- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Cypress Hills—Grasslands
- Saskatchewan
- Voting Attendance: 67%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $112,746.42
- Government Page
Mr. Speaker, now they all come running back in to hear this marvellous speech, despite the heckles from the NDP guys over here.
Thankfully we have not gotten to the point yet where they want to get us to, but when we hear people deny the primary role of parents to raise their own children, that is the line of thinking that will start to take us in a dangerous direction.
Our approach to child care must respect parents and their choices. We cannot expect the NDP-Liberal coalition to get things right if they do not have that solid foundation to begin with.
Child care is crucial. Canadian parents know it better than anyone. As Conservatives, we want to meet the needs of families and we understand how valuable and important it is to do so. It is common sense. Especially in today’s world, which moves at a rapid pace, we need to maintain and support the family unit.
Children are a gift. Those of us who are parents know how much they change our lives. They give us purpose and direction. They bring joy and pride as they grow up, despite some of the difficulties that we sometimes have to go through as parents with our kids. Not to sound too cliché, but our kids are the future of society. That is why it is so important that we provide the right support to parents as they raise the next generation.
There are people out there looking for options that are affordable and help to build the lifestyle they want for their family.
For many, it is a struggle. I have heard about it in my own riding, which is largely rural. Last month, at a town hall in Eastend, as I was talking about at the beginning, I was asked about the lack of access and spaces in our area. It confirmed for me that not much has changed since I was part of another town hall in Maple Creek a couple years ago, where one of the prominent issues was also child care.
I would say that, as the most rural province, Saskatchewan is in a unique situation. We have so many small towns that are so spread out. There is an especially stark contrast between urban and rural. Access to child care is linked to our access to workers. Business owners in the southwest are struggling to hire, but it was not because of a shortage of applicants; it was a shortage of day care facilities where potential hires could have their kids taken care of. Unfortunately, these interviewees moved on, got another job outside Maple Creek, and left these businesses still wanting.
What is sad is that Maple Creek is just a phenomenal town. Houses are still decently affordable, the school is great and it is not too far from the Cypress Hills. It is a quick drive to some major centres in Alberta and Saskatchewan. It is just an all-around great place for a family, yet people are choosing to not raise their kids here, in part because they cannot find access to child care.
We wanted to see this bill include a wide range of child care options that should be available to parents. That is what the NDP-Liberals rejected.
One of the amendments that we had proposed was to make sure we included all types of providers, private providers, home-based providers, alongside public and not-for-profit providers, just to make sure that all types of home care options were eligible.
In fact, in Saskatchewan, there are over 87,574 children under age six in our province but the majority of them are not in licensed care and receive no benefit from the implementation of the government's child care strategy.
This government has a one-size-fits-all approach for parents. This bill says to Canadians, “It is okay. Do not worry about it. Let the government take care of your kids.” That is basically it. This bill overlooks many families who want to have some other options, including stay-at-home parents. Many Canadians do not want that approach from the government; they believe that what is best for their family is that they stay home with the kids and live off one income.
By no means is it easy. I am speaking from my own personal experience. It requires determination and sacrifice but for my family, and for thousands and thousands of Canadians, the right decision is to have a stay-at-home parent.
Last time I spoke on this bill, I shared my own family’s experience with stay-at-home parenting, and I would like to touch on that point once again.
Shortly after my wife and I were married, and while our first child was on the way, we sat down and discussed how we could it make it work for my wife to be a stay-at-home mom, because that was something that she truly wanted and was near and dear to her heart. We also thought that this is what would be best for the kids in the long run. The decision to live on one income was definitely an adjustment. We got by for nearly a decade, until she went back to work in 2019, when the kids were old enough.
I would suggest that we were better off for it. We had adventures driving our old minivan. We had to make decisions on buying older, well-used vehicles, to make sure that we could make ends meet. These were definitely part of the joy, and the struggle at times, of deciding to live on one income and have my wife be a stay-at-home parent.
