care and aboriginal health would not go further in the process. That is unfortunate.

This is an incredibly important national program. NDP provinces signed along with it. I do not understand why the NDP now seeks to work together as an accomplice with the current government whose ideological bent is totally contrary to what everyone expected were its principles. What would Tommy Douglas say if he heard the speech that the hon. member just gave? He would not be very proud.

[Peter MacKay, Conservative, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the member for LaSalle—Émard for his attendance and participation in debate.

It is with some amusement that I listen to him now heckling anyone in the House about partisanship. It seems that anyone who takes a position contrary to the member and his former government somehow is off base or intellectually dishonest as opposed to the realization that his own record is somewhat spotted on so many issues.

He started by talking about how an incoming government has an inherent right to do nothing other than follow the predecessor. Yet we know his government, upon coming to office, cancelled the helicopter program. It cancelled the Pearson airport program among many other things. It promised to get rid of GST and free trade, which they did not do. We know as well, while he tries to take credit for having slain the deficit, that it was free trade and the GST. He dined out for many years as finance minister on the previous government's policies.

However, let us talk about child care. Under that member's watch, while it was promised in the 1993 red book, his government did not create a single child care space in 13 years. Child poverty rose substantially under his watch.

Why does the member think that somehow the one-size-fits-all approach of his government will recognize the realities, which he should know as the former prime minister, that exist in rural Canada where they do not have child care spaces available?

[Paul Martin, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to rise to speak to the new minister in charge of child care--

[An hon. member]

Yes, where is the minister?