Debates of May 4th, 2006

Opposition Motion—Child Care

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will begin by saying that I have a great amount of respect for the member opposite. We have had many discussions.

I have to try to correct some things and then perhaps he would comment on them. The last thing he mentioned was putting the $1,200 into an RESP and that it had better not be the gross amount. The member should know that once it goes into an RESP, it is completely tax free. I guess that is part of that rhetoric.

The member alluded to the synapses in this developmental process and he is absolutely correct, that does happen. Indeed, that first year is such a crucial time for children. The EI program allows folks to be off work for a year.

This is my concern and also my question for the member. I am absolutely sure he does not share the views of the majority of his colleagues on the Liberal side of the House when he suggests that we need to get these kids at that early stage and put them into an early childhood educational program especially since parents can do a much better job given all the love that everyone knows they can give.

I am concerned that the message I am getting from the opposite side of the House is that heaven forbid if parents choose to rear their children, in some way they are being offensive and maybe should be charged with child abuse. Clearly the member does not mean that. I know that is the impression we are getting from other members in his party. Surely that is not the impression the member wants us to believe.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, on the RESP, the member may know that I am a chartered accountant. I think he should maybe check with me a little later. Contributions to an RESP are not tax deductible like an RRSP. The money simply goes in to the RESP and when it comes out, it is not taxed. If the parent invests the full $1,200 into an RESP, come tax time the parent still has to pay the income tax because he or she has to declare the taxable income of $1,200. The parent must pay tax on it. The member does not understand that. I can see that from the look on his face but he should please speak to me.

I think the best way that I can present my position on this question is to repeat a petition that I presented to the House. I know the former minister knows this petition which I probably gave hundreds of times. It went something like, “Managing the family home and caring for preschool children is an honourable profession which has not been recognized for its value to our society. The Income Tax Act discriminates against families who choose to provide direct parental care”.

My personal values are that parents are in fact the ones who are in the best position to determine what the best possible care arrangement is for their children. Some children are ready sooner than others to be in third party care.

I am a big fan though of promoting breastfeeding for the first year. The medical profession has said that this is important.

I think we should stop pitting stay at home parents versus those that decide to go to work. It is a family decision. We should respect the family decision. Let us make absolutely sure that if there is care being provided in third party situations, that there are rules and regulations to make sure it is good quality care.

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

Mr. Speaker, research shows that every dollar invested in high quality child care generates $2 in return for socio-economic benefits to children, parents and society. Research also shows a cost saving of seven times the original investment in quality child care for at risk children in terms of social responsibility, crime reduction, success at school and success in employment. Research also shows that access to quality child care enhances children's development in every way, intellectually, physically, emotionally and linguistically.

We know that parents want child care. We know that workers want child care. We know that businesses want child care. Why did it take the Liberals so long to introduce child care? Liberal Tom Axworthy gave us a line and said that it was a deathbed repentance. Why did it take so long for child care to be finally introduced last year just before the election was called?

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member probably is not familiar with the OECD report about existing child care in Canada. It is glorified babysitting.

People who work in the existing child care system of Canada have terrible wages. The turnover of staff in these places is so high that there is no possibility of providing that secure, consistent attachment with an engaged, committed adult. We have to fix that, as well. The member seems to think that we can put a litre of clean oil into a dirty engine with the old oil and that somehow will fix it. The roots of the problem have to be fixed.

The member seems to think that there is only one person who can take care of the child best, and that is somebody who is not a parent. I fundamentally disagree with the member on that. Parents decide.

As far as early child learning situations go, it is costly to have people who are qualified for that. The member will know that in Ontario only about one-third of the people who provide child care services have a degree in child care services. How can we say it is a developmental child care system when we do not even require nor pay enough to keep and attract good people who are trained in early childhood development?

The member just does not know what she is talking about.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a great pleasure to participate in the debate this afternoon on child care and I am pleased to have the opportunity to do so.

I want to pick up where the former speaker left off and where my colleague from Trinity--Spadina was going.