Yes, Conservatives supported this bill because there are Canadians in different situations who make other choices, and they are looking for support, too. Not all Canadians can survive on one income. We know that and get that, especially with the cost of living crisis spiralling out of control because of the government. However, for those who are able and choose to do so, they are completely overlooked by the Liberal government. Instead of supporting Canadians who choose to live as independently of government as possible, the government continues to throw program after program at Canadians, as if they cannot run their own lives.
Last June, the member for Milton said to me, “When women go back to work, they tend to earn money and pay taxes, and that pays for programs like this. I would like the member to appreciate that.” However, I did not need him to tell me that. There are mothers who work and contribute to our economy. My point is that parents are more than just simply taxpayers. The family is the basis of society, not the government. Strong parents make stronger families and, all together, they make for a strong society. If a woman does not want to go back to work after she has kids, we should not just let her, we should help her.
For the member to consider that women are nothing more than a taxpayer is a frightening insinuation. Does the Liberal government just view Canadians, especially Canadian moms, as just a source of income? If so, that is really worrying. The state is not the be-all and end-all solution for everything. Parents do not get up in the morning and head out the door to their jobs while thinking with pride about the taxes that are going to be carved out of their paycheques, but rather about how to pay for the food that their children are going to eat or how to pay for the mortgage that puts a roof over their heads, how they are going to save enough money to hopefully go on a vacation or maybe to have their kids sign up to play hockey, to put their kids in gymnastics or to have their kids take music lessons. Those are some of the finer things we are able to do as Canadian citizens. We cannot put a dollar value on parenting, and it is certainly not $10 a day.
Parenting, for many of us, is something in our bones, what we were created for. The government is looking at Canadians and thinking about its return on investment, not bout how it can support Canadians living life the way they want to, including as a stay-at-home parent. A mother who chooses to leave the workforce is not an extra cost to society. She is not a burden or a strain or a negative, by any stretch of the imagination. Moms are not a commodity to be given a dollar value. People have tried to determine the hourly cost of motherhood, that a mom’s work is worth about $180,000 a year. The work of a mother is absolutely priceless. We cannot put a dollar value on it.
This line of thinking, with the government’s belief that women must get back to work to pay their taxes, inherently devalues that work, the sacrifice and the unconditional love that mothers give. While child care might be $10 a day with the rollout of this bill, there can never be a price put on being a mom, or a dad, for that matter. Our kids are our future, and their youngest years are the most important years of their lives. Do members not think that mom and dad should be with them as much as possible during that time frame? The role of the government is to act in the best interests of its citizens, so why are we not doing everything in our power to ensure our children have the strongest start possible?
As I said, this bill, Bill C-35, is narrow. It ignores and leaves behind other child care options. Back home, we know that many families share child care responsibilities. Family friends are all brought to someone’s house and a stay-at-home parent takes cares of them for the day. There is no government intervention, no subsidies, just community coming together to find a solution to their needs.
Canadians who rely on others for their child care, people from their church, their neighbours, their co-workers, should be encouraged to do just that. They should not be forced to put their kids into a government-sanctioned day care. For the private child care groups put together between friends, for the stay-at-home moms who choose to leave the workforce because they see the value in spending every day with their kids, the Liberal government leaves them wanting.
The government must do more to tackle affordability and to enable parents to spend time with their kids. Parents know their kids better than anyone and will love their kids more than anyone else ever will. The government should not encourage the separation of child and parent, but should be actively working toward a country in which parents can spend as much time with their kids as possible. The 53% of child care centres in the country that are unlicensed are, therefore, excluded from this legislation and so, too, are the 35% of parents whose children are not in child care as they would rather stay at home with them.
Whether one is from urban or rural Canada, Vancouver or Swift Current, Toronto or Shaunavon, child care is something all Canadians need. Whether it is private, at a co-op, maybe over at one's grandparent's house, it could be a stay-at-home parent or a group of parents who have agreed to a cycle of taking care of the kids. However it presents itself, we know that Bill C-35 before us overlooks nearly all those people, and that does not even consider the fact that this scheme does not do anything to create new spaces. It is not growing access, which for people in the southwest matters the most.
