Helena Guergis

[Supply, February 22nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, accountability can be defined as responsibility to account for and/or explain actions undertaken. Public accountability is where it is incumbent upon a government body, an agency, board or commission, to account to the electorate, or the wider public, for a decision, for example, on policy or involving the expenditure of public funds. This is a definition we all know and understand. It is a principle that should be the basis of good government.

However we are again talking about how the current Liberal government has once again failed to be accountable to the citizens of Canada.

In 1997 the then finance minister created foundations, non-profit corporations, considered to be at arm's length from the government. He has since put more than $9 billion into foundations and yet $7.7 billion sits in the bank. What mystifies me is that the government has recorded these payments as expenses, even though the foundations do not expect to use the money for a number of years.

The majority of Canadians cannot afford to have their government hoard their money away for years, unspent, while continuing to be overtaxed. What Paul Martin and the Liberals have done is used an accounting tool--

[Supply, February 15th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, what is very important about the Conservative Party's position on child care is that we recognize not everyone wants to put their child into institutionalized day care. They want the opportunity to choose. The government is putting $5 billion tax dollars just to start a program that not everyone will have the opportunity to access. There is no way we can possibly build a system to which everyone would have equal access.

We believe in providing choice. The best way to do that is to lower taxes, put more money in the pockets of Canadians so they can make a choice as to where they want to spend their dollars and how they want to raise their children.

[Supply, February 15th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I think I have been very clear in answering the questions from the hon. member in everything I have stated today. We are talking about the importance of reducing taxes for low and modest income families, not taking $5 billion of their tax dollars and telling them that we have to institutionalize their babies.

We heard the minister say earlier today that parents and hard-working mothers and fathers cannot manage to take care of their kids. He said that the care they were getting now was mediocre. I find that appalling. There are 308 members in the House of Commons. I would like to think the majority of them were raised by their parents at home and that their parents had the choice on how they would raise them. We all turned out pretty darned good. I do not agree with the Liberal government in institutionalizing children.

Look at our seniors now. We institutionalize them. We put them into an old age home and we let them sit there. The Conservative Party has proposed a caregiver tax credit of $7,000 for non-professional caregivers. We believe that seniors deserve the dignity of staying in their own homes. We also believe that children have the right to have the dignity to be raised in their own homes as well, unlike this Liberal government.

[Supply, February 15th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I rise with pleasure today to speak on the Conservative Party's motion on child care funding.

I believe it is very important that assistance should be provided to parents and that they should be able to choose the type of child care they want for their children. After all, parents know what is best for their children.

The Liberal one size fits all child care program has been criticized lately by the provinces. The criticism echoes what the Conservative Party has been saying all along; that the program fails to provide parents with the choices they need to address the specific and varying needs of their children.

This is why the Conservative Party will continue to support all existing child benefit programs, such as the national child benefit, the early childhood development initiative, the multilateral framework on early learning and child care and other federal government support of early learning and child care in Canada. Of course the Conservative Party would introduce a broad based tax relief that would directly benefit parents and would allow them to make their own choices about the care and nurturing of their children.

We believe parents deserve options. They want their children to be raised and educated in a way that reflects their family values, cultures and traditions. A Liberal institutional day care system will not allow parents to have such a dramatic impact on the care and nurturing of their children. It will not reflect their family values, cultures or traditions. This is very sad.

Let us not mention the fact that total child care expenditures have risen by over 20% in the last 20 years. Demand for child care services has risen and fees for full time day care are on the rise. The cost of living has also risen dramatically, causing the rate of employment for mothers with preschool age children to rise from 17% in 1967 to 65% in 1997. Eighty-three per cent of married couples with children both work, and the percentage of single mothers working has soared to 82%. That trend is continuing.

That is why choice is so important. Parents should not be forced to put their children in an institution that the government wants. They should be free to raise and educate them in a manner that they feel is in the best interests of their children.

Early childhood education is so important because this period sets the stage for long term emotional, behavioural and intellectual well-being. That is why we need to have the necessary childhood programs to prepare children to succeed in school, to improve the well-being of all of our children and facilitate the participation of parents in the labour force and continuing education.

However, the Liberal program is just not up to the job. That is why Alberta and Quebec are considering opting out. New Brunswick has requested autonomy for its system. The current systems in Ontario and Manitoba are more advanced than the Liberal program.

The minister came out of the meeting with his provincial counterparts on Friday, and believe it or not, there was no agreement on a national child care system. Why? Because the federal government refused to provide any financial commitment beyond the five years. The provinces have seen this song and dance before and they know how it ends. The federal government launches a massive new social program and when the bill comes in, it is nowhere to be found, except maybe in this case, on the hockey rink.

Provinces are struggling now to provide good quality education, elementary education with text books that are in good repair. The Liberal government wants to launch into a whole new institutionalized day care. We cannot afford our elementary system.

A Conservative government would cater to the needs of parents and their children with a plan that would last and a plan that the provinces could and would support.

The Liberal government has been promising Canadians a national child care program for over 10 years. However, it is clear that once again it is not up to the job. In fact, we heard the minister talk about and describe day care over the past decade as stagnant, fragmented and unregulated. Let us give the Liberal government a round of applause on this one. It is this way because this Liberal government has failed to deliver on its promises for the last decade.

I fully support our motion. I call upon the government to address the issue of child care by fulfilling its commitment to reduce taxes for low and modest income families in the upcoming budget and, so as to respect provincial jurisdiction, ensure that additional funds for child care are provided directly to parents.

[Child Care, February 15th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, working moms would prefer to help raise their own kids. However, the minister says that at home parental care is mediocre. He said that kids raised in their own homes do not have a rich experience. How dare the minister say that parents raising their own children constitutes mediocre care? Will this minister apologize to working women for his demeaning comments?

[Child Care, February 15th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the social development minister has said that parents wishing to raise their own children at home are “out of date”, that children should be put into institutionalized care instead. Will the minister admit that he is the one who is out of date and understand that women deserve and want choice?

[Sponsorship Program, February 7th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the Gomery inquiry is not a badge of honour for the Liberal Party to wear. The government only set it up because it got caught. Despite whatever the Prime Minister or his cronies say, the Auditor General has told us that there are millions of tax dollars missing and Canadians deserve this money back.

When will the Prime Minister order the money his operatives funnelled to run his campaigns be paid back to Canadians?

[Sponsorship Program, February 7th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, it seems very evident that the sponsorship program was nothing more than a cash cow for Liberal supporters. Mr. Jacques Corriveau complained that he did not receive payment for his work on the 1997 election. In response he received millions of hard earned Canadian tax dollars in contracts from the sponsorship program.

When will the Prime Minister instruct the Liberal Party to pay back taxpayers' money?

[Citizenship and Immigration, December 8th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, it is time for the minister to stop hiding behind the Ethics Commissioner and to start accepting the responsibility that Canadians demand. When will the disgraced and incompetent minister resign?

[Citizenship and Immigration, December 8th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, in a previous attempt to spin this mess, the minister told the House that she was out of commission for the last three weeks of the campaign, but apparently she was well enough to attend meetings, issue permits for political supporters and accept illegal donations.

It is time for you to stop hiding behind the Ethics Commissioner and to start accepting the responsibility--