1988-08-11

[Stage Direction]
Prayers


Hon. Ray Hnatyshyn (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to table, in both official languages, as well as in Polish, copies of a Memorandum of Understanding between Canada and Poland.
I am also pleased to table, in both official languages, copies of exchange of diplomatic notes between Canada and Yugoslavia.
Both these agreements will enable Canadian officials to gather evidence in Poland and in Yugoslavia for use in legal proceedings in Canada against individuals charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity.
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PETITIONS
Mr. Richard Grise (Parliamentary Secretary to the Deputy Prime Minister and President of the Treasury Board):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 106(8), I have the honour of tabling, in both official languages, the Government's response to 33 petitions numbered as follows: 332-4910, 3324911, 332-5113 to 332-5142 inclusive and 332-5152.
[Editor's note: See today's Votes and Proceedings.]


Mr. Leblanc (Longueuil):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour of tabling, in both official languages, the Fourth Report of the Standing Committee on Research, Science and Technology respecting centres of excellence.
Today, science and technology have an impact on all sectors of the economy and on all spheres of human endeavor. To adapt to the changes stemming from the applications of science and technology, we must concentrate our efforts on providing quality education at all levels. Furthermore, we must establish and maintain ties between universities and the private sector, where research is carried out.
The centres of excellence program was announced earlier this year with these specific objectives in mind. In view of this program's importance as a means of making Canada more competitive on world markets and since it is a new way for the federal government to fund research activities, the Standing Committee on Research, Science and Technology wanted to study its provisions closely. In so doing, it wanted to gauge the reaction of those whose primary concern is the quality of research in Canada and to make recommendations with a view to ensuring that the program becomes a major initiative in our drive to enhance our competitive position.
Among other things, the Committee notes in its report that this initiative will go a long way toward ensuring a pool of trained, highly qualified researchers and quality research projects. However, it also states clearly that the centres of excellence program should not be viewed as a substitute for the invaluable research funding provided by the three grant councils.
The Committee believes that ties must be forged between universities and industry to help the latter develop a more innovative approach. This is precisely the goal of this innovative program and the Committee hopes that this report will contribute to the development of truly excellent and successful scientific networks.
Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 99(2), the Committee asks the government to provide a comprehensive response to this report.
[Editor's note: See today's Votes and Proceedings.]

August 11, 1988
Introduction of Bills
[DOT] (mo)



TAX COURT OF CANADA ACT


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: for leave to introduce Bill C-146, an Act to amend the Tax Court of Canada Act and other Acts in consequence thereof.


Mr. Speaker:: Shall the Hon. Minister have leave to introduce the Bill?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, Bill read the first time and ordered to be printed.

Mr. Nelson A. Riis (Kamloops-Shuswap):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 106, it is an honour to present a petition on behalf of a number of constituents who are of the opinion that the federal Government has no mandate from the people of Canada to conclude a trade deal with the people of the United States. That believe that Parliament should dissolve now to allow the people of Canada an opportunity to accept or reject the proposed trade deal during a national general election.
I also have a second petition which contains pages and pages of signatures. They believe that the sovereignty of Canada is being threatened by the proposed trade deal and that the trade deal itself would reduce our country's ability to plan our economic, social and cultural future. They ask Parliament to ensure that a national debate take place on this trade deal and indicate that the debate should result in a national general election before such a trade agreement is signed, in the final analysis.


Mr. Derek Blackburn (Brant):: Mr. Speaker, I, too, have the privilege to rise under Standing Order 106 to present a petition from several of my constituents who are very concerned about the proposed trade deal with the United States, in that it will prevent Canada from being able to determine its own economic and social future and to create a society distinct from that of the United States.
They also call upon the Government to call an election right away so that the people of Canada can vote on this very important issue.


Mr. Jim Fulton (Skeena):: Mr. Speaker, I have three petitions to present to the House today. The first one is certified correct pursuant to Standing Order 106 and is from a large number of residents of the Queen Charlotte Islands, from Sandspit, Queen Charlotte City, Masset, Port Clements, and other communities on the Queen Charlotte Islands. They petition Parliament regarding the cost of living on the Queen Charlotte Islands which is already high.
There is a federal subsidy to the ferry to offset its operating costs, but it is not reflected in the freight rates. An example they give is that a 50-pound sack of flour costs $16.50 in Vancouver, whereas once it is shipped to the Queen Charlotte Islands it costs $26.90. Since freight costs have doubled in a year, the petitioners humbly pray and call upon Parliament to ensure, possibly by reallocation of part of the subsidy, equitable trucking and freight rates to the Queen Charlotte Islands.


