44th Parl. 1st Sess.
January 31, 2023 10:00AM
- Jan/31/23 10:10:18 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I too rise to present a petition from many of my constituents and people across the country calling on the Government of Canada to block any attempt to allow the killing of children, as has been proposed at committee by a member of the Collège des médecins du Québec, who mentioned expanding euthanasia to babies from birth to one year. Killing children and killing babies is always wrong. We on this side and many Canadians call upon the government to reject that and ensure there is no euthanasia for children.
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Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour to rise on behalf of the residents of Kelowna—Lake Country.
Just as a reminder, I am splitting my time with the member for Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek.
I will lay out some of the issues with the Liberal child care bill, Bill C-35, that will need to be addressed.
I thank those who work in the child care system and who look after our children.
To be clear, this is not a child care strategy. In my province of British Columbia, a 2019 survey found that the greater Vancouver area, represented by several cabinet ministers in the Liberal government, had only enough child care spaces for 18.6% of children in the metro region. That is bad enough in urban areas of our country, but in many rural regions of Canada large child care centres do not exist at all. This bill offers rural parents or those who need flexibility nothing. Again, it chooses to ignore the simple fact that low-cost child care is not possible if child care resources are not accessible to begin with.
However, the rural-urban divide is not the only issue with this legislation. There is a serious concern about the complete lack of focus on ensuring that child care spaces go to those most in need instead of creating advantages for the already well off. After all, affordable child care should be prioritized for those who otherwise cannot afford it.
There is no means test. Under the current Liberal proposal, someone who works on Bay Street with children already in day care will get access to $10-a-day child care the same as a lower-income family. People who do not need to work have the same access as a family who needs to work.
There is no flexibility for families who are not working the weekday office job hours and who currently have different types of child care options that work for their shift work or their schedules. That is because this legislation dogmatically preferences not-for-profit and government child care over operators working and running child care centres in the private sector. These are people, most often women, who work in their homes, who have small businesses and who often have young children.
When my son was a baby I found someone to come into my home part time. That was back when maternity leave was only six months, and it was hard to work with such a young baby. Having someone come in was expensive, and I was not making a lot at the time. However, it was the only option I had at the time as few child care centres took infants that young or would allow me flexibility with part-time needs and hours. Christina became like family.
Anyone who has this type of scenario would not be applicable in this legislation. When my son was a toddler he was in the home of a wonderful woman, Pauline, who had a group of kids. Because I needed flexibility in child care due to the type of contract work I was doing at the time, the larger, structured child care centres did not work for what I needed.
The scenario of in-home small business child care does not meet the priorities of the government's legislation. Instead of giving parents freedom to determine what child care works best for their children and their lives, the government has opened the door for a two-tiered framework of child care. Under the government's plan, only not-for-profit and government child care spaces have open access for parents to utilize the Liberals' program as the legislation states is the priority. That is not universal access and the legislation does not include strategies to address spaces or labour.
We know there are labour shortages. About a year ago, in Kelowna, it was announced by one centre that they had to say goodbye to about 24 children, because they could not find the staff to meet the government licensing requirements. That left families scrambling with little ability to find a new location with waiting lists being long.
A Vancouver operator of 300 spaces said, “In the past two years, we've had to close programs temporarily, whether it's for a day or two, or shorten hours for a week”. A report on child care recruitment published in January 2023 found that in British Columbia, 45% of child care centres are losing more staff than they can hire, and 27% of child care employers turned away children because of a lack of qualified staff.
To adequately staff the Liberals' proposed plan in British Columbia, they found that 12,000 new child care employees were required. Still, current recruitment and retention programs are failing with several thousand employees behind target.
When the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development put this bill forward, she said its purpose was to enshrine the Liberals' record on children and family into law. However, their record on this file is something that they are not strong champions of. Canada was once ranked 10th among the OECD for the well-being of children, but under the present government, Canada has fallen sharply to 30th place.
We will work on this side of the House to try to make this legislation better and more accessible to parents who want and deserve the freedom to decide what kind of child care works for their family. Looking beyond this, a future Conservative government will work hard on ways to increase child care workers and spaces and to ensure there are stable, good-paying jobs for families to keep more of the money they earn in their pockets.
