44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 31, 2023 02:00PM
Mr. Speaker, it is funny, because I have this speech that I wrote, which I am very passionate about, even though I am Conservative. I am a mom who needed child care, and I do not even know where to begin on this, because I am listening to the men across the room telling us what it is like to be a mom and how difficult it is to seek child care. I am listening to men across there.
I am looking at a member from Saskatchewan. I have great respect for her. She is a mom who has come here and had children while on the job, but not in the chamber. She has been able to raise her children as a member of Parliament, and I just want to start by correcting the record by saying to please delete the last 15 minutes of what has happened in the House of Commons, because if we want to look at absolute mistruths, we can maybe look at the speech from the member for Winnipeg North. I am sorry about that.
I think that comes, because I just listened to him talk about a woman from Peterborough who he advised.
Maybe they can stop having their conversations over there and listen to women speak.
I was trying to talk about the fact that the member talked about a women from Peterborough and went against my colleague, who is one of the strongest members of Parliament I have seen here. He told her that her constituent should maybe vote for somebody else if they really want to care about women and everything else. I would like to say to the members I am looking across at to please recognize the work we have done and to recognize the women who are sitting in this House and the work we have done. The only reason we are here is that we are strong women. The member will please stop trying to deflate us and stop trying to mansplain to us. We get it. We are leaders who have been voted for by our communities, and not just by women.
That is why I want to share with everybody that when we are bringing these things forward, it is because our constituents do not agree with what the Liberals have brought forward. In my case, 128,000 people elected me. That is about 50%, which is happy, joyful and great for me. I am listening to them. Not everybody voted for me, but I do try my best to represent everybody there.
My opinion may be different, but I want to remind members that the people I was elected by are different as well. They are different from other constituents. They have different needs in different regions. They may have different socio-economic values. They may be new immigrants in communities. They may have started in Newfoundland and ended up in Vancouver for trades jobs, and we have to recognize that people in Canada are different.
As I was listening to speeches, I understand where the heat gets up. It is disrespect for the women in this place that I have listened to, and after eight years, I am tired of listening to it.
Let us get to my speech. Let us get to the fact that the reason there are women in this place is that we do see we need child care, and the reason I am here today is that I was able to have child care. To the New Democrats, it was important to me when I needed child care, so they should stop saying that it is already in—
An hon. member: Then quite delaying it.
Ms. Michelle Ferreri: It is already in place. The provinces already signed the agreement.
Mrs. Karen Vecchio: I am all good. I do not need anyone to continue to yell. Perhaps I will remind the member from the NDP sitting in the back corner that the reason they are in the back corner is that their policies are not votable by all Canadians. The fact is that he is yelling that this is being delayed. As I look across at the minister, she is proud of all of these agreements she has signed with our provinces and territories, so members can stop telling us we are delaying a bill and hurting children. It is not hurting children. The minister has said herself, time and time again, that she has signed the agreements, and the only reason we have the legislation is so that Conservatives do not get into power, which we will, and get rid of it.
The reason I said this is very important is that they are—
Mr. Angelo Iacono Get rid of it.
Mrs. Karen Vecchio: That is exactly what I am coming to. They continue to put words in my mouth. I thank the member for Alfred-Pellan for continuing to put words in my mouth. As I have said, Conservatives are worried about child care, and I am going to continue.
I have never seen such rudeness. Were members drinking or something? Is that why they are being so inappropriate? Angelo, were you drinking?
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to withdraw that comment. Perhaps we could have some more dignity and respect in this place.
As I have indicated, women have been increasing their presence in the workforce over the past few decades. According to Statistics Canada, in 2020, 47.1% of the Canadian workforce are women. That is something we should be very proud of. We know that the reason that women are in the workforce is because there are people who are able to support them.
I was very fortunate because in my own world I had parents and I had a husband, who, unfortunately, was unable to work because of a disability, who were able to care for my children. I also put them in a day care for a number of years. With five children, I have used a mix of different sources, also due to the income I had. Our family's base income was $45,000, combined, at the time that I had five children. If anyone wants to talk about children and parents struggling, $45,000, five children, it is tough.
That is why I am talking about it today. Not only is it tough, it is tough when women are trying to get in the workplace and there is no spot. That is exactly why we are bringing this, talking about it at third reading and talking about it at report stage. The problem here is that a labour strategy needs to be connected to this, and there is not a labour strategy.
