44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 31, 2023 02:00PM
Uqaqtittiji, I wonder if the member can explain how this bill would support the great work of the Kativik Regional Government in Nunavik. Will it be better supported through the implementation of this important bill?
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question. There are indeed similarities. These are important communities in our ridings, after all. They also need support in terms of day cares. I think this bill will make things easier for the communities. The important thing is to always listen to the communities and their needs.
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Mr. Speaker, as my colleague said, fortunately there is the right to opt out with compensation. However, when I read that a “Multilateral Early Learning and Child Care Framework” would apparently fall under the federal spending power, I admit that concerns me.
Am I right to be concerned?
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. Yes, we do have some questions, and there is good reason to be concerned.
We have to remain vigilant when it comes to this bill and future legislation. There is room for improvement, so we are going to pay very close attention to what happens with this bill.
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- May/31/23 9:27:46 p.m.
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Before we go to the next speaker and I run off, I want to make sure that everybody prays for a bit of rain for Nova Scotia.
Resuming debate, the hon. member for Regina—Qu'Appelle.
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Mr. Speaker, we are all hoping and praying for rain, and sending our best, in support of all the first responders who are responding to the tragedy.
It is an honour for me to stand on behalf of my constituents and speak to Bill C-35, the legislation currently before the House. This is a bill that would enshrine in legislation essentially the deals that the federal government has already signed with provincial governments.
It is important, right off the bat, for people listening to know that the debate tonight, no matter how long it goes today or in the coming days, does not actually affect the real-time outcomes among the different levels of government. That is something I wanted to get on the record right away, anticipating some of the concerns and phony outrage that might be manufactured in a few moments from some members from other parties.
I want to start off by pointing out the fact that I have five children. I often get asked what it is like having five children, especially when we went from four to five. Having that fifth child is nerve-racking. Many of my friends and family said four was a lot, asked how we went from four to five and what it was like as a family to experience that. The great Jim Gaffigan, who also has five kids, by the way, summed it up best. He said if people want to contemplate what it is like going from four children to five children, they should imagine themselves drowning and then someone throwing them a baby. I can attest that there is a lot of truth to that.
The difference between a first child and a fifth child is very different psychologically. When my wife and I had our first child, we had all the bells and whistles, the baby monitors and that special mat that monitored everything. At the slightest sound, we would run in and check on Thomas. When the fifth child comes along, it is a little different. Parents are a little more mellow and have experienced more. When I was asked how it was going with baby number five, I would say it was pretty good, that we were getting through the night. We would put the baby down, turn on a fan on in the baby's room and close Mary's door. We would go into our room, close our door and turn our fan on. When people would ask if she was sleeping through the night, we would say we did not know, but we were. That is kind of half the battle being a parent.
I tell these stories because, for those us who have been blessed with the opportunity to have and raise children, it is a lot. It is incredibly rewarding, but it is, at the same time, incredibly stressful. People go through all the normal difficulties of life with bills, jobs and managing different relationships in their lives and then they have this being that is 100% dependent on them as parents. Every moment parents are away from that child, they worry about him or her. They ponder whether they have left their child with the right sitter, if their mother-in-law is going to forget the thing she was told about the medicine at the right time or if their dad is going to think to do the other thing. All those thoughts that parents think of are always stressful.
Child care, of course, is a major preoccupation for parents from all walks of life, from all backgrounds, from all different corners of our wonderful country, so it is not surprising that, as the Liberal cost of living crisis continues, child care costs are one of the stress points in families. As the Liberal government has devalued our paycheques by robbing us of our purchasing power, as it ballooned the money supply, washing $400 billion of new money through the system, completely devaluing the dollars that we work so hard for, it is not surprising that one of the stress points is child care, because it is so intrinsically linked.