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Mr. Speaker, absolutely, there are some people who are able to access this, but it is not universal, and the government is hand-picking the exact types of formats that will work for this. There are many families who do not fit within that traditional format of putting their children in a not-for-profit or government-run facility. There are many people who have their children in smaller locations, such as in families' homes, and all of this is left out. Therefore, it really does not allow for flexibility and freedom, and it is actually likely going to gridlock the current systems that exist right now in the not-for-profit and government systems.
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Mr. Speaker, sure, there have been results, but the reality is that in Quebec the program has existed for over 20 years. As of right now, there are over 50,000 children on waiting lists to get into child care.
It has seen some results, but there is still a lot of work that it obviously needs to do because it does not have complete universal child care, and not everyone who needs a child care space has it in Quebec.
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Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in this place and contribute to the debate on Bill C-35, an act respecting early learning and child care in Canada.
As a mom and a grandmother of 11, I understand the importance of having access to quality child care, and I join my colleagues in recognizing those who work in this sector and the very important work they do, and I thank them for it.
With all of the fanfare that this two-to-three-decade plan in the making to nationalize child care has been given, this bill falls flat when it comes to providing a solution for the issues that currently face families who need these programs. As part of their confidence and supply agreement that sees the New Democrats support the minority government through to 2025, the Liberals promised to introduce this legislation by the end of 2022.
With that deadline fast approaching, the Liberals introduced this bill last December. While the bill sets out to establish a vision for a Canada-wide community-based early learning and child care system, it lacks substance in charting a path to get there. Not only does it not address the problems that already exist, but it creates even more.
In declaring their goal to support the establishment and maintenance of a Canada-wide early learning and child care system, where families have access to affordable, inclusive and high-quality early learning and child care programs and services, regardless of where they live, the Liberals have included one proviso that has many families and child care providers concerned.
That condition is found in paragraph 7(1)(a), to "facilitate access to early learning and child care programs and services—in particular those that are provided by public and not for profit child care providers”.
To start, it favours or gives preferential treatment to public and not-for-profit providers over any other type of child care program that exists. Only public, non-profit child care spaces have open access for parents to utilize the supports of this program. If a family chose a new, privately owned centre or one that has recently expanded to meet the demand, it cannot access the subsidy it needs at that centre, therefore limiting the child's ability to access quality child care.
Families are diverse and so, too, are their circumstances. The federal government should not be dictating what child care is best for families. Conservatives recognize that Canadian families should have access to affordable and quality child care and believe they should be able to choose child care providers who best suit their families' needs.
Second, this bill does nothing to address the wait-lists of thousands of families needing child care. For example, the Financial Accountability Office of Ontario projects that, by 2026, there will be 602,000 children under six whose families will want $10-a-day care and the province will only be able to accommodate 375,000 of them, leaving 227,000, or 38% of those children, without access.
Third, it does not address the concerns of operators who do not have the staff or infrastructure to offer more spaces. Currently there are not enough qualified staff to keep all existing child care centres running at full capacity, let alone staff new spaces. Government estimates also suggest that, by 2026, there could be a shortage of 8,500 early childhood workers.
In British Columbia, 27% of child care centres turn away children due to lack of staff. One child care director who oversees 13 child care programs with 350 spaces says that, “In the past two years, we’ve had to close programs temporarily, whether it’s for a day or two, or shorten hours for the week…in order to meet the licensing regulations”.
There are also concerns of inflation increasing operating costs. Many child care centres that offer food programs are now considering seriously cutting back on the programs or eliminating them all together.
The cost of inflation is putting pressure on child care centres, and they need to lower costs because the funding they are receiving is not reflecting the drastic rise of inflation. They are now faced with cutting down costs in drastic ways.
In a Globe and Mail article, an owner of a child care centre in Calgary stated, “If we've got to start jettisoning expenses...do we start cutting back on our food program, or even eliminate it in its entirety over time?” Once again, the Liberal government is not taking into account the inflation crisis it has fuelled when implementing new policies.
While we would see the demand for child care increase as a result of this bill, it would not solve the problems of lack of access to more spaces, frontline burnout, staff shortages and rising costs. Affordable, quality child care is critical, but if people cannot access it, it does not exist, as I have already stated. Bill C-35 would do nothing to address accessibility.
In the time that I have left, I want to focus on the clause that will create a national advisory council, which has already been appointed. Clause 9 states, “A Council is established, to be known as the National Advisory Council on Early Learning and Child Care, consisting of no fewer than 10 but no more than 18 members, including the Chairperson and the ex officio member.” That ex officio member would be the deputy minister.
