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.