Unfortunately, we are in the position today in Canada of not having the kind of child care program that we need. Part of the reason for that is the 13 years of Liberal promises that went without action. How many red books is that? I do not quite remember. For 13 years, the Liberals took the votes of Canadians who wanted a child care program and did nothing. Then when they were in a minority Parliament and they needed the support of this corner of the House, they finally came up with a program. However, they did not entrench it. They did not take the necessary measures to ensure that it was a permanent part of our society in Canada.

Now the Liberals complain, when Canadians passed judgment on them for the corruption and the failure of their previous government, that it is somehow our fault. That is pretty rich. We could have gone through all of that if they had paid more attention to what it meant to be in a minority government and worked with all the ideas that were present in the House. They could have played to all three corners of the opposition of the House, but they chose not to do that.

The Conservatives need to be a little careful. They talk about now delivering on a campaign promise, but they should remember that Canadians did not give them a majority. They do not have it here in the House and they did not get a majority of the popular vote.

The Liberals' own arrogance made it impossible for them to understand that they no longer had a majority and they did not figure out how to work in that situation. The Conservatives need to be careful with that as well. They need to draw on the best ideas of all political parties in the House to be true to the mandate that they actually received from Canadians. This plan does not do that. It may well have been a Conservative promise, but it is not what a majority of Canadians voted for.

The Conservatives should have honoured the commitment made previously in the agreements negotiated by the previous government with the provinces. That would have been a start to showing they understood the election results and the wishes of Canadians for a child care program. However, they did not do it, and that is a missed opportunity.

The Conservatives have the proposal on the table for a $1,200 a year benefit for children paid to families for children under six. Everyone in the House knows that comes nowhere close to meeting the costs of child care. It is a drop in the bucket when we look at the actual costs of child care.

I also seriously doubt that the Conservative plan will make it possible for many, if any, families to make a choice to have one or the other of the parents stay home and take care of the children. It is just not in the cards with that kind of proposal.

This is not a child care plan. We might call it a family allowance, or perhaps a baby bonus, or assistance to families to raise children, but we cannot call it a child care program. It just fails under any measure when we look at what is proposed and the need and cost of child care in the country.

It would have been better if the Conservatives had chosen to add the money to the child tax benefit where it could not be taxed back. The $1,200 that they are proposing is taxable. However, if they had put it under the child tax benefit, it would have brought the child tax benefit to a level urged by most child advocacy groups in the country, a level that would have been a real help to most families.

The Conservatives could also take action to prevent the clawback of the child tax benefit by provinces. In this case, if they had chosen to increase the child tax benefit, it would have been a significant anti-poverty action.

We know that too many Canadian children live in poverty because their parents live in poverty. We know that government after government has failed miserably to meet the commitment made in the House in 1989 to end child poverty by the year 2000. Over one million Canadian children still live in poverty. That is unacceptable in a society as wealthy as ours.

As the member for Trinity--Spadina pointed out earlier, the Conservatives also plan to eliminate the young child supplement of $249, reducing an allowance that was very helpful to working families. That puts the reality of their $1,200 commitment down to around $950, and it is still taxable.

When we compare that paltry sum to the billions of dollars in tax cuts to corporations, which the government is currently offering, it is really hard to understand benefit of the proposal to families The $1,200 a year, or in reality $950 a year of a taxable benefit, will not be of significant help to many families, especially when it comes to providing child care.

This will not increase families' choices in child care if the spaces do not exist. Families want choice. They want to be able to choose affordable, high-quality, licensed child care. They want to know that their children are secure and safe and that they are stimulated and learning. This proposal will not do that for them.

Waiting lists for child care plague many families in my riding. We all know the terrible anxiety and frustration that causes for families. Those families need excellent spaces in non-profit facilities.

There is also a need for child care for children over six years of age. This proposal does nothing to address that situation. Children over six need out of school and after school child care, especially when their parents work, but the situation of these families is ignored.

I was moved by the terrible dilemma of a single parent in my riding, who has two school-aged children. She is on the verge of having to give up her educational and professional goals because she no longer can afford child care for her two sons and is ineligible for assistance for that. For her, finding child care was hard enough, but paying for it now has become impossible, and $1200 a year is not going to help.

The Conservatives have also resurrected a failed plan from other jurisdictions: the credit to corporations for building child care spaces. This plan would not build any spaces. It failed in Ontario, under the Harris government. One would think some of the members on the government side would have understood that experience. It did not create a single child care space. We need to hold them accountable for this and watch carefully what happens. Those spaces are absolutely necessary in our communities, and their plan will not do it.

