Mr. Speaker, our party and our government will not take the advice of the Liberal Party when we talk about parents and families. The Liberals are simply wrong, Mr. Speaker, and I will tell you why.
Our party and our government, this Conservative government, is the party for strong families. We are the party of choice in child care. We are the party that respects parents and families. We believe Canadian parents know what is best for their children and for their families. This is just common sense. Each family is different. Each family makes it own choices.
What we are interested in is providing Canadian parents with choices and with leaving more money in the pockets of those parents so that they are better able to make the choices they want to make for their children. The Liberals are not interested in any of those things.
Due to our government's actions, a typical Canadian family has $3,000 more in its pocket than under the tax and spend Liberals. Under our government, we have achieved and will continue to make the largest investment in parents and families by a federal government in Canadian history.
Our policies for families are bringing tens of thousands of lower income families off the tax rolls completely, making sure that they have more money and more choices to take care of their children. Our policies for parents and children of more choices, more money in their pockets and less government lead to stronger families. Stronger families mean better communities, and that means a better Canada.
As I said, the Liberals are not interested in providing these choices, or in leaving families these resources or in less government. They think a government knows best. They think Liberals know best, but they are just arrogant and out of touch.
The Liberals continue their dubious beer and popcorn attitude. The truth is, the Liberals do not believe Canadian parents can raise their own children. The Liberal MP for St. Paul's said just last week that staying at home to raise one's kids does not constitute a real job.
The Liberals want to take away choices for families. They want to tell parents what is best. They do not believe parents raising their kids constitutes child care or real work at all. Their central assumption is that children will be loved and cared for just as much, or even more, by anyone except a parent. The Liberal leader must think so; he wrote about it.
In his book, The Rights Revolution, he said, “So-called family values, as propagated in the rhetoric of North American popular entertainment, pulpit sermonizing, and political homily, are a downright tyranny”. The family as tyranny by the leader of the Liberal Party. He does not think parents are naturally good at parenting. He wrote that he thought families were so often destructive institutions.
All the Liberals want to do is ship our children off to state-run, state-approved daycare warehouses, and they focus on what a relief that would be for parents. Not us. Not Conservatives.
We are not interested in a left-Liberal, one-size-fits-all plan to nationalize children and that forces one choice on parents and families. The Liberal size fits no one.