The chairperson, and up to 18 members, would be appointed by the minister for three-year terms. The members of this council would, of course, be paid with the remuneration to be set by the Governor in Council. These members would be entitled to reimbursements for travel, living and other expenses incurred for their work on the council, including the deputy minister.
They would also be deemed to be employees for the purpose of the Government Employees Compensation Act, and to be employed in the federal public administration.
Here is the thing. While this bill appears to put a focus on respecting and valuing the diversity of all children and families, and respond to their varying needs, the national council would have zero representation of entrepreneurial providers at the table.
In provinces like Alberta and New Brunswick, the majority of stakeholders are private, and there are a large number of them, in fact. It is 67% for Alberta and 80% for New Brunswick. There would be no one who will bring to the table the views of those female entrepreneurs who have stepped up and made investments to meet the need for child care in this country.
The government is not taking into account the realities of families who have access only to private child care providers. The national advisory council should have representation for the different options of child care offered across this country. Canadians need a solution that is flexible enough to fit their varying needs, not an Ottawa-centric, one-size-fits-all solution. That starts with representation on the national council for entrepreneurial child care providers.
In conclusion, I find that this bill is superfluous to the child care issue. It would do little but create a council of bureaucrats with full benefits and compensation to dictate to Canadians the Liberals' view of what the provision of child care should be across this country. This bill needs to be amended, and many of my colleagues have already noted that. It is flawed, narrow in its approach and does not address the issues facing this sector and the families who desperately need it.
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Mr. Speaker, it is great to be back and I welcome all my colleagues back to the House of Commons.
Over the course of the break, I had lots of time to knock on doors. I talked to lots of my neighbours. Milton is one of the youngest communities in Canada demographically, so I overwhelmingly heard from my constituents that they were thrilled about the amount of money they were saving every month on child care.
While the Conservatives ran on a promise to tear up those agreements and remove national child care from my community, it would be devastating for my community. They have been talking a lot about affordability, but the $450, $500 or $600 a month that my constituents are saving on child care fees is really supporting them.
What is the Conservative plan to support families and their young children in those early years?
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Mr. Speaker, I would just like to begin by wishing you a happy new year.
In response to my colleague's speech, I think it is important to emphasize that child care is not just a business. It is not just about tax credits. It is also a place where children learn.
I would like my colleague to tell us more about the provinces' role and that of indigenous peoples in delivering early learning programs and services. Is that not a priority? What kind of conditions do we want to create for our children?
This is not just about giving them four walls and a safe place to be. We also have to think about their development, and that means creating a robust public system.
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Mr. Speaker, in September 2020, the Governor General delivered the Speech from the Throne that outlined our government's intention to create a Canada-wide early learning and child care system with provinces, territories and indigenous partners. That was the start of our journey to transform the way child care is delivered in this country.
This is why I am standing in the House today, and I will be sharing my time with the member for Hamilton Mountain.
What we had at that time was a patchwork system that strained family budgets, left early childhood educators underpaid and left many children without proper care.
Our government's vision for a Canada-wide system recognizes that high-quality early learning and child care enrich children's cognitive, emotional and social development, which has the potential to deliver long-lasting and far-reaching positive outcomes throughout a person's life. Child care is also an important support for parents, families and communities as it enables parents, particularly mothers, to reach their full economic potential, which contributes to a strong economy and greater gender equality. That is why we are committed to supporting the establishment and maintenance of a Canada-wide early learning and child care system, including before- and after-school care.
Through budget 2021, we committed a substantial investment of up to $30 billion over five years to build a Canada-wide early learning and child care system in collaboration with provincial, territorial and indigenous partners. We have already seen great results. We now have agreements with all provinces and territories to reduce fees, build high-quality spaces and ensure early childhood educators are better supported.
Since the signing of the Canada-wide agreements, all provinces and territories are seeing child care fees significantly reduced, and we are on track to achieve our goal of an average $10-a-day licensed child care by March 2026. This really is a significant accomplishment. As the hon. Minister of Families, Children and Social Development has said, we want to ensure that future generations of families across Canada can count on the progress we have achieved so far.
Bill C-35 builds on the incredible work that our government has already done. From day one, our government has been making life more affordable for Canadian families.
In 2016, we introduced and implemented the Canada child benefit, which gives more money, tax-free, to nine out of 10 families and has helped lift nearly half a million children out of poverty. From August 2021 to August 2022, in my riding of Surrey—Newton, nearly 28,000 children have been supported through $103 million in benefits due to the Canada child benefit.