James Ross Fulton: Mr. Speaker, I also have a petition, which has been certified correct pursuant to Standing Order 106, from residents of the Queen Charlotte Islands and other areas. Since the Government, through Bill C-33, seeks to deindex the pensions of federal public servants which now have complete inflation protection through full linkage to the Consumer Price Index and other points, the petitioners humbly pray and call upon Parliament to reject Bill C-33 as regressive, unfair, untimely, and against the best interests of public servants and all Canadians, and to affirm full indexing to the Consumer Price Index as the model for inflation protection for all Canadians.


James Ross Fulton: Mr. Speaker, I have a petition, which has been certified correct pursuant to Standing Order 106, with a large number of signatures from Smithers and Telkwa, which, as you would know, Mr. Speaker, is in the Bulkley Valley of British Columbia.
The petitioners point out that since the distinguished justices of the Supreme Court of Canada in striking down Section 251 of the Criminal Code of Canada have left Canadians without any law restricting abortions, they call upon and pray that Parliament will pass into law legislation that will protect the life of the unborn child from conception and in all stages of development, with the exception of the extremely rare situation in which an abortion is performed in order to save the life of the mother.


Mr. Bill Gottselig (Moose Jaw):: Mr. Speaker, it is my honour to rise on behalf of a number of constituents to present a petition which has been certified correct under Standing
August 11, 1988

Order 106. The petition concerns the funding for schizophrenia, and it is the wish and the prayer of my constituents that the funding be commensurate with the seriousness of this illness.


Mr. Fernand Robichaud (Westmorland-Kent):: Mr. Speaker, it is my duty to present a petition. The petitioners are from the communities of Port Elgin, Bayfield, Cape Tormen-tine, and Murray Corners. It relates to the recent decision by the Department of Employment and Immigration to increase the qualifying period for unemployment insurance, from 10 to 16 weeks.
They say that this decision does not take into account the high unemployment rate and the seasonally short-term nature of employment in the rural areas of the region. They ask that this Parliament to bring justice to the situation by keeping in place the 10-week eligibility period for southeast New Brunswick.


Mr. David Orlikow (Winnipeg North):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present two petitions under the provisions of Standing Order 106. The first one is from residents of Winnipeg, Manitoba and of Kamloops, British Columbia who say that the trade agreement negotiated by the Mulroney Government threatens the very fabric of Canadian political and economical sovereignty by removing the power of the Canadian Government to control foreign ownership effectively, to develop Canadian energy resources in the best interests of Canadians, or to equalize opportunities between the regions.
Therefore they humbly pray and call upon Parliament to dissolve and allow the people of Canada the opportunity to accept or reject the proposed free trade agreement during a national general election.
The second one is signed by a substantial number of residents of Winnipeg. They say that the Conservative Government has no mandate from the Canadian people to conclude a free trade agreement with the United States. Therefore they humbly pray and call upon Parliament to dissolve and allow the people of Canada the opportunity to accept or reject the proposed free trade agreement during a national general election.


Ms. Margaret Mitchell (Vancouver East):: Mr. Speaker, I also have a petition from quite a number of people who are objecting to the Canada-U.S. trade agreement, because the Conservative Government had no mandate from the Canadian people to negotiate this deal. They feel that the Mulroney Government threatens the very fabric of Canadian political and economic sovereignty with this deal by removing the power of Government to control foreign ownership effectively, to develop Canadian energy resources in the best interests of Canadians, and to equalize opportunities between the regions.
Petitions
For many other reasons they object to this trade agreement and call for its rescission.


Mr. Simon de Jong (Regina East):: Mr. Speaker, it is a great pleasure for me to introduce a petition that has been certified as correct under Standing Order 106. The petition contains well over 1,600 signatures of construction workers who have been working on the upgrader in Regina.
The petitioners point out the inequity in our tax system, especially as it pertains to construction workers. Construction workers have many unavoidable expenses and yet many of these expenses are not tax exempt. The petitioners also point out that in the construction field it is feast and famine, yet there is no forward and backward averaging.
Therefore the undersigned, your petitioners, humbly pray and call upon Parliament to create true equity in the tax system by reducing the tax levies to construction workers, by paying interest on taxes to be refunded to construction workers, and by reintroducing forward and backward averaging.
The petitioners are from many parts of Canada, and it is a great pleasure for me to introduce their petition to Parliament today.