For many families, the ability to work, to go out and earn a living, is dependent on the ability to find someone to watch their children, to make sure their children have the care they need while they go out into the world and earn a paycheque. Sadly, under the Liberal government, more and more Canadian families are having to work more and more. They have to pick up extra shifts. I know many people in my riding who have second jobs, who work a full 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and then pick up maybe an 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. shift at a restaurant or hotel, and they are doing that just to offset the purchasing power that the government robbed them of.
I think back to my science classes when I was going through high school. Every once in a while we would kind of look at the fallacy around a perpetual motion machine, something often seen in tropes in science textbooks when talking about conservation of energy, entropy and things like that. It is pretty much an accepted fact that we could never have a perpetual motion machine. What does a “perpetual motion machine” mean? It means the machine itself provides the energy to power the movement of the machine which then creates the energy that goes back into creating the movement. There is a perpetual loop that the energy created by the machine powers the machine to create the energy in the first place.
One does not have to be a fourth-year graduate student to understand that there is no such thing in the real world as a perpetual motion machine, but in politics there can be. That is the perpetual motion machine of government justifying its continued intervention in the economy or in people's lives. The government taxes families more and more. It devalues the paycheques of the people who pay those taxes, which creates stresses in our society. We are seeing 1.5 million Canadians visiting a food bank, a staggering number in 2023 in a developed G7 country. We all hear heartbreaking stories of families who have had their utilities cut off because they could not pay the increased costs as the carbon tax takes a bigger and bigger bite out of their paycheques and, of course, we see it with child care costs as well. More and more of those take-home dollars have to go to pay the child care providers.
The government comes along after taxing and after devaluing paycheques and says it is going to tax more and spend more to help alleviate the problem that we ourselves have caused. When I say “we” I mean the Liberal government; it is not actually the Conservative government. The Liberal government has caused this dynamic. This is what I mean by the perpetual motion machine. It is continually creating problems through government action and intervention. Then to alleviate those problems, it comes along to tax more and spend more, which creates more problems and unintended consequences down the road. Who could have predicted today in 2023 that some of those terrible Liberal policies of 2015-16 would lead to these massive inflation numbers that we see today, accompanied by staggering interest rate hikes?
The Liberal finance minister finally acknowledged that inflationary deficits cause higher interest rates. Seeing the numbers from the last little bit, we know that in April the inflation rate for Canada went up even after the Bank of Canada took all kinds of measures to fight inflation by increasing interest rates; forcing Canadians to pay more and more of their mortgage payment to the bank for interest, instead of actually paying down the principal. After that kind of news and knowing what the U.S. federal reserve has done raising interest rates, experts are predicting that there are going to be future interest rate hikes coming to Canada this summer.
The reason why I mention all of this is because this might look like it is going to help Canadians. There may be many Canadians looking at this legislation, looking at these child care deals and thinking, okay, my child care costs are getting more and more expensive but at least the government is coming along to help me with that. The point is that the unintended consequences of massive amounts of new spending requiring new taxes to pay for it or driving up inflation will undo any of the benefits that the Liberals are claiming to have today.
I also want to very briefly point out how unfair this is to so many Canadians, so many women across the country who would prefer to raise their own children, to look after their own children, and with the entrepreneurial spirit that they have, decide to become a day care operator and open up their own home, maybe finish their basement or put on an addition to their house so that they can look after children in neighbourhoods in what is being called “day care deserts” which, according to data from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, 92% of Saskatchewan is in a day care desert. Rather than facilitate and enable women to become entrepreneurs, to start businesses in their communities, the government has decided to fund one narrow form of day care. That is why the official opposition is raising these kinds of concerns and we hope the government takes these concerns seriously.
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Madam Speaker, a lot of us can relate to what it is like to have a baby and that feeling of being overwhelmed, which is why child care is so important and it is so important for families to know they can send their child somewhere that is safe, that is going to provide quality development and education and that their child will be well cared for.
I need to correct the record. The hon. colleague ended by saying that if one has a home day care one is not eligible to participate in this program. That is simply false. In fact, in his own province of Saskatchewan, that is one of the ways it is increasing access to child care, through licensed day homes, particularly in rural areas.
