Ken Dryden

[Child Care, February 15th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned before, just because the hon. member misstates and mischaracterizes does not make it so. Real choice is the opportunity for men and women across the country, for women across the country, to have the choice of high quality early learning and child care.

[Child Care, February 15th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, just because the hon. member mischaracterizes and misstates, does not make it so. I was speaking of polling numbers. What polls allow us to do is to say yes to a number of different, often contradictory things. As parents, we all want to spend more time with our kids. For reasons such as economic, social and independence, we do not.

By far the most persuasive polling data we have is, after working through all the choices, that the great majority of parents with kids are both in the workplace.

[Questions on the Order Paper, February 15th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I only wish the member opposite had listened. Once again that was a significant mischaracterization. None of what he said is what I said.

I said repeatedly and very clearly in my speech that the experience of the parent and child is central. I clearly believe that. That was, that is and that will be. Child care is simply another option for parents to decide to take part in or not.

Parents, including stay at home parents, are looking for additional vivid, stimulating experiences for their kids. They are looking for an opportunity for their kids to be with other kids in other places and in different circumstances. They want their kids to have the opportunity to learn. These are not either/or issues no matter how the party opposite wants to characterize them. Early learning and child care is very simply another option for parents. Parents, as I said, before, now and always are at the centre of that learning and development experience.

[Questions on the Order Paper, February 15th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the answer to both questions is yes. A lot of thinking has been done in terms of delivering child care in this country. A lot of thinking has been done about whether the best route is legislation.

As we have mentioned before, and has often been mischaracterized by the party opposite, we need to work with the provinces on this program. Because of the commitment we made, we are in a position to assist the provinces and territories in terms of the money. They will be delivering this system. We are agreeing on the principles of what kind of system we would like to see in every province and territory in Canada, but the provinces and territories will be delivering it.

At this particular moment there is one province in the country that is in a position to deliver only through the not for profit sector. Every other province in the country is in a position where they deliver in both ways at the moment.

[Questions on the Order Paper, February 15th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I have no doubt that kids raised at home can do very well. I have no doubt about that; I have never had a doubt about that, and there is nothing in what I said today that casts any doubt about that.

What I do say is the fact of life is that in this country over 70% of parents with children under the age of six are both in the workplace. That is a fact. It is a reality and is the way in which we live. It is the way in which we have chosen to live. It is the way in which we very likely will be living in the future. The question is, what do we do about that? How do we best deal with that fact?

This is not about wishful thinking. This is not about imaging that next week, next year or five years from now only 20% of parents will be in the workplace. How could we imagine that we would ever get there? How would we ever conceive that would happen? It is an irresponsible assumption. There is no indication that is the direction in which we are going to be living. The fact is that all of these kids are growing up and what kind of development experiences are they having beyond the experiences that they are having at home?

[Questions on the Order Paper, February 15th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to today's opposition motion. The motion calls 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.

Why is the government doing what it is on early learning and child care? About 10 years ago I went back to high school for a year to sit in class to try to figure out who was learning, who was not and why, who was a good a teacher, who was not and why. It became very clear that all kinds of kids at that age had not learned well, had not done well and had the wrong understanding of themselves as students.

Students walk into a grade 10 math class feeling they do not know math, they cannot do math and they never will be able to do math. Then the class begins and the results are predictable.

That kind of wrong story begins before elementary school. From that experience of being in a school, it becomes much clearer why we hear often and understand well the phrase “the formative years”, those early years of a child's life. Why should those years matter so much in the course of one's learning over a lifetime? When people have many more years to grow older, many more years in school and many more years of experiences, why should those early years matter so much? It is in those early years that children start to take in the big messages and understandings of the world. Is this a good place? Is it a place where they want to be? Is it a place where they want to experience, enjoy adventure, curiosity and be rewarded for that?

All those big angles are set in those earlier years. It is through those angles and filters that we take in the experiences and learnings for the rest of our lives. That is why the parental role matters so much, especially during that time. Parents are there to guide. They take in the experiences of their children, except they are one step ahead. They know where the dangers lie and the implications of those dangers. If the curiosity leads to hurt or physical harm, then the likelihood is children will not want to have that next experience.

These are critical years and the role of the parent is critical. This explains why it matters so much that the parent be at the centre of the child's learning experience during that time of life. It also explains why the research is so clear and is becoming even more clear. Child development experts to economists, like Nobel laureate in economics, James Heckman, and Governor of the Bank of Canada, David Dodge, have been very clear in stating that an investment in early child development pays off far more than any other educational investment at any other time in a person's life.

We know the importance of this time of life, but what do we do about it, especially given these other facts? As has been mentioned, today in Canada 84% of parents with children are both in the workforce and 70% of women with children under the age of six are in the workforce. The great majority of kids under the age of six are in child care of some form. Yet only one in five is in regulated care, a number that has barely budged in the last decade.

Simply put, child care is how we live in the country. It is a reality. This is the fundamental question between the government and the party opposite. Do we reject this reality and try to change it, as the Conservative Party would, or do we work with the reality and try to make it better as the government would? How would we do it and would that work?

The Liberal position is quite clear. It was made clear in the last election campaign and set out again in the Speech from the Throne. The government has committed $5 billion over five years to help build an early learning and child care system in every province and territory. While it is a large amount of money, it is a modest amount in terms of a system.

The question is, what can we do with that amount of money? How can we give the whole area of child care a boost? For the last 20 years, despite lots of good things happening and lots of good programs in existence, the area has been largely stagnant. However, at the same time, we are that much more aware of the importance of those early years. How can we do it better? How can we give it a boost? How can we create something that is consistent with the rigour and importance of early childhood development?

