Maria Minna

[Business of Supply, May 4th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I think I said earlier that this program was designed for what is called inclusivity of children with special needs. Some child care centres in the country do have children who are autistic and they do help. Part of the design of the program and part of the negotiations with the provinces was to ensure there were child care programs that did have those kinds of services. What I am talking about is the inclusivity of the special needs of children.

[Business of Supply, May 4th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I agree wholeheartedly with the hon. member. As I was saying earlier, in my own riding, in the areas which have been identified by the United Way as areas at risk, one of the major needs of those families is child care so that the women can go to work. They want to go to work, and they are. However, many of them are leaving children in places that are not regulated and are not necessarily developmentally stimulative. It is not very effective and many of them are struggling terribly. They are at risk and they need assistance. They need services, but they also need child care.

I meet with the women on a regular basis. I will be meeting with them a week from this Saturday to discuss services. Child care will be on the table again as one of their requests.

[Business of Supply, May 4th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I come from a family where my parents were working class people and they both would like to have stayed at home. I was nine years old when I was looking after my baby sisters, so I know what it is like, with all due respect. I do not need any lessons from the member opposite and I quite object to the language he is using.

I will tell him that the plan we had would have given that family income support, which his government is not doing. It is clawing back money and taxing the benefit so it does not really buy very much. At the same time, the program was to be designed and delivered by communities. It was not going to be the Government of Canada.

Nurses are shift workers. They also need assistance, absolutely. The program was designed for that as well. Otherwise, how do we deal with communities in this country? The design of the program was that it could have been at the workplace or it could have been somewhere else. It would have been done by the community. What the member was talking about, the program did not in any way eliminate that opportunity.

What the member is saying is that by giving that individual less than $100 a month, because by the time it is taxed it is a lot less, he is not able to pay anything at all and has absolutely no choice whatsoever, whereas under our program, once it was fully developed, he would have had a great many choices.

[Business of Supply, May 4th, 2006]

No, that is what you are doing.

Mr. Speaker, early education in child care is both a child development program and a child care program. We are talking about a quality developmental program. We are talking about well trained and well paid professionals who are respected. We are talking about an affordable program, a program that is accessible, that is inclusive of special needs children, autistic children and other children.

Even families which can well afford it and have a stay at home parent will have their child start in the Montessori program because they want to give their child the best start in life that they can. The early education and care program does that for all children. This is what we are talking about. We are not talking about some strange out of the way thing.

In addition to the national child care plan and the child tax credit which we started in this country, in 2000 we also started the early years program, the best start program. In my riding of Beaches—East York the stay at home parents have said to me many times that this is a wonderful program for their children and they use it quite often.

Again I go back to choices. I keep hearing from the opposite side about how the $1,200 gives choices. If there are no spaces to choose from, there is no choice whatsoever. The money that parents receive is not enough to pay the full amount that is charged in child care, and therefore, there are no choices. This program is not going to be delivered by the federal government. It is not an institution. It is delivered by communities. Most of the programs in my riding are community based and are delivered by not for profit organizations.

The program in rural Canada, again through the provinces and municipalities, would have given the choice to however small the community to develop its own program, whether it be for 3, 5, 10 or 15 children. It would have given every child in rural and urban Canada a best start. This is what this is about.

The Conservatives say that a measly $100 a month, which is also taxed, gives choices to families. It does not create spaces. It does not provide quality. It does not provide development. It is not an inclusive program for special needs kids. It really does not give choice.

The Conservatives keep saying that business will create the rest of the spaces in child care. Yet the Minister of Finance, who was the minister of finance in Ontario as a matter of fact, knows full well that it does not work. He was there. He knows. He knows that Harris tried it and it did not work. He knows that the Canadian Federation of Independent Business has already said no because small and medium businesses cannot afford it and will not do it.

After listening to all of the people, businesses and others say it does not work, my conclusion is that the government is really not interested in child care and it is all rhetoric. If the government were interested, it would not go in the direction that it is going and it would apply the $1,200 as a family allowance and then create a proper child care program.

