Mr. Speaker, in my question to the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development with respect to child care the other day, she responded saying that parents had choices and that the government prefers to give parents choices. I want to point out that if there are no spaces, there are no choices.
The previous Liberal government had $5 billion invested over five years. This would have expanded to $10 billion to have a long-term investment in early education and child care. This is what it is about. It is about early education and child care. This was a long-term investment in partnership with the provinces. It was an agreement with all the provinces across Canada to deliver early education and child care to children.
The first act of the government when it came to power was to eliminate the $5 billion, thereby eliminating spaces and giving parents essentially no choices. The waiting lists for the last couple of years have gone up tremendously and the spaces are much too expensive. Parents are having to pay $1,200 to $2,000 a month. It is far too expensive. That does not give parents a choice of any kind.
The Conservatives talk about providing millions of dollars in child care, offering a paltry $250 million, which is then divided among 10 provinces and three territories. Under the $5 billion Liberal government plan, $254 million went to Ontario alone for that first year before the government cut it. Once that was cut, the Government of Ontario had to make that money last. Therefore, it divided it up to $63.5 million a year for a number of years. The last of that federal funding dried up this year. The last of the small amount that they had divided dried up.
In the meantime, the Government of Canada has put no real money into child care. It has made no real investment. The $1,200 it calls universal child care is not a child care program at all. Up until this year, it was only benefiting wealthy families and not low-income families. This year, it is putting a little bit more into low-income families, making it look as if it is increasing. Essentially though, no matter which way we look at it, we are looking at $50 to $100 a month, in fact we are looking at $1,200 a year. This amount does not even begin to pay for one day, never mind a whole month of child care.
It does not build spaces for child care, provide teachers or pay for all the costs that go into the infrastructure as well. Fees are rising for parents all across the country. There are waiting lists in Toronto that are very long, including in my own riding of Beaches—East York. With this $63.5 million lost, there would have been 2,000 child care spaces at risk.
In any case, the province of Ontario picked that up, but that does not change the fact that the Government of Canada has a responsibility to partner with the provinces to deliver a national early learning and child care program, which the government has not done. It is a win-win. It creates jobs and helps parents re-enter the workforce. It gives every child the best start. It leads to a highly skilled labour force. The return on investment is huge. The government is pitting parents against parents and politics over policy in its short-term self-interest. That is not acceptable.