This is typical of the Conservatives, who I am not sure have actually read the legislation or read the agreements, so they do not actually know what we are debating tonight, which in fact is an amendment to the short title of the bill. I have asked every single Conservative colleague here if they will be supporting Bill C-35. I have yet to hear a clear response.
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The minister is shaking her head and saying that it does not.
We will grant unanimous consent right now. If she wants to withdraw this part of this bill, we will agree this second.
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It doesn't say not not-for-profit; no, it doesn't.
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Madam Speaker, the minister is highlighting the importance of report stage debates because she is claiming the bill does not discriminate against entrepreneurs who want to start a business in their communities to address this.
Let me read her bill. Maybe she can go back to her department and quickly file some amendments or maybe withdraw the bill and come up with something else.
Under “Guiding Principles”, paragraph 7(1)(a) reads:
support the provision of, and facilitate equitable access to, high-quality early learning and child care programs and services — in particular those that are provided by public and not for profit child care providers —
Therefore, that is excluding all those examples I just mentioned, such as people in smaller communities—
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- May/31/23 9:39:59 p.m.
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I just want to remind members they are not to have cross-debates.
On a point of order, the hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader.
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Madam Speaker, I believe if you seek it you will find unanimous consent to allow the minister to respond to that last comment.
Some hon. members: No.
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- May/31/23 9:40:15 p.m.
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There is no unanimous consent.
On a point of order, the hon. member for Regina—Qu'Appelle.
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Madam Speaker, just to clarify, the invitation was to amend the flawed bill that contradicts what the minister just said. The minister has already had lots of time—
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- May/31/23 9:40:34 p.m.
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Order, please. This is debate and not a point of order.
Questions and comments, the hon. member for Edmonton Strathcona.
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Madam Speaker, one of the things I am always a bit concerned about is the fact that the Conservative Party members seem to believe, on the things we are all trying to fight for for Canadians, these are things they are entitled to but that Canadians are not entitled to. I have to say it is on the public record the Conservative Party of Canada actually paid for this member to send his children to a private school with a tuition of $18,000, and yet he is in this House saying that single moms and Canadians across this country, Canadians who are struggling with the cost of living, should not have access to even child care for their children while he is able to send his children to private school. How does he square that circle? It seems extraordinary to me that he thinks that is reasonable.
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Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague is making a massive confusion. Not only is it comparing apples to oranges but it is talking about what allows Canadians to have access.
The point I am making in my speech is about when the government does more and more and defines how support is going to be given out. It has created a child care program that is so exclusionary. What I am fighting for is more access, more Canadians to be able to access affordable child care. This myth that if government does not do it that it does not get done is just false. The entire course of human history in terms of innovation and a higher quality of life comes from free market competition, other kinds of non-government solutions. That is the point that was being made.
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Madam Speaker, I love hearing stories about my hon. colleague's children and the great comedian Jim Gaffigan.
When we are looking at the Matthew effect, this is one of the criticisms that has been made of Bill C-35. For those people who do not know, the Matthew effect is where increasing public provision ends up advantaging higher-income rather than lower-income groups. That is what we have seen with the way this legislation is currently written. What does the member have to say about that?
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Madam Speaker, that is a great point, and I want to congratulate my colleague, who has really quarterbacked the bill for the official opposition. She has done a phenomenal job doing research and getting witnesses together to tell the story about all the flaws that are in the bill.
The member is absolutely right. There are many parts of the country where Canadians are forced to live because of low income; they are in areas where there is just not that type of access. People who live in a fancy part of Toronto or Vancouver, where there are a lot of government day care spots, may be a big winner from this, because they have the ability to live in those parts of our country. However, there are many Canadians, the vast majority of Canadians, who are going to get absolutely nothing.
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Madam Speaker, I just want to start out my speech tonight by talking about something that is related, although perhaps not directly on point, if I could have the indulgence of the House.
