SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

Member of Parliament

Mel Arnold

  • Member of Parliament
  • Member of Parliament
  • Conservative
  • North Okanagan—Shuswap
  • British Columbia
  • Voting Attendance: 69%
  • Expenses Last Quarter: $117,514.07

  • Government Page
Context: House Hansard - 209 - Jun/8/23
Mr. Mel Arnold
  • Jun/8/23 8:13:33 p.m.
  • Watch
Madam Speaker, I believe that parents should have the choice of where they send their children for child care or day care, whether that be in their own home with nannies or other people, even family members, coming in to provide child care in the parents' and child's own home, or through the other process. That needs to be more universal, which this program is not even close to providing.
71 words
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Context: House Hansard - 209 - Jun/8/23
Mr. Mel Arnold (North Okanagan—Shuswap, CPC)
  • Jun/8/23 8:01:21 p.m.
  • Watch
  • Re: Bill C-35 
Madam Speaker, it is an honour once again to rise in this House today as representative of the amazing people from the riding of North Okanagan—Shuswap. I rise today to speak to report stage on Bill C-35, an act respecting early learning and child care in Canada, or as the Liberals love to call it, the universal child care plan. I will be speaking to some extent about how it is not really a universal child care plan; instead, it is a plan that would benefit those in areas with access to day care, especially those who already have children in day care. However, it leaves out the 50% children living in what have been called “child care deserts”. I support anything we can do to make life better for young parents, or even grandparents or guardians, who are raising children anywhere. However, I am not sure the Liberal-NDP government does. It is a number of years since my wife of 44 years and I required child care. As I go back to those wonderful years, and all those 44 years have been truly wonderful thanks to her, I recall that there was a time when we were coming out of the recessionary times caused by a former Liberal government that had a spending problem. It caused massive inflation and skyrocketing interest rates. During those wonderful years, we struggled to afford our home, to put food on the table and to provide the best for our daughter. We were only able to do that because we had family help. We had family members only minutes away who were able to provide child care so that my wife could return to work to help pay the bills. The bills at that time were so inflated that we thought we were doing well when we got our first mortgage at 9.5% and a second mortgage at 12.5%. Friends had bought a few years prior at mortgage rates of 19% to 21%. That was all caused by a former Liberal government's overspending, which caused incredible inflation. We have now come to a point where we are grandparents to a beautiful granddaughter, who has made our hearts grow more than one size bigger. I believe she is at home watching with her parents, so Grampy says hi to Ava. We are blessed, as she and her parents are, that they have access to good day care for her, because they live in a larger city. While this bill is touted to be about universal child care, it is very clear that it will not be universal. With 50% of children in Canada living in child care deserts, it simply cannot be called “universal”. In fact, my colleagues have proposed that the short title of the bill be changed from the current title of “Canada Early Learning and Child Care Act”. With 50% of children living in areas without government-approved day care, Conservatives have been the only ones raising the alarm bells that parents have been ringing, and that the government, in its usual fashion, has failed to listen to or understand. This is much as it failed to listen to the warnings it was given about massive deficits causing life to be unaffordable, especially for young families. I mentioned that we had family close by. We had a caring grandmother who gave us a choice, so my wife could return to work. We had the choice of what we thought was the best day care possible for our daughter. This bill would not give parents the choice of how they want to provide day care for their children. They will not benefit from this bill if they live outside of urban centres or if they choose to have a family member or friend provide child care. Universal child care needs to be truly universal. It needs to be universal to those in the urban centres, and it needs to be universal to those who choose to provide non-government supported child care. It needs to be universal to low-income families that do not have transportation or some of the other amenities and benefits available those with higher incomes. It needs to be universal to those living in rural areas, such as those in my riding in areas like Falkland, Cherryville, Anglemont, Adams Lake or Malakwa, all areas that could be a 30-minute to an hour-long drive to a community with child care covered by this program. Young parents living in these communities would face long drives, fuel costs and time in dangerous winter or summer traffic conditions just to get their children to child care, instead of having access closer to home on a more equitable basis, where they may be able to carry on a home-based business or work at a local small business. They cannot do that under this program. Witnesses testified at committee about the problems with the shortage of spaces and how it is not a universal, equitable plan. Ms. Maggie Moser, director of the board of directors of the Ontario Association of Independent Child Care Centres said: The CWELCC program has not delivered good value for taxpayers and does not meet Canadian standards of equity. The implementation provides undue benefits to higher-income families, who are sailing their yachts on the tides of the program, while those who need it most are left drowning. Lower-income families were excluded from obtaining access to the CWELCC child care spots. Families who could already afford the fees of their centre were the ones who benefited from the rebates and discounts, while the rest were left behind on a long wait-list. She also talked about the association she works with, stating: We have 147 spaces as well as 24 half-time spaces, going all the way from infant up to kindergarten. Our centre is 100% full. There is not one empty space in our centre. At the moment, we have around 600 names on our wait-list. They are for spots in the next year and a half. It is a current list, in that we ask our families to contact us every six months to maintain their registration. If they haven't done that, we take them off the list so that we can maintain a list only of families who are now looking for the next 18 months. I am disappointed that the Liberal-NDP coalition continues to mislead Canadians in so many ways. For them to be labelling this as a universal child care bill and program is absolutely false. It is disgusting they are misleading Canadians by failing to recognize the 50% of children in Canada will not benefit from this program, especially those in rural communities and those who are not in a program already.
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