We also need to see some accountability for the spending of the current money dedicated to child care. We need to see a report on how that money was spent by the end of 2006.

I also have concerns about for profit child care. Adding the profit motive into this system of child care will dramatically increase the costs in the same way it does our health care system. We know that when the need for profit is there, this is a significant new cost to a system. It will also encourage big box, for profit child care providers, who have proven problematic already in other jurisdictions that allow it, such as Australia. The entry of the big box child care profiteers into our child care system will be a dark day indeed.

The care of our children and their early childhood education and development should not be a profit-making activity. If there is ever a place where community needs to take collective responsibility, it is in the area of early childhood education. A publicly funded system is the most appropriate way to do that.

We know that early childhood education has been shown to be absolutely crucial to a child's future. We know that children who have had access to a high-quality child care environment do better in the long run. We know that they arrive at kindergarten better prepared to succeed. We know that the advantages of being wealthy and never having to worry about having to provide for one's children are evened out by a system of universal early childhood education. We know that education, working life, health and citizenship outcomes are all much more positive for children who are raised in societies that have provided a high-quality early childhood education and a child care system.

The work of Professor Clyde Hertzman of the University of British Columbia has made a significant impression on my home community of Burnaby in this regard. Many agencies have taken his challenge on the provision of a high-quality child care system to heart as we work on these issues in our community.

We need a permanent, entrenched child care system in Canada. We need legislation that provides for that kind of program. I am glad the member for Trinity—Spadina, the NDP spokesperson on these issues, is working on that kind of legislation. That, once and for all, will bring the kind of system on which families can depend. The New Democrats are proud to put that kind of proposal before Canadians.

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

Mr. Speaker, I listened with quite a bit of interest to the member's various criticisms of the Conservative child care plan, and I have listened all day, but ultimately I have one question. I realize why the opposition parties are opposed to it, but are they and will they be so committed and so opposed to it that if they ever have a chance to be in government, either individually or as a coalition, they will guarantee to the House that they will repeal the Conservative child care plan in its entirety? Whatever they call it, the family allowance, the support for families plan et cetera, will they stand behind their criticisms of today and guarantee that in the future they will do everything they can to repeal it?

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that is an easy question. Absolutely. I have already explained how we would put the $1,200 into the child care tax benefit, where it is not taxable and where it has real meaning as an anti-poverty program.

I also said just minutes ago that the member for Trinity—Spadina is working on private member's legislation to do exactly that:, to put in place a permanent, entrenched child care program for this country. We are not going to wait until we are government. We are going to put that option before the House and before Canadians as soon as possible in this Parliament. That is an easy question to answer.

The commitment is here. For decades we have worked hard for this kind of program. We are not giving up the fight now. We want to see that $1,200 go to families, there is no question about it, but to call that a child care program is completely misleading. We want to put it into the child tax benefit where it has meaning as an anti-poverty program in this country.

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I noticed that in the first part of the comments of my hon. colleague across the way he wanted to point back a awful lot to the number of years the former government was in power, and that is fair enough to do, but then he went on to point out all the good things that the government was finally moving forward on since he and I were first elected to the House in 2004.

He talked about the issues of finally moving forward on a national child care program. I think I will quote him; I wrote it down and I hope I have it right. He said, “I think the Conservatives should have honoured the Liberals' plans”. He had an opportunity to do that. He blew it last fall. He made a big mistake by not supporting us.

Does he feel much better working with that crowd over there now? Or would he sooner have us back, where we had a plan on the table, where we were working toward something, where something was going to happen on our national child care plan? Now he is working with that group that is not going to do it.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that is an easy one too. It was not the NDP that decided the makeup of the House. It was not the NDP that decided the outcome of the last election. It was Canadian voters from coast to coast to coast.

Unfortunately, the Liberals do not seem to want to accept that. They have had trouble in the past accepting the will of the voters. They have had trouble in the past accepting that voters listened to the promises they made but they have not delivered on those promises. I think that is one of the reasons why they are sitting in that corner of the House instead of this corner.

