SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 213

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 14, 2023 02:00PM
Context: House Hansard - 213 - Jun/14/23
Mr. Jagmeet Singh
  • Jun/14/23 8:44:39 p.m.
  • Watch
  • Re: Bill C-35 
Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Churchill—Keewatinook Aski. Today, I am speaking in favour of Bill C-35. It is something that New Democrats are proudly supportive of. It is a bill that establishes a national early learning and child care system. Why this bill is so important is because it is transformative. It is another example of New Democrats never giving up. We fought hard for years alongside many advocates who said that we needed affordable child care. Affordable child care really is a transformational thing in the lives of people. Let us think about the reality for families right now and look at what people are going through with the cost of living so high, mortgages so high and the cost of groceries so high. A lot of families who want to have children look at the costs and say that there is no way they can do it, especially if they both cannot continue to work. That is a reality for many families. Many women who often fall into the role of having to be the primary child care provider want to get back into their careers and continue to work. When they look at the cost of child care they say it is simply impossible. To ensure that families across this country can have affordable child care is literally a transformational thing in the lives of so many. We believe this is so important. Bill C-35 represents a long-standing commitment of the New Democrats to see national child care introduced. That is why we included this as a requirement in our agreement. This is a specific element we forced the Liberals to include in our confidence and supply agreement to legislate it and make it permanent so we do not rest on the whim of a one-time negotiation, but that we forever in this country have child care that is available and affordable for families. That is exactly what New Democrats do. We commit to fighting for people. We fight for people, we never back down, and we continue to fight until we win, and we deliver for Canadians. This is an example of New Democrats delivering. We promised to deliver permanent child care. We delivered it using our power in this minority government and forcing the Liberals to include this in our confidence and supply agreement. I want to also acknowledge my colleague, the member for Winnipeg Centre, for all of the hard work she did on this file. It took a lot of work. She has been a strong advocate for child care generally and she played a crucial role in the shaping of this bill. One thing that is really emphasized in the bill is that it not only provides an opportunity for investing federal dollars into child care but to also build the type of child care we want for the future. The choice is, like many choices when it comes to providing services for people, whether we allow a for-profit system to continue to grow or we make it clear through legislation that New Democrats believe this is our opportunity to build up the public and not-for-profit sector. That is exactly what this legislation does. It prioritizes public and not-for-profit child care, which builds child care that is of the highest quality, where every dollar goes toward the care of our children, and does not provide an opportunity for rich corporations to make more money. The NDP fought hard to have public, not-for-profit child care prioritized in this bill. We know that this approach means affordable, high-quality child care that is accessible to families who need it, not child care that puts profits first to the detriment of parents and children. This means better salaries and better working conditions for child care workers, who play an essential role in our children's development. I also want to make a clear contrast here. While we used our power to force the government to legislate child care to ensure that it will be there moving forward, we have seen the Conservatives oppose this bill every step of the way and say they want to scrap it. As the member from the Bloc mentioned, in Quebec there was a time when there were people like the Conservatives who said we needed to get rid of child care, but it is so clearly beneficial to families that no one in Quebec would dare oppose it. I dare the Conservatives, once millions of families are benefiting from affordable child care, once people in their constituencies are benefiting from it, to try to remove this bill and try to fight against child care.
795 words
  • Hear!
  • Rabble!
  • star_border
Context: House Hansard - 213 - Jun/14/23
Mr. Kevin Lamoureux
  • Jun/14/23 9:36:53 p.m.
  • Watch
  • Re: Bill C-35 
Madam Speaker, I will provide a quick comment on the dental issue. I appreciate all the types of support and encouragement, whether it is received from New Democrats or many of my colleagues. I know I, for one, have been a very strong advocate for the pharmacare program. There is still work for us to focus attention on, such as dental and pharmacare. Let us not just sit back because we have already accomplished a great deal. We have many more things we would like to explore and work on, to see if we can improve them in some ways, as much as possible, and this is whether it is New Democrats or Liberals. I have a friend who says that a New Democrat is a Liberal in a hurry. I would suggest that it is good if we can work together for the betterment of Canadians. I am game to do that, and I will try to answer the member's question in the next question.
167 words
  • Hear!
  • Rabble!
  • star_border