In Saskatchewan, only 10% of kids aged zero to 12 have access to day care, either full time or part time. For the ages between zero and six, the ages managed by the agreement between the Government of Saskatchewan and the Government of Canada, that is just under 18%. For example, there is one day care facility in Saskatoon that has 90 spots available in its day home. Its waiting list had 1,900 people on it, which is 1,900 kids and families who are being overlooked by the Liberal government. Sure, the government might be trying to make day care more affordable, but if Canadians cannot get their kids into the day care, where is the benefit?
Across the provinces, we see some different approaches when it comes to delivering access to education, for example. When I came here to Ontario, I heard something in the news about how the multiple school boards work. It sounds different from the arrangements we have made in Saskatchewan or from how education funding is delivered in Alberta. Each province is responsible for its own needs in that area. We need to see the same respect shown to provinces when it comes to early child care as well.
I also want to say something my Quebec colleagues might appreciate. I hope we can work together to find some common ground whenever possible. Our friends in Quebec already have their own child care system, which has been running for decades already. I have to admit that I am not completely familiar with all the details of child care in Quebec or with the discussions they are having about it in that part of the country, but they genuinely do seem to be happy with it. However, that was long before the government in Ottawa brought forward its version of a program for national child care at the federal level. The government should not take the credit for what Quebec is doing. It also should not assume that what works in one province will work exactly the same in other provinces. There are different histories, cultures and values to consider.
The choice of parents matters the most. We need to expand their choices and not limit them, including through an affordability crisis. At the end of the day, a lot of the problems they face come down to the fact that this is a country where people can barely afford to live at all. After all, 51% of Canadians are $200 away from bankruptcy. Most women in Canada are having fewer children than they want, and it is partly because they cannot deal with the economic burden that comes with parenthood. The root of the problem is not child care; it is affordability. It is the fact that Canadians are not earning enough money to raise a family. The current government should not be putting a band-aid on the problems created by the government with social programs. It needs to address the very real concerns faced by Canadians so that they can have the kids they want and that they can raise them however they want, without the government telling them exactly what it is that they are supposed to be doing.
2553 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, it is always an honour to rise in the House, and it is great to be able to speak to such an important issue as what we are talking about here today, which is child care and, in particular, the Senate amendments.
I guess the fact that we are back here today goes to show, and I am sure my colleagues would agree, that there is always room for improvement when we are looking at any piece of legislation, but it is especially true when we are dealing with an NDP-Liberal government, such as we are now. That is what we tried to tell its members during the regular process of debate the first time through.
If the Liberal government decides it wants to involve itself in something, it really needs to make sure it gets things right and does not create a mess of things. As usual, it chose not to take its responsibility seriously. Instead it tried to blame us and play political games at the expense of Canadian families. It claimed we were delaying the bill, when we were simply doing our job as the official opposition.
Our Parliament is set up in certain ways for a reason. We have to consider and review what the government does carefully, or else there is trouble. Look at what happens when we do not. Was it a delay when a few months went by for senators to go through the bill and add this amendment? As a result, we are having another round of debate and a vote in the House.
In this case, that is probably a good thing. Many people from each party agree that the bill will be better for it. If we consider that it is dealing with child care, which is a complex and important issue, I think it is fair to say there are other things we also need to consider. We do not have to worry about a delay so much as the Liberal government making big announcements and rushing through legislation so it can try to look good and feel good about itself.
Canadians living in the real world have a lot of problems to face. They are counting on us to deliver solutions in the right way. Along with protecting official language minority communities, which is now reflected in Bill C-35, Conservatives proposed other amendments, which were rejected by the NDP-Liberals, including an amendment that would have basically done the exact same thing that we are debating here today with this Senate amendment, which was voted down previously by the NDP-Liberal government at committee.
The government's lack of respect for parents is quite apparent. In different ways, we have heard members of the Liberal-NDP government suggest that parents do not have the right to raise their own children. Recently, one of its members went so far as to say that there is no such thing as parental rights. There is a dangerous idea the far left has that seems to be gaining ground on that side. The Liberals think children should belong to the state and not to their parents.