I can hear the Conservatives cheering. They need to take a lesson from that, because as I said at the beginning of my speech, the kind of arrogance that the Liberals showed is the kind of arrogance that the Conservatives are showing by saying, “It is our option or the highway. There is no other option. Take this $1,200 child care program because there is no other option”. There are other options being brought forward in the House, and the majority of Canadians voted for parties that support a very different option than the one the Conservatives are putting forward. I think the Conservatives would do well to heed the example of the Liberals and the wishes of Canadians.

[Luc Harvey, Conservative, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, for the past few days we have been talking about child care and we often refer to Quebec. Indeed, in Quebec 200,000 children receive child care every day in the various CPEs. However, there are not 200,000 children in Quebec, but nearly 420,000. That means that more than half the children did not have access to child care.

Today every child is covered. Where is the problem? What makes my colleague say that our program does not cover everything?

I must say I do not understand because I do not see where the problem is.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the program in Quebec is the envy of the rest of the country. The people and the government of Quebec have made important strides that way. We should all be so lucky as to have the kind of program that exists in Quebec.

The government should be doing more to support the establishment of that kind of child care regime in every province and territory in this country.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in the House to participate in this important debate on the future of the children of Canada. The parents in my riding of Parkdale—High Park and indeed across the country have waited many years for a national system of early learning and child care. We have listened to promises by the previous government on this file and we were hopeful when finally, before the last election, the government made some modest beginnings on a child care system.

The throne speech and now the budget of the new government have talked about creating spaces, yet there is no real plan to do this. Tax credits without any operating funds for child care do not create child care spaces. When it has been tried, as in the province of Ontario, not one child care space was created, not one.

There is no real plan, yet the agreements that were negotiated by the previous government are being cancelled after one year. In my own riding of Parkdale—High Park, children at the Holy Family School child care centre will lose the spaces they are in today, and other children who were hoping to get spaces will now not have the chance to do so.

In my riding, a deal is a deal, and the children of Parkdale—High Park, the children of Toronto and the children of Canada need child care now. Only about 15% of Canadian children have access to licensed, regulated care.

In Quebec, where successive governments have invested in child care, there is not nearly enough, but there is about 30% access in regard to child care spaces offered. Real choice in child care can only be achieved when we create spaces that today's working families can choose whether to take advantage of or not.

Investing in early childhood education is a key part of children getting a good start in life. This is so vital to the working families in my riding and across the city, but unfortunately, like so many other items in the government's budget, the government missed an important opportunity to invest in programs for working families. Tax cuts do not create child care spaces.

Now the plans made in the city of Toronto are in jeopardy. Toronto is the second largest provider of child care in our country, but without federal funding Toronto's children and families will lose $125 million annually in new child care services and supports. These are community based child care programs. Thousands of new child care fee subsidies are at risk with the cancellation of the agreement. The loss of these subsidies will increase waiting lists and threaten the stability of the remaining child care system. This is unacceptable in a city where more than 8,000 children are waiting and waiting on waiting lists.

The government has found the fiscal capacity to spend $7 billion on corporate tax cuts. I ask, does the oil and gas industry, with record profits, really need another tax cut? Why would we not invest this money to create spaces for early learning and child care for our country's children?

We support the Liberal motion, but we are concerned that this motion opens the door for commercial or, as some would say, big box child care rather than what we really need. What we really need is safe, licensed, not for profit, community based child care. This is what we need. It is what works best in Parkdale—High Park, in the city of Toronto and across the country. We just do not have enough of it. I know it works. My own kids were lucky enough to be part of such a system.

People in Toronto and the people I speak to every day in Parkdale—High Park work hard, pay their taxes and want to see that money re-invested in their communities. They want to see more child care spaces being created for their kids. They believe that is a good use of the tax dollars they work so hard to pay. They want multi-year funding to create a system of new child care spaces. That is a real choice.

I ask, when will Canada join with almost all other advanced countries around the world to offer families the real choice of quality, community based, not for profit care for our children?

[Betty Hinton, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Veterans Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the last member who spoke. I think the answer to her question is “right now”, that is, right now we are going to offer those child care spaces that she is looking for so desperately. I agree with the member. We need to have those child care spaces, and we can do it.