Our Liberal government is committed to ensuring that families have access to affordable, inclusive and high-quality early learning and child care no matter where they live.
That leads us to the legislation before the House today. Bill C-35 was first tabled just over a month ago, and today I am honoured to speak in support of this bill.
British Columbia took the first steps with us towards creating a Canada-wide system of child care when it was the first province to sign an agreement in July 2021. Less than two years later, in December 2022, British Columbia announced an average of 50% reduction in licensed early learning and child care fees. Spaces in the $10-a-day program reduce the average cost of child care from $1,000 a month for full-time, centre-based infant care to $200 a month for the same service, saving families an average of $800 per month, per child.
I also want to point out that by the end of 2022, because of federal and provincial investments, British Columbia had nearly doubled the number of spaces in its $10-a-day program, from 6,500 to over 12,500 spaces across the province.
I am also very encouraged to see that more people are choosing to pursue studies in early childhood education in British Columbia. Building on the province’s work to introduce another wage enhancement, I look forward to seeing additional measures under the Canada-wide system that will support the recruitment and retention of this essential workforce.
It is worth noting that cutting child care fees is one way we can put money back in people’s pockets, at a time when inflation is making life more expensive. This much-needed support will dramatically help reduce the cost of living. The relief that these savings offer parents of young children cannot be overstated. It means that thousands of dollars can be used for energy bills, additional groceries for their families every month, or other essential matters.
This legislation makes it harder for any future government to cancel or cut child care and undo everything that we have achieved for children and families, together with the governments and jurisdictions across this country.
Passing Bill C-35 would build on the amazing journey that has seen transformative co-operation between the federal, provincial and territorial governments and indigenous partners. Through individually tailored agreements with the provinces and territories, we carefully stitched together this system and created a Canada-wide early learning and child care system that is accessible and affordable. It is worth building on into the future. That is what this bill will allow us to do, through an ongoing partnership approach. It does not impose any conditions or requirements on provincial and territorial governments, nor indigenous peoples. Bill C-35 is not a top-down approach. It is an act of partnership, building on the collaborative work with provinces, territories and indigenous peoples.
I am keen to support this legislation because it will serve to strengthen the Canada-wide child care.
Mr. Speaker, I am sure that you and the other members had a very merry Christmas. I wish all members, and of course the residents of Surrey—Newton, a very happy new year.
During my conversation with members of my riding on the ground they were asking me to support a system like this, child care that benefits families that need it. I respectfully ask all my colleagues to ensure the swift passage of this bill, giving Canadian families enduring access to high-quality, affordable and inclusive early learning and child care.
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Mr. Speaker, Quebec has led the way for many, many years when it comes to child care, and I have to give it credit. We continue to learn from the Quebec model on this particular issue. We are glad that the other provinces and territories are now following Quebec's lead by partnering with us and continuing to build the early learning and child care system.
Moving forward, I am sure that we, as Canadians, along with Quebeckers, will continue to bring in a system that works for all and helps our children and families moving forward.
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Mr. Speaker, when I served on the Standing Committee on the Status of Women, we looked at the situation in Quebec. I was told that there were problems with new families being unable to find a space for their children.
Are there any recommendations for improving the situation in Quebec?
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Windsor West for his kind words. Naturally, I return the compliment.
One interesting aspect to the labour shortage is that, when young parents are forced to stay home with their kids because they cannot find a child care spot, they become workers who are not working anymore. The lack of child care spaces therefore has the side effect of impeding access to the labour market.
Legislation would allow the provinces to guarantee a spot for those people so they could access the labour market. There are certainly men and women who are at home with their children who could set up a child care service or even become early childhood educators. However, one important aspect of an early childhood centre, for me, is the question of having qualified, trained employees. People do not want to entrust their children to just anyone, to someone who is simply going to put them in front of the television and have the television educate their children. That is not how education works. Screens are not the answer; interaction is. Educating and socializing our children is an absolutely fundamental aspect.
There are elements there to combat the labour shortage. We need to better educate our children, but we also need to better train our educators.
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Mr. Speaker, I agree with several points in my colleague's analysis of the Conservative position.
At the same time, I would like to point out that perhaps the federal government should mind its own business, respect provincial jurisdictions, lower its own taxes and let the provinces raise theirs. It is not the federal government's place to dictate a national framework of principles or values to be imposed on our children. Why is there so much money just lying around unused in Ottawa?