The city of Toronto will lose 6,000 spaces. This means that in Beaches—East York families will suffer. The United Way of Greater Toronto did a study of communities at risk called “Poverty by Postal Code”. In my riding of Beaches—East York there are two areas identified as communities at risk. These families will lose the young child supplement, pay increased taxes as a result of higher brackets, receive few benefits from the GST, and receive a small amount from the $1,200, as I have said, only about $500. And there is no child care on top of that. These families need assistance and they need it now. They need the full amount of $1,200 and proper child care. It is mean-spirited to take it away from them. These families need child care.

Will the government give the young child supplement back to the families of Beaches—East York? Will it amend the child tax credit? Will it make the $1,200 allowance exempt from income taxes? Will it add the $1,200 to the base benefit of the Canada child tax benefit? The result would be that everyone would receive a full $1,200, up to a net family income of $112,000, and it would then be indexed after that.

A fair way of dealing with it is to add it to the child tax credit. If the government would do that, it would actually help many families a great deal more. It would address the issue of child poverty, as well as the issue of child care by investing properly and respecting the agreement that was made by the Government of Canada with all the provinces and territories and putting in multi-year funding for child care.

I do not think we have a choice in this matter. It is important that children in this country have a proper, valuable best start in our society. It is about recognizing and respecting families and allowing them to make their own choices. By providing a family allowance that is not taxed and by providing a universal child care program that is accessible and affordable, it gives all parents, regardless of the type of family in which the children live, a proper choice.

I keep hearing comments from the members across the way who say that the Liberals were going to do something strange with the children, that we were going to put them in institutions. The children will be in community organizations and programs. The program was not going to be run by the Government of Canada. It was an agreement with all the provinces in partnership with municipalities, not for profit organizations and school boards. It would also address the issue of children over six. What do we do with children over six?

The Conservative plan is not a plan at all. It helps no one. What I find most offensive is that the government is pitting one family against another and that is totally unacceptable. All children in society, regardless of the type of family they live in, have the right to a proper start in life both in terms of income support as well as child care.

[Business of Supply, May 4th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for West Nova.

The government keeps referring to the $1,200 allowance as universal child care and as giving choices to parents. Let us look at the facts and make a proper distinction between income support and child care. That $1,200 is a family allowance, not a child care plan and as a family allowance, it is fine.

Let me take a moment to put this in a historical context. In 1997 the Liberal government established the child tax credit with the child benefit supplement and young child supplement. The most effective weapon we have had to fight poverty in this country is the child tax benefit. Experts believe that the benefit has reduced child poverty by approximately 26%.

The research shows that the child tax credit should also be increased to about $4,900. As $1,200 is not a child care plan and gives no choice, it should be added to the child tax credit base as income support for families. All families would receive the $1,200 and that would make a great deal more sense. This would make a true family allowance to all families as well as stay at home moms and working mothers. But the Conservative government is so mean-spirited that it has actually decided to hurt low and modest income families. The Conservatives are cutting the young child supplement portion of the child tax benefit. This means that many families, most with low or modest income, will lose $249 right off the top, reducing the child care benefit to $951.

The child care allowance treats some families better than others even though they have the same net income and the same number and age of children. Because the benefit is taxable in the hands of the lowest income earner, single parents and two-earner families are going to lose out.

Two-earner couples will lose a significant portion of the benefit to income taxes, but still not as much as single parents. Single parents in the $30,000 to $40,000 income range will lose on average close to $400 of the benefit in taxes. If this is added to the $249 they will lose because of the elimination of the young child supplement, these families will be left with only about $550 of the $1,200 benefit, less than half of the benefit that some other families will be receiving. This is unacceptable.

What the government is basically doing is choosing which type of families it prefers and which type of families it does not. It is not giving choices at all to families and is penalizing choices that families are actually making about themselves.

[International Bridges and Tunnels Act, April 28th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, usually a member is recognized when a member is standing and I think the Speaker, with all due respect, is interfering in what I was saying.

Nonetheless, to the hon. member across who said that we are not keeping up with the environment, Canada is an energy producing country. Thirty per cent of Canada's pollution is attributed directly to the oil sands and energy production. We sell clean energy to the Americans. This is why in fact they are able to make their claims.

Is the hon. member saying that one way of getting rid of it is to cut back on the production of energy in this country? That would be one quick way of doing it. Is that what the hon. member is suggesting, because what he said earlier was absolutely not true.

[Status of Women, April 28th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, conservative-minded groups are actively campaigning to have the Status of Women Canada program disbanded. Can the minister reassure the House that the government will take no such action and that no cuts will be made to the budget of this very important department?