I would like to ask the member, though, if she agrees or disagrees with a comment that was made earlier today. I raised my children. I was a working mother as well. They were not in institutionalized day care, although they did go to playschool from time to time. One is a doctor and the other is an actor. Neither of them are criminals.

Does this particular member agree with what was stated over on the other side of the House today, that if children are not in organized day care they will end up being criminals?

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am so pleased to hear that neither of the member's children are criminals.

I do want to challenge the notion she has raised about institutional child care. The child care I am referring to is community based child care, child care where parents participate on the boards of these child care centres, where parents meet with the staff and are involved in every decision made in the community based child care centre. This is not institutional, bureaucratic child care. Those are the speaking notes that the hon. member's party seems to want to present to the people of Canada. I am talking about community based care, where parents are fully involved.

I will challenge the hon. member: I do not believe that tax cuts create child care spaces. I have not seen this where I come from in the province of Ontario. A previous government there tried this system. It did not create one new space.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the member if she agrees that the Conservatives are really embarrassing themselves today by pretending to have a national child care program. It would not have been a problem if they had suggested they did not have one and they did not believe in it, but they actually are suggesting they have a national child care program.

The Conservative member just said there are 100,000 children who still need spaces in Quebec. The Conservative program, even if it worked, and the member said it would not create a single space, would create 25,000 spaces. That is only for a quarter of the people in Quebec who need them. What about the rest of the country?

The Conservatives are putting forward $250 million for that purpose. Quebec itself spends $1.56 billion. That is a sixth of the money just for Quebec. What about the rest of the country with that tiny amount of money? It has been said many times today that the Caledon Institute calculated this at 55¢ a day for child care for a low income person. That would be 14 minutes of child care. Is it not really an embarrassment to suggest that it is a national child care program?

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think what is a national embarrassment is that a country with the wealth of Canada has no national child care program for our nation's children. It is an embarrassment that previous governments have not seen fit to use the resources of this country to make the care of our kids, from the earliest years, a national priority. I would argue that what is an embarrassment is that the current government and the previous government have not led the people of Canada to the creation of a program like those of most other advanced countries.

I would argue that the real choice for parents is whether they want to have their children in early childhood education or not and that this be available for all children whether their parents work or not. It is common sense. We have the resources to do it. Again I ask the question to all of us here in the House, why have we failed and why are we failing to do this?

[Alan Tonks, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for her overview and her analysis of the difference between institutional day care and community based day care.

Could the member just take the opportunity to point out to the opposition what the substantive difference is in the development of a community based day care system and why it works better in respect to meeting the overall needs of children in the environment within which it functions?

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that is one of the reasons that we believe having not for profit child care is important. Parents need to be involved in the care of their kids. If we have licensed not for profit care, parents can fully participate in every aspect of their children's care, even though they are getting good early childhood education. It is the opposite of what I would call the big box commercial care. It is good community based care. As a parent having been involved in a system like this, I appreciate how enriching it is for our children and for the parents involved.

[Betty Hinton, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Veterans Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, anyone with young children will tell us that, Dr. Spock notwithstanding, children do not come into this world with a manual. There is no definitive guide that tells us precisely how we are supposed to raise our children. Parents know every child is different and what works with one child will not necessarily apply to another. No formula applies to every child in every situation.

In the same way, there cannot be a one size fits all approach to child care. There is no right or wrong way and certainly no single way to meet the diversity of Canadian families' child care needs. Every family is different, with distinct approaches to child rearing that reflect their personal values and preferences and with varying dependence on outside support for child care based on their individual circumstances. This understanding is at the heart of Canada's universal child care plan which provides Canadian parents with true choice in child care so they can find what fits for them.

Our plan recognizes that the needs of Canada's families with young children depend on the kinds of jobs they have, the hours they work and whether they live in a rural or urban setting. It acknowledges that the needs of parents working night shift or running a small business from home are very different from those who work nine to five outside the home.

Our plan responds to the non-routine nature of occupations, such as farming or fishing, where seasonal conditions can demand unpredictable care giving arrangements.

It also recognizes that formal day care facilities that work well in urban centres may be of little value to the roughly one-third of Canadians who live in small towns and rural communities across the country and that they do not help parents who choose to stay home to raise their children during their preschool years.

