Madam Speaker, I am delighted to speak today to Bill C-291, an act respecting a national year of the grandparent. I take the opportunity to speak on behalf of the government's commitment to Canada's grandparents.
I have not yet had the fortune of becoming a grandparent. I guess my sons have control over that and so I may never become a grandparent. I have grandparents. All of us have grandparents.
My grandmother was my mentor, a woman who was a feminist long before the word feminist was popular. She was strong, feisty and she told me that if I did not like how things were I should go in there and change them and not complain. She lived that. She was always fighting for causes. Like a battleship at full steam, she was always there making things happen, changing things. She always had courage. She was an outspoken and strong woman.
My grandmother set for me an example that I have followed. If she were alive today I think she would be very pleased and proud that I am standing here talking about her role in my life and about grandparents as a whole.
Grandparents play a vital role in the lives of families and in the lives of all Canadians. Whether you have grandchildren or not, you can be a grandparent. In British Columbia there the Volunteer Grandparents Association. It meets and looks after children. As we all know, in society today families can live so far away from each other and many families do not have an extended family or a grandparent close by. These grandparents whose children are not around become grandparents to children whose grandparents are not around and they bridge the gap.
It is interesting to see them at baseball games, to be there at ballet recitals and to watch these adoptive grandparents enjoying all the things their adoptive grandchildren do.
I have to tell members about filling the lives of children. Whether you are a young child, an older child or an adult, grandparents fill your life. My children's grandparents are very far away and they have benefited from volunteer grandparents. I think they always needed to know there was somewhere a safe haven they could go to when their parents did not understand; to go to somebody who had the wisdom and could remind them their parents were children once.
I remember my children telling me I sometimes forgot I was once a child. Grandparents are always there to remind us, to assure us our parents were not as perfect as they pretended to be. They bring that sense of vulnerability and fallibility into parenting, which is good. It gives children something to believe in and something to feel strong about.
The important role grandparents play in the life of a family should never be underestimated. Today where families are fragmented grandparents often take up the life of the family and carry it by themselves; sometimes only temporarily when there is a family crisis or illness and sometimes even permanently because of a divorce.
That is why we clearly need to support grandparents today. We must ensure they remain a stable factor in the lives of their grandchildren, regardless of where the parents are. The reason they do is that grandparents have a sense of continuity. They bridge the past and the present. They bring yesterday into today. Grandparents make us feel as if we have always been here as a people. That continuity is very important to us. Especially when our lives are fragmented and unstable they bring that sense of permanence, that sense of tradition, that sense of stability and reality which is needed in today's world. It is a sense of timelessness, if I may use that word.
Grandparents are very important because they are traditionally wise. They are always wise. Grandparents are a source of advice. They are a good source of advice because they have stepped aside from being subjective and can offer the objective wisdom parents are unable to offer because they are too closely linked to their children.
Three out of every four Canadians over 65 are grandparents. What is interesting is that you do not have to be over 65 to be a grandparent. The image of a grandparent as being someone kind with twinkling eyes behind glasses and an ample bosom and a warm laugh may not necessarily be what grandparents are. Grandparents are also now in their forties and fifties. They bring a sense of vitality to the family that was not there before when grandparents were only supposed to be one age.
Grandparents bring a sense of trust as well. They help us to feel safe because no matter what happens, they are always there. They seem to have a sense of immovability and a sense of complete and total stability. They are an anchor for most of us.
In many cultures grandparents are historians. Many cultures do not have a written history where we can go back and read it, especially in our aboriginal cultures for example. In those many other cultures where there is no written history grandparents bring the stories with them that tell us where we came from and talk about our traditions.
In many aboriginal societies the elders and grandparents are bringing aboriginal people back home, especially today's aboriginal people who have been removed forcibly from their homes at one point in time, have been severed from their past. Today's grandparents are healing in native cultures. They bring the old ways back, the sense of spirituality, the sense of permanence, the sense of bonding.
Health Canada has recognized this and has given grants through the new horizons program to assist grandparents in aboriginal cultures to bring their young people home. They help not just anecdotally but in a real way with issues such as suicide, substance abuse and alcoholism. They have been making a real difference by bringing back the cultures and helping the children. In fact Health Canada's grants send children to camps where grandparents tell stories, teach the native language, teach them basic survival skills, how to sew, and counsel them on issues that are bothering today's young aboriginal people.
It is sad to note that despite their important role in society some derogatory myths exist about grandparents. Those myths continue to be perpetuated.
One myth depicts older grandparents as frail and dependent. Like their young counterparts actually, the majority of older grandparents live active, healthy and productive lives. A 1990 study showed that one out of every two seniors over 65 provided assistance to people outside of their household, such as unpaid transportation or financial support.
Still another myth suggests that families sometimes neglect and even abandon grandparents and many older family members. That is not actually true. Studies have found that seniors obtain 80 per cent of the help they need from their families and that 92 per cent of seniors and grandparents say that they feel emotionally close to their families.
Half of Canada's senior grandparents live within 10 kilometres of at least one child. I did not know that fact until I looked it up recently. They visit regularly, they telephone daily
and they offer very clear and strong emotional support to their families.
I reiterate the fact that the grandparent through all of these ways, regardless of what culture, does play a very clear and strong role. Grandparents are ageless and timeless; they have always been here. They defy socioeconomic barriers. All of us have grandparents. Whether we are rich, middle class or poor, no matter whether we live in a developed world or in a developing world, no matter whether we speak English or any other language, we all have grandparents. They are a common universal treasure.
Because of their timelessness, because of their universality, because of their holding the family together, grandparents offer a sense of stability and a sense of permanence that bridge the past and the future.
I support the bill because grandparents make us immortal.