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, April 24th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is being terribly unfair in his question.

First, the program for the cities was not something we were going to do. It was done. He is being totally unfair in trying to colourize this as us wanting another election. I do not want another election. I want to work.

With all due respect, I do not think the hon. member can tell me that the government actually has a child care plan on the table. If I see one I will support it absolutely. If the government members want to meet with me and negotiate one, I will meet with them. I have no problem with that at all. I am here to work and cooperate.

I want to ensure we deliver the best possible programs to citizens. I have no intention of going into another election. What I want is a full child care program and proper programs for people in this country. If the hon. member and the government are prepared to negotiate a plan, I will work with them.

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, April 24th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member knows full well that is not true. In Toronto, the $5 billion investment would have provided 6,000 new spaces this year alone, never mind the commitment for the next 10 years. I will not even go there.

The fact is that just because the government has a slogan that says “choice in child care allowance” does not mean there is any choice. There is choice for some parents but not for all parents. It is quite clear, because this taxable, that it would actually raise the income level of families to $30,000 or $40,000 where they would lose. Not only do they not get enough of the $1,200, they only get about 32%, they also lose other benefits like the child tax credit because this would raise their incomes.

This is not a choice. It would not create any new spaces and if there are no spaces what do they choose from? They cannot choose from anything. This gives absolutely nothing. This is empty rhetoric and it would actually hurt families. It chooses among some and not others. It chooses some families and leaves out others. Single earner families would benefit but double earner families would not. Low income families would benefit and upper income families might. This is absolutely unacceptable.

There are no spaces to choose from. No spaces are being created. The $1,200 child care allowance is a figment of somebody's imagination. The way it would work is totally unfair. It would hit some families but miss others. It is totally unacceptable and there is absolutely nothing to choose from.

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, April 24th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, it is a great honour and privilege to once again join my colleagues in this House to discuss and debate issues of pressing concern to our constituents.

I would like to thank the voters of Beaches--East York for the confidence they have once again placed in me as their representative. I am grateful for their continued support and I will work hard to ensure that their views are well-represented in this House.

I must say that the recent Speech from the Throne was very disappointing to me because it failed to address a number of issues of pressing concern to Canadians.

The speech contained some catchy phrases but very few real measures to address the concerns of Canadians. Canadians deserve more than government slogans. Nowhere is the need to go beyond slogans more apparent than in the area of early education and child care.

The government has adopted the phrase “choice in child care” to represent its views on the issue. In light of what the government has said about its intentions so far, I can only assume that the phrase is meant to be ironic. In fact, if the government insists on moving forward in the direction it has suggested, it will leave many parents with no choice at all. One cannot buy something that does not exist, and the government's plan will not create any new child care spaces.

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business says tax incentives for business will not create new child care spaces. This approach did not work in Ontario under the Harris government and it has not worked in New Brunswick. The minister responsible admits that this is true, but proposes to move ahead with it anyway.

The minister believes that the not for profit community will create new spaces, but does not say where we will get the money for this. The minister has talked about a one time only funding to cover some of the capital costs of starting up a child care facility. The experts agree that this approach will not work either and this government knows it will not work.

The only way to increase the number of quality early learning and child care spaces available to Canadians is through sustained, multi-year funding. This is the one approach this government refuses to consider.

Early education and child care is not just a social policy; it is also an economic policy. Our prosperity and productivity are directly affected by how much we invest in early childhood development. So is the level of poverty in our society.

As the governor of the Bank of Canada, David Dodge, put it, “the first step to improving skills is to build an excellent infrastructure for early childhood development”.

The development of the brain starts very early in life and the early years are the most important for cognitive development. The level of support we provide for early education has a big impact on the ability of our citizens to learn later in life. As such, it has a direct impact on their economic prospects.

The vast majority of Canadian parents work. Approximately 70% of women with children under the age of six are employed. For these women, child care is not optional; it is an economic necessity. Depending on their income level and the number of income earners in their household, the proposed child care allowance is likely to provide them with somewhere between $1.50 and $4.00 a day for child care; a fraction of the actual cost. This is not a child care policy. I hasten to add that this is also not an effective income support policy.