As the latest Statistics Canada child care survey underscored, almost 50% of children under the age of six are primarily cared for by a parent at home. A recent EKOS public opinion survey found that nearly 50% of parents would prefer to have at least one parent at home caring for the child. Our universal child care benefit gives these families options.

Effective this July, we will put $1,200 per year for each child under six directly into parents' pockets. We believe parents, not politicians, should choose the kind of care that best suits their children's needs, whether that is enrolling them in nursery school, taking them to a local mom and tot program or buying them books.

At the same time, our plan also responds to the needs of parents who want to put their children in day care close to where they live or work. Our progressive plan will lead to the creation of new child care spaces to meet the needs of Canadian families. We will invest $250 million per year beginning in 2007 to encourage the creation of new day care spaces for Canadian children. This could include workplace based child care centres as well as more flexible spaces that work for parents whose work hours do not fit the standard nine to five model.

Our government will provide financial incentives to businesses, communities and non-profit organizations, the amount depending on the number of new spaces they create. Working with provincial and territorial governments and these partners, our aim is to create 25,000 new child care spaces per year beginning next year. This is a much greater incentive than any previous initiative.

I want to remind hon. members present that the Government of Canada provides a wide array of supports to help parents raise their children. In fact, we invest over $13 billion per year in these initiatives. Among them are the Canada child tax benefit and the national child benefit supplement, a tax free monthly payment to help parents with the cost of raising children.

As the budget makes clear, we have taken into account interactions with these federal income tested benefits in the design of our universal child care benefit. That means that contrary to some of the false assumptions and speculations out there, all eligible families will benefit from the universal child care benefit no matter their income level or the choices they make in caring for their young children.

Then there is the child care expense deduction which allows parents to deduct child care expenses incurred when they work or go to school. The extended parental leave provisions provide income replacement for up to one year while a new parent stays at home with their newborn or newly adopted child.

There is also a range of targeted community based programs which support children and families at risk, such as the community action program for children and the Canada prenatal nutrition program.

Mr. Speaker, I must stop for a moment because I neglected to mention that I will be splitting my time with the member for Crowfoot.

The federal strategy on early childhood development for aboriginal children includes the improvement and expansion of existing early childhood development programs, including aboriginal Head Start, first nations and Inuit child care programs and efforts to address fetal alcohol syndrome--fetal alcohol effects.

These figures do not include federal spending on programs and services for families with children that are delivered by other levels of government. For example, $500 million is transferred each year to provinces and territories under the federal-provincial-territorial early childhood development agreement. The agreement includes programs and services in four key areas for action: healthy pregnancy, birth and infancy; parenting and family support; early childhood development, learning and care; and community support. Clearly, we are both sensitive and responsive to the needs of Canadian families.

Government members believe profoundly that families are the key building block of society. We recognize that parents know what their children need and we understand that the needs of every family are different. That is why we believe in choice.

What we are offering is a new and different option for families seeking alternatives tailored to their unique circumstances and who want decision making powers left in their own hands. This is a refreshing and welcome offer for Canadian families after the dogmatic approach that has dominated public discourse for more than a decade.

Let us get past the debate and get on with the business of providing Canadians with the choices they desire. We owe it to Canadians.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberal government had signed a $1.2 billion agreement with the Government of Quebec based on this program. Now that the Conservative government is cancelling the agreement, Quebec is deprived of $807 million.

My question is very simple. I want to know what my colleague thinks of the fact that $807 million is being taking away from the Government of Quebec.

[Betty Hinton, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have listened to the same question raised several times today and I do not know how many times it has to be answered in exactly the same fashion.

Agreements were reached by the former government with three provincial governments. We honoured all those agreements and we took it a step further. We actually extended that offer to all provinces in this country.

We are honouring the agreements that were made, even though we do not agree that is the way to go for the long term, but we did not want to put the provinces in the position where they had gone so far with some plans and then all of a sudden there was no money for them to proceed.

The money is flowing and in 2007 we will implement our tax plan. This July, with the support of the House, parents in this country who have children under the age of six will begin to receive $1,200 per year per child so they can make a choice, depending on their family circumstances, on how they want their child cared for.