The Liberal government has been here since 2015, and in 2017, when I was doing this, we talked about the wages and recognized that at $22 an hour, people were leaving this type of work because they were not able to pay the bills. At $22 an hour, there was not enough income for them to pay the bills.
People were leaving, and we know there is a retention issue. That is one of the greatest challenges. Until we have a labour force that can fill these spots, Canadian parents are being sold a bill of goods. It is important that we have sustainable child care. It is important that we have quality child care. It is important that we have choices in child care, whether it is Milestones child care, which is private, or the not-for-profits in our community, we need it all.
We need to have an entire selection, a cornucopia of different strategies so that we can deal with this. There need to be the options for parents who may be living in Toronto or my town of Sparta.
I have one constituent who wrote to me and indicated that it is a 35-minute drive for her to get child care. Getting to child care is very difficult, especially if one is looking at having almost two full hours of their day, driving there and back, and there and back again for pickup. These are the types of things that we need to consider. Accessibility for parents is one of the most important things.
Another constituent wrote to me, and I am just going to read parts of it, due to privacy, I do not want people to know her name. She was given notice to resign if she failed to return to work by the end of the next week. She had been trying to explain her situation to the manager, who was very reluctant. The issue for her was that the closest day care in her neighbourhood, the only day care in that area, had enough space for eight more children, but due to shortages of day care staff, they could not take any more children.
These are the problems. When we are talking about this, I have heard that Conservatives do not support child care. We support child care, but we want child care to be more universal. We understand that the cost of child care is exorbitant. When I said I was making $45,000 a year, $1,200 a month was going to child care. I understand when money is tight. I understand what it is like to feed bagels to my kids because I did not have a lot of money. I really want members to stop banging on us for being Conservatives.
I had another constituent talk about day care, saying there is a serious supply issue for the current demand for licensed child care access for families. Their son is nearly two years old and they have still not been offered a space in a day care facility. They put his name on the list in September 2021, for infant programs. It was clear that there will never be a spot.
Another said that her son has been on the wait list since March 2022, and he is 50th on the list. That is another email. I talked about the person who was 35 minutes away from day care. I have another person saying that there are no, spelling no with about 25 “o”s, spots in licensed centres or homes.
This is the problem here. It is great to have this program. I believe in child care. I always have believed in child care. However, there needs to be something that works for parents.
This is where I am going to put my mom hat on. For years, I always said “It is up to the family.” We just went through COVID and the fact is that, like every mom in this place, every daughter and every sister, we know a lot fell on the shoulders of women. That is why I will fight to ensure that we have a child care program that works for families and especially works for women.
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Mr. Speaker, finally we are getting to more of a discussion and that is part of the problem here: It has become so politicized. I have listened to speeches time and time again that are just about political wedges. I want this to be about parents and I want this to be about the children and the quality day care that they get.
I have just heard from the member from Peterborough that a child care facility that had been operating for 17 years just closed its doors to the 168 or 172 children or families who are serviced. We can do better. I just believe that the government put the cart before the horse and, unfortunately, we do not have the skills that will support this, but we do need to have a child care program that works.
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Mr. Speaker, the first thing is that when we talk about delays in this House, we have to understand the process. We know that these agreements have been signed, so the impact of this is not to the children and families whom this bill is connecting with. That is probably one of the key things that I want to point out.
We also recognize that this bill is very flawed. As I indicated, when we know that two in three children are on waiting lists and one in three children get spots, we talk about that lottery. We are discussing this because we really want there to be more of a discussion, more of what I did not see here 20 minutes ago and more of where I am seeing people want to talk about this. A lot of times, we just have too much ideology instead of more practicality.
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Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, that is exactly how I see it as well. I see that there are intentions in this bill that are very positive because child care is necessary for families, to be able to go to work and provide for their families. Absolutely, I would not disagree with that at all. However, when I listened to the speeches, with respect to the minister because I know how hard she works, I counted the number of times she said “Conservative” in the first three minutes and it was a lot more than the number of times that she said the word “child”. Therefore, I recognized that we were not talking about children; we were talking about Conservatives. I was wondering what this was about, and so those were some of my questions there.
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