A recent report by the Caledon Institute pointed out that after taxes and clawbacks of other benefits, the overwhelming majority of Canadian families will receive much less than the proposed $1,200. The biggest losers will be the modest income families in the $30,000 to $40,000 range. To quote the Caledon Institute, “The distribution of benefits makes no social or economic sense”.

In fact, the plan does not live up to basic standards of fairness. It would pay working poor families less than upper income families and would also favour one earner families over single parent families and two earner families. This is a double injustice.

When it comes to ensuring that the needs of children are met in this country, we already have an appropriate mechanism for income support. It is called the national child benefit.

If the Conservative government wants to improve income support for parents, including those who choose to stay at home, it should increase the Canada child tax credit and raise the income level at which a family qualifies for it.

Not only does the government not believe in early education and care, it appears from the throne speech that it does not place a high priority on education at any level. There was no mention of post-secondary education in the throne speech.

By contrast, the previous Liberal government assisted more than 20,000 students in low income families with their first year of tuition by creating the Canada access grants.

In our economic and fiscal update last fall, we proposed to extend these grants through all four years of an undergraduate degree. We also proposed a new fifty-fifty plan to pay for half of the first and last year's tuition for all undergraduate studies. Given the current government's seeming lack of ideas in this area, I think I speak for my colleagues in saying that we would not mind if it borrowed one or two of ours.

There were a number of other priorities that were neglected in the throne speech as well. There is no time to recount all of them but very briefly we would like to call attention to the following areas.

There was no mention in the Speech from the Throne of affordable housing, a very critical area of need. In particular, the government should clarify whether it intends to follow through on the commitment of $1.6 billion in additional spending outlined in the Liberal budget.

Cities were also neglected in the throne speech. There was no mention of infrastructure, additional money for public transit or continued transfers of a portion of the gas tax. In short, there was no vision for the future of our cities.

I am also concerned about the lack of priority given to the environment. The government has stated that it has no intention of meeting our targets under the Kyoto protocol and has already cut a large percentage of federal funding for climate change programs. It talks about a made in Canada solution, as if project green, our Kyoto implementation plan, were written in some other country. Canada is now in the embarrassing position of chairing the post-Kyoto implementation of the UN framework on climate change with a government that is not committed to Kyoto itself. The government should clarify whether it intends to pull out of Kyoto or whether it intends to simply ignore our commitments under the protocol. Either way, it is a disgrace for Canada.

Seniors were also left out of the Speech from the Throne. Issues that have direct bearing and impact on their well-being were simply not mentioned: the privatization of our health care system that affects all of us, but especially our aging population; the improvement of long term care, which is very fundamental and needs to be developed; affordable housing, which I mentioned earlier but bears mentioning here because it is something that affects the senior population very directly and it is absolutely necessary that we do something about that. These are areas that were left out.

I might say that I was also quite surprised not to see a mention of women's issues. These are all women's issues but for women in general, the pay equity issue was not mentioned and the gender based analysis which has to be done sooner or later in this country if we are to ensure that we have equity.

Again there is the issue of diversity and multiculturalism. The Prime Minister did not even appoint a minister for multiculturalism. When I asked the question of the minister a couple of weeks ago, she said that the program was being reviewed. Multiculturalism is not a project. It is not a program that is funded. It is a philosophy. It is a policy. It is a vision of this country. It affects every department and it needs to have a minister at the table to enforce that philosophy and to ensure that every department across the government implements the philosophy of multiculturalism, otherwise people are left out. exclusivity is lost because policies have to be formed by the multiculturalism and diversity philosophy. If not, policies in this country will be developed and will miss the mark. They will miss the fact that some policies will create barriers without anyone knowing about it.

Multiculturalism is fundamental to this country. We have a multiculturalism act. A section in the Constitution talks about multiculturalism but we do not have a minister for the first time since 1972. The present government is the first ever not to appoint a separate multiculturalism minister. This is offensive, to say the least, to the issue of diversity. The government likes to talk a great deal about diversity in this country and yet does nothing about it. I have no minister to go to. No one has a minister to go to. Quite frankly, multiculturalism is not part of the title of the minister who answered the question and therefore she is not the minister responsible and should not have answered the question. On the day I asked it there actually was nobody in the House to answer the question which says something about the government's position on that issue.

I really feel that the government has a long way to go before it comes anywhere close to meeting the needs of the nation.