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

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member may remember that it was the former Conservative government in the early 1990s that eliminated the truly universal baby bonus. That baby bonus or mother's allowance was actually not taxable. It went to every family. It was not clawed back, deducted or taxed.

Now we have a new $1,200 allowance, which is actually not $1,200 but really $950 because the young child supplement is being eliminated, but it will be taxed.

How can this be called a child care allowance given that it used to be called the baby bonus or mother's allowance? What kind of giant flip-flop is this when the Conservatives cancelled a program and now are introducing a much more inferior program?

[Betty Hinton, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I do not believe this is an inferior program and this is not the Conservative government that the member refers to. This is the new Conservative government. We are looking for solutions to long term problems that have faced this country for more than 20 years.

I am sure the member would agree with me that it is rather outrageous that when the former Liberal government originally talked about child care, it was 13 years ago. The children who were supposedly going to be taken care of by government help are now old enough to babysit. That is pretty pathetic.

We are trying to give $1,200 to each and every family who has a child under the age of six. It has been said many times in this House as well that the taxable portion of it will be placed against the partner who earns the least amount of money. We are trying to have the least negative impact on families and provide the most positive alternatives to all families in this country and to treat them all equally.

If we were to do it on a tax reduction basis, which I have heard the member already say today, she would be overlooking the fact that more than 30% of Canadians simply do not earn enough money to be taxed, so using it as a tax basis would not support them at all. As I said earlier today, we have just removed another 655,000 Canadians off the tax rolls.

If we really want to help every Canadian family and if we want to be there to support every Canadian child, this is the best way to do it. All through the day today I have heard that it has been tried somewhere else and it did not work. I really hate to hear those kinds of comments. Maybe they did not do it right. I think we are going to do this the right way and I believe it will be very successful.

I hope the member for Trinity--Spadina will support this system. We need to do something for Canadian children and this is the best opportunity she will have.

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to stand in the House to discuss the motion before us today. I also want to thank my colleague from Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo for sharing her time with me and I thank her for the comments that she gave in her speech. She gave an excellent speech and she understands the issue very well.

I campaigned on the promise of providing Canadians with choice in child care. Today we are delivering on that promise. Before and during the most recent election campaign, the Liberals and the New Democratic Party maintained that the only answer to expanding child care in Canada was their one-size-fits-all plan, to build a massive child care bureaucracy which would benefit only a very small percentage of Canadians.

Only the Conservatives believe in true freedom and true choice in child care. The best role for government is to allow parents to choose what is best for their children and to provide parents with the resources to balance work and family life as they see fit, whether that means formal child care, day care, informal care through neighbours or relatives, or a parent staying at home.

Since the election the government has kept its promise to Canadian voters. The budget on Tuesday introduced our government's universal choice in child care plan. Our budget fulfilled the commitments and the promises that we made. That is a major difference between this side of the House and the Liberal side. We do not have dozens of promises that will not be delivered on.

In the last election we highlighted five priorities, five key commitments of this government. We are acting on each of them, as our budget so clearly indicated.

Canadian parents waited 13 long years for a child care program that was continually promised but never provided. It was constantly announced, election after election, but never delivered. Canadian parents on January 23 said enough is enough. Our minister responsible for Canada's choice in child care plan was quoted in the Toronto Star yesterday, pointing out that our government was actually doing something when it came to child care.

This is why I have yet to refer to the wording of the motion we are debating here today. The motion is full of references to false promises and tired rhetoric that Canadians rejected on January 23 this year. Canadians want something real and they can clearly see in Tuesday's budget what they are really going to get from our new Conservative government.

On July 1, every parent will begin receiving a cheque for $100 a month for each child under the age of six. This is something they can take to the bank for a change. Our government is providing these families an extra $1,200 a year for each child under six, to be taxable in the hands of the spouse with the lowest income. This will be in addition to the current Canada child tax benefits, the national child benefit supplement and the child care expense deduction.

This added support will help parents choose. This added support will help parents decide which child care option best suits their family's needs. This federal government will not decide for the parents. This federal government will not be in the business of raising the children for the parent. It will allow the parent to do their responsibilities and to decide.

We will help employers and non-profit groups create flexible child care spaces in the workplace or through cooperative or community associations. We have allocated $250 million a year in incentives to employers, communities and community associations that create spaces.