What has not happened much in the last 10 to 15 years is with respect to wages, facilities and conditions. In every case there have been attempts made on a one-off basis to try to improve in those areas and they have largely failed because the analogy is an analogy that does not work; the analogy of the origins of child care in the custodial part and in the babysitting part. Therefore, wages do not increase.

How do we help raise the wages, increase the training and keep early childhood educators in the system? We change the analogy from babysitting to education, to early learning and development.

The only way we can do that is if we approach it with the kind of rigour and ambition that is consistent with the importance of this area. Without the commitment made in the last budget, it is very likely that we would remain stagnant for next five or ten years. Nothing much happened in the last 10 or 15 years and nothing much would. Whatever priority provinces and territories may have had for early learning and child care, with very few exceptions, they were not in the position to do much about it. Without the commitment made by the federal government, the Liberal Party, in the last election, not much would happen in any foreseeable way.

The Conservatives talk about tax cuts, about putting more money into the hands of parents and allowing them to make their child care choices. Except in their campaign platform, the specifics would see a child tax deduction of $2,000 per child under the age of 16. What would that mean? Besides being, as the Caledon Institute puts it, “retrograde and regressive”, assisting wealthier families far more than those with lower modest incomes, what would it do for child care?

For a family earning $30,000 a year, for one earning $50,000 or $70,000 a year, it would put less than $1,000 into their hands. The average family pays about $8,000 a year per child in child care, and that is for average child care, which is mediocre at best and unregulated. How likely is it that an extra $1,000 in the hands of parent will mean putting their child into child care or into better child care? Will putting in money that way build up early learning and child care, push wages for child care providers higher so better trained people go into the field and stay in the field? Will it improve facilities?

We did not create an education system by putting extra money into the hands of parents so they could get together, pool that money and create a school with well trained teachers. We did not create a health system by doing the same. We decided as a public that education and health care were so important that they should be available to everyone. The money went into the training of teachers and doctors, into building schools and hospitals. The quality went up, and as a country many decades later, we are immeasurably better off for it.

What would the Conservative plan do in terms of early learning and child care? It would do next to nothing. It would reward very modestly the stay-at-home parent or pay the cost of perhaps one day a week child care, but it would leave child care in the country too much where it is, fragmented, unregulated, uneven, largely custodial, with little for the child that would encourage real development, and would waste the time, the opportunity and the possibility of the early years.

As parents, we are all ambivalent about child care. We are ambivalent because we are parents, because we feel guilty about not spending more time with our kids. That is the way it was for us as parents, that is the way it is for us and is the way it will be for us. We will always feel ambivalent. We will always feel some sense of guilt in that way. The question is the other side of it as well, the non-ambivalent side for us as parents and that non-ambivalent side is the early learning side, the early childhood development side, and about that we are not ambivalent and we will never be ambivalent.

A recent study, as was cited by the Vanier Institute of the Family, has found that most moms and dads with pre-school children would prefer that one parent stay home and take primary responsibility for raising the children. Again, that is not surprising. As parents we all feel guilty about the time we are not spending with our kids. However, if we asked the same group of people or any group of people if they would like to lose weight, 90% would say yes. If we asked them if they would like ice cream once a week and chocolate twice a day, about the same percentage would say the same. The question, as in all of these matters, is not what we would like to do, but what we will do, and what we do.

For economic reasons, for reasons of lifestyle, for reasons of independence and lots more, in the great majority of cases both parents, even with young children, are in the workforce. We can feel guilty and we can wish it were not so, but it is so. All the time we are wishing, our kids are growing up without the rich, important learning experience that early learning and child care can offer. Our kids are paying the price for our wishful thinking. We need to get on with it, do it right and do it the best we can.

For parents, early learning and child care is not giving over one's child to the state. It is another option. As I have said before, that ongoing, ever-there set of adult eyes experiencing the world as their children do is absolutely crucial to the learning and developing experience of their children. But as parents, we also want a variety of experiences for our kids. Early learning and child care is not all or nothing. It can be for a day a week, two afternoons, whatever makes sense to the parent.

The Conservative position on tax cuts even if it helps disproportionately those who need the help the least is at least honest and clear. Putting more money into parents' pockets is not a way to deliver on child care. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, the differences between the Conservative Party and the government on early learning and child care could not be more clear. Members of the party opposite should speak to the philosophy and ideology they so proudly espouse. They should be bold, be honest and allow these differences to be clear and then let the people decide.

The Conservative plan, a tax cut it is; early learning and child care it is not.

[Child Care, February 14th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, as I just said, and it was in direct response to the question that followed. The actions that have been taken by the Government of Quebec, ahead of everybody else, are certainly actions that will not be penalized with anything that this government does in the future.

[Child Care, February 14th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, as I have said to the House before, the work that has been done by the Government of Quebec in the area of early learning and child care acts as an inspiration to the rest of the country.

Clearly, the work that has been done is respected, will be respected and actions that are taken ahead of everybody else are certainly actions that are not going to be penalized in the future.

[Child Care, February 14th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member knows, the education system did not develop by just putting money into the hands of parents to decide for themselves to get together to create schools. That is not how it happened. A health care system did not happen in that way either.

It happened because the public decided that what mattered a lot was the development of their children and they wanted to put together a public response to it. That is what early learning and child care is, an opportunity for kids to have an enhanced early childhood development experience.

[Child Care, February 14th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, as we have talked about before in the House, what a child care system provides is an option. It is an option for parents. No one is suggesting that the most important relationship is anything but the relationship between parents and their kids.

All that early learning and child care is an extra option for the great majority of parents who have decided that they would be in the workplace even as their kids are younger. The reality in this country is that the great majority of parents are in the workplace even with younger kids.