An incredibly sad story came out of my riding in recent days. Vienna Rose Irwin, age two, was discovered in an open well outside of a day care in my riding. She had obviously passed away. I just want to take this moment to pass on my greatest sympathies to the family and to all the people who knew her. To quote, “She was the most beautiful and sweetest little girl and in her short time here on Earth touched so many.” While not directly on point, I appreciate the indulgence to send that sympathy to her parents. She passed away just outside of a day care some days ago. I send my deepest sympathies and regards, and I am sure those of all members, to her parents and all those who knew and loved her.
We will start there. I am sorry for choking up a little. I think of my own kids. I have a seven-year-old and a nine-year-old. I heard the official opposition House leader talk about having five kids. I have only two; I am not as ambitious as the Conservative House leader. I can say that certainly even with two, some days it feels like we are drowning. I love this job. I love being here, and it is certainly my choice. However, the hardest days are always on Sunday nights or Monday mornings, when I have to leave them, knowing that I will not see them for four or five days. I am very pleased to serve the people of Northumberland—Peterborough South.
Child care is a challenge in our family, just as it is for millions across Canada. The Conservatives have raised some concerns and objections, and I think we have done it in quite a constructive way. Of course, Conservatives recognize the challenges of raising children in today's society. In fact, in a lot of ways, those concerns have been heightened over the past eight years, with the cost of inflation driving up the cost of housing and food. Food bank usage has doubled or even tripled. What is scary is that we are in fact seeing more and more employed parents having to use food banks. We recently heard testimony that it used to be that about 15% of folks using food banks would identify themselves as employed. That number is now 30%, and a lot of them are parents.
I just want to go through some numbers. In 2011, the average full-time day care cost for a child aged four or younger in Ontario was $677 a month. Even at $677 for child care, I am sure that that is not easy for many parents. Today, for parents living in Toronto, it costs more than $1,000 a month to have an infant in day care. This is an increase of 67%.
Child care costs in Ontario are among the highest in the country, and I would venture to say, some of the highest in the world. In Toronto, a full-time spot for a toddler costs around $1,600 a month, or $19,000 a year. This is just one of the costs that have risen for parents; no doubt, it is an extremely challenging one.
There are also many other issues with respect to the expenses for child care. I just want to talk a little bit about the marginal effective tax rate and participation rate for parents. I know that, in the past, when I have raised this and stated the numbers, Liberals have sighed or rolled their eyes in disbelief. However, these numbers are all cited. These numbers have all come from the C.D. Howe Institute, a respected think tank and institution, and all their math is here too. If anybody wishes to challenge it, I cannot raise the report, because then it would be a prop, but I am more than willing to table it.
One of the numbers they talk about is the participation tax rate. I will just read this to make sure that we have it correctly on the record:
[It] is the cumulative effect of all income taxes, other contributions, payroll deductions and loss of tax benefits on the entire prospective earnings from work.
For a stay-at-home parent, it represents a financial penalty that must be paid out of total derived income.
I just want to give a scenario in which we have a mom who earns $30,000 a year. The total family income is $30,000. The mother will pay federal income taxes and CPP and EI contributions, with no Alberta income tax, for a total of $1,985. The dad is now considering going back to work. He has been at home with the kids, and he is deciding to return to the workforce.
By the way, I have not heard anyone in this House say it, but I have heard it said from time to time in the community. I hate it when they say that “stay-at-home parents are going back to work.” Members can trust me: It is a vacation doing this job compared with taking care of my kids. I am first and foremost my kids' dad before I am the member of Parliament for Northumberland—Peterborough South.
We have this situation. We have a mom who is working and earning $30,000 a year. The dad wants to go back to paid work. We would think that $30,000 more in income should increase the family's disposable income by $30,000, especially as a low-income earner. Do members know how much their income would actually increase? The family's disposable income would increase by $13,350. That is all. Their participation tax rate for the dad's return to work is 56%. It is in here. I am happy to table the report.
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