528 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, the member is absolutely right. If we look at a lot of the day care spaces that are the beneficiaries of this program, they are largely in urban centres. Because the majority of private facilities are in rural communities, quite often it is the small-town co-operative that is left out. People are relying on grandma and relying on their aunts and uncles or friends down the road to take care of their kids for them, and this bill does not recognize that.
86 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, obviously I support livable wages. I also support an economy where people can afford to live without having to be massively topped up and subsidized by the government. People should be able to have paycheques that actually reward them for the work they are doing.
I also said in my speech, though, that mothers or stay-at-home fathers, and it does not matter which one, are working 24-7 parenting. Whether it is the mother or the father, it is a 24-7 job. I know that my kids, when they wake up with a fever or something like that, are not calling for dad; they are calling for mom. Moms are on call 24-7. It is the hardest but most rewarding job there can be on this earth, and the government fails to recognize that.
140 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, I think it is clause 7 of the bill that talks about funding, but it only talks about the not-for-profit care providers. There is no provision for moms who decide to stay at home and raise their kids. That is the problem.
What actions are the Liberals taking? I have listened to their speeches. I have not for a single speech, ever since second reading, seen one of them get up and talk about the value and importance of a parent being at home with their kids. It could be a father. It could be that the mother is the primary earner, and that is fine; no one is begrudging that. The point is that if somebody decides to stay at home with their kids, there is zero commitment from the government to make sure those people can actually afford to do that, even though a huge percentage of the population would like to do that but cannot because of the predicament the government has put them in.
172 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, it is an honour to once again be able to rise in the House on behalf of the great people of southwest Saskatchewan.
As I kick off my speech tonight, there is a core principle I really want to get at, and that is about trust. When I speak in this House, I like to ask how much trust the government has built with Canadians and whether Canadians can actually trust what the government is doing.
Before I get into the meat of it, I would really like to talk about the actual cost. We hear a lot from the Liberals about how this is $10-a-day day care. I recognize there is a benefit to people who are currently in the system, who will be paying less up front because of the program. I am not going to deny that and I am not going to say it is not a benefit to people who are in the program and are already benefiting from it. That is great for those people.
However, a lot of people email my office and routinely ask how much this program is actually going to cost. What we do know is that over five years the Liberals have set aside $30 billion to implement this program, so that is the cost we are aware of. We heard others, through many speeches tonight in this place, about the additional costs that are starting to already creep into the system. This is the cost of meals on top of the fees people are going to be paying up front. We are already hearing of extra costs that will be burdened onto the system.
That does not even get into the fact this system we are talking about here tonight is not going to build much in the way of new spaces. It is not going to provide new access to people, which, being from Saskatchewan, and particularly being from rural Saskatchewan, to me is the crux of the debate when we talk about day care.
We know day care is a universal need. It does not matter if one is from urban or rural Canada, from Saskatchewan or Ontario, from Toronto, Swift Current, Frontier, Leader or Maple Creek, one needs access to day care. There are many different ways people realize this. There are a lot of different programs out there. Some of them are private, some of them are run through co-operatives and some of them are just in-home systems. There might be a person who has chosen to be a stay-at-home parent, and other people looking for child care might bring their child to that person and have that person provide the service to them.
A lot of what we are finding out is that this bill would not do anything for those people who are in those situations. In fact, in Saskatchewan, only 10% of kids from the age of zero to 12, whether they are full-time or part-time, currently have access to day care. From zero to six, which is what the agreement signed between the Province of Saskatchewan and the federal government covers, right now that access number I believe is a bit under 18%.
Saskatchewan is a bit of a unique case. I would be willing to say we are the most rural province in this country. I think that is a fair thing for me to say. We have so many small towns. We are a very spread out province, so the needs of people are vastly different in rural versus urban. The access to spaces is different as is access to workers. One of the fundamental issues we have is the access to workers to be able to fill these positions. That is one of the key points we have.
