Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House to discuss Bill C-394, a private member's bill put forward by the leader of the official opposition.
Whereas we applaud the suggestion of investing resources for new parents, this bill misses the point. It does not address the inadequate parental leave system that exists in this country. It leaves out the fundamental issue of child care and contributes to the growing inequality in Canada. This proposal would not fix the many issues with Canada's parental leave, particularly the systemic barriers that Canadian women face.
Let us talk about inequality. Growing inequality is the result of decades of Conservative and Liberal policies of privatization and deregulation. They are policies that have ravaged our public services and dismantled our welfare state. They are policies that have attacked the foundations of what previous generations have fought for to offer better living conditions to the working class and to people across this country. They are policies that are in the interest of a few and leave the many behind.
We know that inequality in Canada does not affect everyone equally. It is gendered, racialized, indigenous, disabled, and more and more, it is generational. The millennial generation, my generation, faces the prospect of being worse off than their parents. This is the generation we are talking about when talking about new parents. Let us talk about what millennials are facing.
Millennials are facing increasingly precarious work conditions. They have to survive going from one gig to the next. They are being told to get used to the job churn. We are hearing a government telling us to embrace this reality as a new normal. We are seeing an official opposition that does not seem to get that the fundamental challenges we face cannot be fixed with a regressive tax proposal like the one in front of us. When the Conservatives were in government, they did nothing to improve the working conditions that millennials face in our country and did nothing when it came to child care.
The economy we have today is not working for Canadian millennials. A 2015 Abacus survey shows us that 59% of millennials are delaying major life milestones, such as starting a family, because of the financial pressures they face. Beyond this number are the stories of young people who are struggling to get by.
I am reminded of a young woman I met in Windsor who talked about how, given all the challenges she has faced to be able to find secure employment with multiple degrees and student debt, et cetera, the one thing she said she knew well was that she was not going to be able to have kids because she would not be able to afford to give them what her parents gave her.
In the fall of 2016, a CIBC report was published that demonstrated that not only is there a historically high rate of part-time jobs in the economy, a rate that still sits at over 19%, but the share of below average paid jobs is steadily increasing. In Canada, more and more jobs that are being created are insecure ones, and many of those are being done by young people.
Reversing growing inequality must be front and centre for us as parliamentarians. This is where the proposal put forward by the leader of the official opposition falls short.
The measure proposes an investment of $850 million annually according to some estimates. This number will be looked at by the Parliamentary Budget Officer. As it stands, an investment of this size needs to address some of the most pressing issues related to the deficient parental leave system that exists in our country.
We know that we can do better. An example within our own federation has shown us the way. Quebec has implemented measures that should be supported by the federal government. Quebec has generous and accessible parental leave and a much larger number of women and their families who can benefit from it. Women who earn minimum wage in Quebec have to work only 178 hours to have access to the Quebec parental insurance plan, or earn only $2,000 through insurable employment. That number climbs to 600 hours for other Canadians. Once they have their child, Quebec families can count on a network of affordable day care throughout Quebec. Elsewhere in Canada, day care is often too expensive. Families and often mothers have to make a tough choice: postpone starting a family, not return to work, or face financial hardship in order to pay for child care.
This is unacceptable. We can and must do better. If Quebec can do it, so can the rest of Canada. It is a matter of priority.
Therefore, what can we do?
First, we have to talk about the fact that too many Canadian parents are not eligible for parental leave. Excluding Quebec, only 64% of Canadian women can take their leave benefits after having a child. This means that more than one-third of new mothers do not qualify to take that leave.
David MacDonald from the CCPA indicated that Bill C-394's tax credit proposal will not help alleviate inequalities in Canada and in some ways will even contribute to them, and that the tax credit proposal is more likely to benefit higher-income and middle-income earners, and is less likely to benefit new parents earning lower incomes.
Barriers to access El, notably in the number of insurable hours that are required, are too high for many young women in precarious work. That reality is very much the case where I come from. Many people up north do not have access to parental leave, because of the high rates of unemployment and underemployment. Also, I hear from my neighbours and friends, and I know from my own reality as a new parent, that there is a lack of access to affordable child care, and that proves to be a major financial burden for many families where I come from.
Second, instead of providing a tax credit, we need to increase the income replacement rate. We agree that we need to put more money in the pockets of new parents because they need it. However, with this proposal, since the proposed tax credit is not refundable, new parents that earn low incomes would not benefit nearly as much as middle-income or high-income earners, since many low-income families earn only 55% of their salary when on leave.
The income replacement rate of 55% is simply too low, especially when families are dealing with many new expenses. A higher income replacement rate would benefit all levels of income earners, and would therefore not participate in increasing the already alarming growing inequality that exists in Canada.
Finally, we must address the issue of child care. For Canadian women, and for new parents to have more income available to them, we must as a country find a way to offer child care services that are affordable across Canada. In all our major cities outside of Quebec, costs for child care are making life unaffordable, and are proving to be very challenging when families are deciding their priorities. I will list off some of the numbers of the median costs of child care by city in our country: Toronto, $1,212 per month per child; Ottawa, $1,009 per month per child; and Vancouver, $950 per month per child. Canadian parents know this reality and this is the kind of priority that they want to see addressed.
We want to be clear that the NDP supports the idea that we need to invest in Canadian families and in new parents, but we disagree with the proposal that has been put forward by the Conservative leader, a proposal that will increase inequality as it will do nothing to help lower-income families. It is a proposal that will not help new parents finally access the benefits they need and deserve, by making parental leave more accessible. It is a proposal that for all of the public resources it aims to invest will not create a single affordable day care space, something that is urgently needed across our communities.
I am proud to say that, along with our colleagues, we believe that Canadian parents deserve much better.