There is an inequity here. The government is reaching into people's pockets. It is our money. Transfers always have conditions attached, as we see in health care, as we see in child care. Clearly, the system is not working.
The federal government has a responsibility to give this some serious thought and perhaps take a step back.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for that very interesting question. It is very important to us to focus on child care.
We are concentrating on creating a system that gives the best quality of child care to children across Canada and allows them to have the best start in life so we know they can all have bright futures, whether the child is in the member's riding or in any other member's riding across this beautiful country.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's very sincere question because we do need to tip our hats to people who have sat in this House before us. We should tip our hats not only to those people but also to individual activists through the decades who have pushed for social policy changes and have pushed for social justice to make this country more inclusive, to make this country more fair and to give every child the best start that they can have in life. We are doing that, working together collaboratively with all levels of government and obviously in this case with the provinces to bring them on board, ensure the proper funding and ensure that children have the best start in life in this beautiful country that we all get to call home.
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Uqaqtittiji, I have also been hearing concerns about government oversight or government interference in this system that would help ensure that children are getting the care that they need. I wonder if the member could elaborate a little more on the importance of the national advisory council on early learning and child care that this bill would develop.
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Madam Speaker, that is an excellent question.
Is it possible for us to spend $6 billion to create spots for children? People currently have to wait two years to get a child care spot.
I encourage Quebeckers to create more child care spots.
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Madam Speaker, this legislation is so important. It is unfortunate that the Liberals have been promising child care since 1993 and it took three decades to get here, but it is critical that we move forward together. That is why New Democrats have pushed the government to ensure this legislation is passed, that it moves forward. This is critical for our country as a whole when it comes to our economic success. It is critical for gender equality. It is critical for the future of our children.
I want to thank all members in the House who are supporting this legislation and fighting for the rights of women.
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Madam Speaker, speaking to parents of young children, this debate on Bill C-35, the Canada early learning and child care act, is about them and the type of support they need from their government while their children are preschool age. They will find the Conservative caucus and the majority of the House supports the legislation at this stage, but they will also find two competing visions for the future of child care in Canada.
The Conservative vision flows from our belief in small government and big citizens. We respect the agency of parents to make the child care decisions that meet their individual needs. That means we must ensure families have financial flexibility to create the life they dream of for themselves and their children. To do that, we need to make life more affordable, lower taxes and leave more of their hard-earned dollars in their pockets.
I was part of the previous Conservative government that promoted income splitting for families, implemented a child care tax credit and the universal child care benefit. We did so with a balanced budget.
The child care benefit was a direct cash transfer to Canadian families that gave them more flexibility in their child care choices with no strings attached. It was so well received that when the Liberals came to office, they decided to keep it in place and rebranded it as the Canada child benefit. The benefit was universal and supported the needs of every child in Canada.
Unfortunately, the vision of the NDP-Liberal government fails to meet that standard. Bill C-35 would not help every preschooler in Canada, not by a long shot. The legislation flows from its core belief that government is the best solution to societal problems. That is why the bill would give more power to the government to decide who gets child care support and who will provide the services.
What the government is offering is an Ottawa-knows-best solution, forcing provinces to give the federal government more control over their jurisdiction. For example, the child care agreement with B.C. will direct $3.2 billion into the child care system, with one key condition: that those dollars only be allocated to run regulated day cares.
That means families that choose to have a parent take time away from work to focus on the most formative years of their child’s life will not benefit from this spending. Parents working shifts beyond the hours of operation of regulated day cares will not receive any further support. Parents who prefer to rely on family members for child care will not receive support. This includes new Canadians, many of whom are waiting for the arrival of grandparents to help with their child care but are stuck in the Liberal-made backlog at the immigration department, which is well over two million applications long.
Many indigenous parents who distrust child care institutions, given their family experience with residential schools, will not receive support when they arrange child care alternatives. Parents in rural and remote communities where regulated child care is often not available will not get a nickel of support. For those who are able to align their schedules to benefit from this program, they may need to wait years on a wait-list.
That said, the child care agreement with British Columbia will help some families, but far too many are being left behind. After eight years, I expected an inclusive child care approach from the Prime Minister, because after all it is 2023. His Deputy Prime Minister promised better when she introduced the child care plan in her budget. She said:
This is women's liberation. It will mean more women no longer need to choose between motherhood and a career. This is feminist economic policy in action.
