Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the member for Barrie on a good speech. It was well delivered. I am sure the constituents of Barrie will be well represented in this and in future Parliaments. I also take a moment to congratulate you in your office as Deputy Speaker.
During my remarks on the throne speech, I will speak to a number of things that some parliamentarians, especially the opposition parties, have overlooked. We are talking about change here, not just a change in government but a change in the direction of government. Our primary focus of the throne speech, and I expect the primary focus of the upcoming budget, will be on change.
If we look at the Liberal record of broken promises, of the sponsorship program in Quebec and across Canada and the broken promises to the military, it would be my hope that there will never be a political party of any political stripe that will break its bond with the Canadian public the way the Liberal government did.
We have stated that we will clean up Ottawa by introducing and passing the federal accountability act. We will lower taxes for all Canadians by cutting the GST from 7% to 6%. We will ensure safe communities by cracking down on gun, gang and drug crimes. We will give parents a real choice in child care, with a $1,200 annual payment for each child under six. We will work with the provinces and territories to establish a wait time guarantees.
Those are five clear priorities. That does not mean there are not other priorities. That does not mean we will not look at other issues that face Canadians, their families and the regions of Canada. It does mean we are a government with a direction and a plan, and we will address specific issues in a fundamental way that has not occurred in the country for 13 years.
I would like to address two specific issues in my remarks today. Unfortunately, we do not have unlimited time. There is a lot that needs to be said and we do not have time to say it all. I would like to speak a little about the military and the fundamental, disgraceful Liberal record of supporting the military. I also would like to speak a little about child care and the way the numbers are stacking up. Every time I read an article or listen to someone else talk about child care, I get a different set of numbers, but when we actually analyze those numbers they are quite remarkable.
Let us talk about cleaning up government. Let us talk about delivering our election promises to the Canadian people. Specifically, let us take a look at the Conservative plan to support the military versus what happened under the Liberals. Everything was promised under the Liberals. Nothing, quite frankly, was delivered.
We can take a look at what happened when we put our troops in Afghanistan. There was a spending spree by the Liberal government because they did not have the tools to do the job in Afghanistan. In particular, they did not have armoured personnel vehicles. To ensure that our troops were properly equipped and trained, they had to go out at the eleventh hour and spend a tremendous amount of taxpayer money on giving our men and women in Afghanistan the tools to do the job. That was in 2001.
In 2001 we had 2,769 medium logistic vehicles, or wheeled vehicles. They were already 20 years old, the wheel rims were cracked and they had no spare parts. All of a sudden the government found itself not just on a peacekeeping mission, but in a very serious war zone. It decided that it would cost $3,500 per vehicle to fix these things up. The government was willing to spend the money because it looked bad, and we had men and women in harm's way. Then the government decided it really could not do that, so maybe it would buy new armoured personnel carriers. This became a $1.2 billion project. It included 1,500 military vehicles, a large number with armoured cabs, 800 commercial trucks and 300 trailers
Fourteen months later this project, which was announced, then re-announced and then announced again by the Liberal government on how it was looking after our troops in Afghanistan, remains unfunded. There was never a dime put into it.
Surely this is not acceptable. Surely we have to change the way we are doing business in Ottawa, specifically in the House. The idea that we can make promises and not keep them is absolutely unacceptable in this place.
Specifically on child care, we have come up with a plan that puts money in the pockets of all Canadians. The largest portion of it will go directly to the poorest Canadians, Canadians of very limited income. There will be equality in child care for the first time.
The Liberals got elected in 1993 promising a child care program. Not one full time space was created. There were a few part time spaces, but no full time spaces. There was no choice.
Rural Canadians and Canadians living in remote locations were totally left out of any child care plan. There was no spending analysis done. There were no predictions on how this could be paid for in the future. There was no plan. There was never any intention of them keeping their word on it to begin with. It was all smoke and mirrors.
Let us take a look at the Liberal spin, how that has affected the media and how that has affected the information sources to which ordinary taxpayers are listening. I was reading the newspapers and some of the reporting on it. I picked up an article by Terry Weber of the Globe and Mail. I encourage members to read it. It states:
According to the government agency, about 54 per cent of children aged six months to five years were in child care in 2002-2003, compared with 42 per cent in 1994-1995.
We see that child care has gone up. It goes on to state:
In the most recent period, three forms of child care—daycare centres, child care outside the home by a non relative and care by a relative inside or outside the home—each accounted for about 30 per cent of all care
My question is this. What is he saying? Are 30% of Canadian children in child care? When we read it, it is not what he is saying. He is saying roughly one-third, 33.3%, are in child care of the 54% who are actually in child care. That is very misleading.
If we get the statistics from Statistics Canada and take a long hard look at what the Liberals have been talking about in child care, a little investigation tells us that of all children in child care, and remember that is 54% of all children in Canada, 25% were enrolled in a day care centre as the main care arrangement. Twenty-five percent of 54% is 11% of the population that is in some type of an accessible day care situation that does not include a family.
When we hear the Liberals' rhetoric on child care and what they have done for children in this country, it is patently false.
It is very encouraging to see a government willing to lay out priorities, willing to stick to those priorities and actually deliver those priorities.