I did a town hall probably about a year and a half ago or maybe two years ago in the town of Maple Creek. A lot of the business owners came together and arranged this. They wanted to have me out to talk to them about what is affecting their businesses. Part of it had to do with the pandemic at the time with the programs and different things, but we also talked about things that were outside of the pandemic.
One of those issues was day care. Multiple business owners have told me they cannot hire the workers they need. In fact, there are many people who came to Maple Creek, interviewed for the job and really wanted to move to Maple Creek, but because there was actually no day care available to them, these people passed on that job and passed on moving to Maple Creek.
To me, Maple Creek is one of the greatest towns in this country. It is a phenomenal place. It does economic development really well. On the cost of living, one can get affordable housing there. There is a great school there and it is close to Cypress Hills. It is close to some of the bigger centres both in Alberta and Saskatchewan. It is not terribly far away, so it is a great location and a great place to raise kids, but there are people who have a young family who are choosing to not move to Maple Creek simply because they cannot find day care.
When I talk about trust, repeatedly we do not see the government working to build trust with rural Canadians. To me, that is a problem and is again where this bill misses the mark.
I talked earlier about the agreement between Saskatchewan and the federal government. Part of the agreement that they signed only provides the subsidy for kids aged zero to six. I have a had a mother reach out, talking about both her and her husband and the hours they work. They need day care before and after school, and the agreement actually does not cover people in that situation. Therefore, those people are being left out of the picture here, yet in a community like Swift Current, that is actually a big chunk of people who are trying to utilize day care spots.
I also want to talk a bit about my own story. My wife and I have three kids, and they are fantastic. They are 12, 10 and eight years old. When my wife and I had our first child, we had a great conversation, talking about what our goals as parents were. One of our goals was something that we even talked about when we were first married; it was that my wife wanted to be a stay-at-home mom. This meant that we had to plan out a few things. We had to figure out how we were going to make that work and what that was going to look like. We had to make some big decisions, such as where we were going to live, where we could afford to live and what kind of vehicle we were going to drive.
We had to make a lot of sacrifices. For example, a lot of our friends would go on these big, elaborate trips, and we never did that. For us, a trip was driving from Swift Current to Saskatoon. That was our summer vacation, but that was because it was all we could afford with the goal of having my wife be a stay-at-home mom raising our kids. That just meant that disposable income was not necessarily there. Those were some of the sacrifices we had to make. However, the bill before us would not have any provisions for people who are choosing to stay at home and raise their own kids.
As we added more kids to the mix, it definitely changed that dynamic. My wife was a stay-at-home mom from 2011 all the way up until about 2019. Then, she was first able to go back to work, because our kids were old enough. All three of them were in school at that point in time, and she was able to find some part-time work where she could work during the school day but be home when school was over, so she could be there for the kids when they got home.
I recognize that this reality is not available for everybody, but there is a lot of sacrifice that is required to do that. Therefore, I think it is really important that we talk about the government respecting families that have made that decision. I have listened to Liberal speeches at report stage here and also at second reading, and to paraphrase them, what I heard repeatedly from that side and from some of the other opposition parties was that women are only of value if they are working; they are not of value if they are staying at home. I think that is completely bonkers. That is absolutely ridiculous.
Being a mother is a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week job. There is no break from it. As husbands, we come in and try to do what we can, but there is no replacing a mom in the house. My wife and many other moms we have talked to talk about the commitment it takes, how much work and effort go into it, and how it is more tiring and more gruelling being a stay-at-home mother and being with the kids compared with going to work. However, it is also more rewarding.
I recognize that some people are dedicated to their profession, and they have chosen that professional life, which is awesome. It is fantastic that they are doing that, and we want them to be able to do that. They should have that choice and the ability to do that, but the signalling we are getting the government is that a woman who decides to stay at home has no inherent value, because she is not working. That is the vibe we get from the government. That is the message it is signalling, and that is wrong. The value a stay-at-home parent has, even if the father does stay at home with the kids, is extremely valuable. Society, the kids we raise and the system generally, at large, all benefit from that.
1720 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- menumenu
- notificationsnotifications
- home
- mailmail
- searchsearch