This is typical of the Liberal government: big promises but no follow-through.
Bill C-35 and the related child care agreements fall demonstrably short. Instead, the Liberal government implemented a program, frankly, straight out of the 1970s, when women were generally limited to typical nine-to-five jobs.
Speaking as someone who was a single mother for four years following the death of my first husband and as a woman who raised four children with a career in law and politics, this program is certainly not feminist economic policy.
I do not know where the Liberals have been for the last 50 years, but while women have been breaking the glass ceilings of every industry and every realm of life, have they really noticed? Women are leaders in the military, policing, medicine, aerospace, engineering, mining and resource extraction.
They are on the cutting edge of research and development. They are bolstering our food supply chains as agricultural producers. They are manufacturing the cars we drive and designing the transit systems we rely on. Many women are taking up jobs in the skilled trades, helping to construct the homes and highways that we need to build up our great country. Women are thriving in industries that were once male dominated, and they need flexible child care options that meet their needs.
The idea of a national child care program is a recycled Liberal election promise from the 1980s, but it does not seem to have evolved with the times. John Turner promised the program in 1984 and 1988, but could not win a mandate. Jean Chrétien made a similar promise in 1993, but failed to deliver the program despite having successive majority governments.
Liberal leaders ever since, including Martin, Dion and Ignatieff, all made similar promises but never got it done. The current Prime Minister copied and pasted the program into their election platform, but failed to modernize it for women working in today’s economy.
To make matters worse, the program fails to live up to the standard set by the courts. In 2010, as an administrative law judge with the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, I presided over the Johnstone case.
Fiona Johnstone worked rotating shifts as a border services officer. Her child care preference was to rely on family to care for her children, but her family was available only three days a week. She sought accommodations from her employer, the Canada Border Services Agency, requesting that she work full time with extended shifts over those three days. Her employer refused her request, believing it had no obligation under the Canadian Human Rights Act to accommodate her personal choices around child care.
After hearing testimony from several child care experts on availability and quality, I made a precedent-setting decision that found the CBSA discriminated against Fiona Johnstone by failing to accommodate her child care request. My decision, which has since been upheld by the Federal Court of Appeal, protected child care choice as a right for working parents under the ground of family status in the Canadian Human Rights Act.
I would hope that a national child care program would reflect the ruling of the court by supporting the child care choices of all Canadian parents. Sadly, it falls short. In fact, the bill itself is a half-hearted effort. After eight years, when the Liberals could have gotten it right, most of it is inconsequential. A lengthy preamble, a declaration and some guiding principles make up most of the bill.
The one thing the bill would do is establish an advisory council to advise the minister on child care going forward.
I have four pieces of advice for this council to consider in order to help families take control of their child care choices. The first is to find solutions that help all parents in the modern economy. The second is to empower parents to make child care choices that suit their needs. The third is to refrain from dictating to provincial governments how to deliver those services. After eight years, it is difficult for other orders of government to take the federal government seriously when it cannot even issue passports or process visa applications. The fourth is to find ways to give families more financial flexibility to build the lives they want.
The Liberals can start by axing their plan to triple the carbon tax. They can rein in government spending that is driving high interest rates and inflation, which is the cruellest tax of all. To conclude, Conservatives will vote to send the bill to committee and will seek to amend it with a clear objective, which is to make sure the national child care program respects the choices of all Canadian families.
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Madam Speaker, I am always delighted when the member gets up and asks a question, because he does it so often and he gives us a chance to clarify the record.
I did not say what he says I said. What I said is that the concept of a universal child care benefit was something we, as a Conservative government, brought in. It was continued by the Liberals, albeit in a different form and format. What is interesting about these comments is that there is no means test in Bill C-35. The very people the member claims we helped the first time around with a universal program are going to benefit from putting their children in $10-a-day day care.
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Madam Speaker, Conservatives promote a suite of approaches so that parents can make the best choices that make sense for themselves and their families, that make sense for their cultural differences, that make sense for their age differences, that make sense for those in situations like the Fiona Johnstone case I talked about. She was a border services guard who was on rotating shift work.
Child care has to be made available for people to get some help and support with early child care and education that fits their needs. Tax credits are one way to do it. Income splitting for families who have children under the age of 18 was one of our previous suggestions that was rejected by the Liberal government. There are a number of ways to approach this.
As I said, I hope the advisory council will look at comprehensive ways to help all parents in Canada.
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