Perhaps one of the most important aspects of our plan, at least from my perspective, is that our plan serves the rural communities in our country as well the urban. This is not just a big city plan. This is not another plan or another piece of legislation that pits rural against urban. Our plan will serve moms, dads and children even in the most remote regions of our country.

I have spoken on the child care issue before. In the last Parliament I spoke out against the attempt by the previous government to create a two tier child care system that would have discriminated against families who chose to stay at home or find care outside of the publicly funded system. I quoted from a report entitled “Canadian Attitudes on the Family”, which I really believe is worth repeating again today.

It states:

--many Canadian parents feel trapped by economic pressures and are not able to make the sort of choices they would like for their families. Sometimes, of course, this is unavoidable. Economic reality has a way of interfering with our dreams...

In February last year a Vanier Institute of the Family study on family aspirations found that the vast majority of mothers and fathers with preschool children would prefer to stay at home and raise them, but if they could not, their strong preference would be to have a partner or another family member look after their children rather than placing them in a formal day care centre.

The Vanier study complemented a Statistics Canada analysis, also released in February 2005, which found that in 2001, 53% of Canadian children between the ages of six months and five years old were in some form of child care. That is up from 42% in 1995. About one in three children are being looked after by their relatives, one in three by non-relatives in someone else's home and the remaining one in three are being looked after in day care centres. This is not to say that parents should choose one form of child care or another. The point is the choice should be theirs.

The Liberal government's proposal, before the election this year, would have supported only one-third of Canada's children, the ones who were willing to enrol in a day care centre. Not even all of them would have left their day care centre, which their children were in now, to go to the new one being created by the previous government.

The author of the motion, which we are debating, seemed to forget that, under the plan her government almost foisted on Canadian parents and children, two-thirds of Canadian children were totally ignored.

The Conservative Party of Canada's plan is universal and it is equitable. Our plan is not just some phoney abstract idea. It is real. It is in the budget. It is happening on July 1 this year, not 12 or 13 years down the road. We are giving dollars directly to parents this year, in only two months. We are treating all parents, all families and all children equally. We are allowing Canadian families to make the choices that best serve their needs and the needs of their children.

Canadian families need help raising young children and the government recognizes that. The realities of work and life conflicts are having a huge impact on our country and on our society. Long work hours and workloads are affecting our lives more and more and it is becoming harder than ever to strike a balance.

A Conference Board of Canada study found that the percentage of Canadians who reported moderate and high levels of stress as a result of work-family imbalance increased from 26.7% in 1989 to 46.2% in 1999. This work-family imbalance is costing employers billions of dollars in sick leave and lost working time, which translates into decreased productivity for companies.

In 2003 a Health Canada study, entitled “Work–Life Conflict in Canada in the New Millennium”, found that the high job stresses doubled and job satisfaction and employee loyalty dropped.

We all know that there is also much stress in the workplace, yet all the previous government could offer was a hastily drawn up plan that only addressed a small percentage of Canadian families.

[Robert Thibault, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to the member's comments. He should review the information. He should ask his researchers to have a closer look. A number of the points he made were completely false.

He made the point that, with the plan negotiated by the 10 provinces with the Government of Canada, some day care/child care spaces would be closed and these children would be moved into new government spaces. That is completely false. The plan foresaw provinces working with the communities and with the people in existing spaces as well as in new spaces so we could improve those spaces, build upon them, bring salaries to a reasonable level for those people and grow in areas where we could and should grow.

He made the point that his plan was the best one for rural Canada, and that is completely false. For me that is important. I do not disagree that there is a role for a transfer of money. However, it is not the only point. To say that this is the best one for rural Canada is completely false, not if it is done alone. To give families true choices, they need to have options from which to chose.

I live in rural Canada. The private sector will not create those spaces. The not for profit sector cannot create those spaces without the help of government. They cannot afford to maintain the spaces they have now. One of thee day care centres I visited last week in Nova Scotia was at risk of closing because of a 35¢ an hour increase to the minimum wage.

The official language minority communities in this country could never create child care spaces without the help of a federal-provincial assistance program as previously negotiated.

I encourage the hon. member to support the motion so that we can at least keep the foundation of a national system that we could improve in the future.