Mr. Jack Harris (St. John's East):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present a petition on behalf of Canadians from the Province of Alberta, from the cities of Edmonton, Calgary, Red Deer, Leduc, Fort McMurray, Wetaskiwin, and Lethbridge.
The petitioners are concerned that the Government had no mandate from the Canadian people to conclude a free trade agreement with the United States, and that the proposed trade agreement will deny Canada the policy freedoms to determine its own economic future and will undermine our ability to build a society distinct from that of the U.S.
The petitioners pray that Parliament be dissolved and the people of Canada be given the opportunity to accept or reject the proposed trade agreement during a national general election.


Mr. Ernie Epp (Thunder Bay-Nipigon):: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure and an honour for me to present a petition on behalf of persons concerned about schizophrenia. They declare that schizophrenia is a major illness in Canada affecting about 1 per cent of the population, causing severe mental anguish and suffering to the patients and their relatives, and costing Canadian society more than $3 billion annually in direct health care and other support costs.

August 11, 1988
Order Paper Questions
They note that recent research findings, including those obtained in Canada, have shown the illness to be a biochemical brain disorder in part caused by a genetic malfunction, and they hope that a cure might be found or a method of prevention discovered. They also note that research effort in Canada dedicated to schizophrenia is very limited.
They call upon the Parliament of Canada to ensure that research efforts related to schizophrenia in the future will be commensurate with the seriousness of the ailment. The petition is signed by persons from all over Ontario, namely, northern Ontario, the Ottawa Valley, and southern Ontario.


Abram Ernest Epp: Mr. Speaker, my second petition is from people who are concerned about the trade agreement before the House. They note that the Conservative Government had no mandate from the Canadian people to conclude this free trade agreement with the United States. The Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) promised in the course of the bilateral trade negotiations that Canadian sovereignty would not be compromised, but in fact it threatens the very fabric of Canadian political and economic sovereignty by removing the power of the Canadian Government to control foreign ownership effectively, to develop Canadian energy resources in the best interests of Canadians, and to equalize opportunities between the regions.
In recognition of these dangers, the petitioners call upon Parliament to dissolve and to allow the people of Canada the opportunity to reject the proposed free trade agreement during a national general election.


Mr. Iain Angus (Thunder Bay-Atikokan):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour and privilege to table a petition that has been certified correct as to form and content pursuant to Standing Order 106. The petition is signed by a number of residents from the Province of Manitoba who express their concern about the Canada-U.S. trade deal. They point out that the proposed trade agreement would deny Canada the policy freedom to determine its own economic future and would undermine our ability to build a society distinct from that of the U.S.
They call upon Parliament to dissolve and to allow the people of Canada the opportunity to accept or reject the proposed trade agreement during a national general election.

[ Translation]


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
Richard Grisé: Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand.


The Speaker:: Shall the questions stand?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


Hon. Jake Epp (Minister of National Health and Welfare) moved: that Bill C-144, an Act to authorize payments by Canada toward the provision of child care services, and to amend the Canada Assistance Plan in consequence thereof, be read the second time and referred to a legislative committee.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be able to commence debate on the Canada Child Care Act, legislation necessary to implement agreements with the provinces on the expansion of child care services across the country. As Members are aware, this represents a major element of the national strategy on child care which I announced last December. Before I get into the detailed substance of the Bill, I want to talk briefly about our Government's approach to social issues and how the child care strategy relates to this approach.
As a national Government, we are committed to improving opportunities and the quality of life of all Canadians. After all, that is the reason we have a social support system to help people experiencing difficulties, to ensure a basic equity in Canadian society, and to assist people to realize their fullest potential. For any Government addressing social issues and problems it is always difficult. The problems are often complex. The issues are interrelated and opinions on the appropriate way to proceed are usually very divided and quite firmly held. In a country as diverse as Canada, individual lifestyles and values vary considerably even in the same community, and community values may be quite different from one end of the country to the other.
In contributing to the resolution of a social issue, government must always find the proper balance between direct intervention and a laissez-faire approach. If direct intervention seems to be the right answer, government must still ensure that it encourages participation of individuals involved in order that it does not take over the problem or force people to adopt a single solution to that issue. The Government believes very strongly in achieving a balanced approach. We believe that a caring social policy perspective means developing an environment in which people are encouraged to help themselves and in which differing personal and community values are respected. A caring social policy requires thoughtful planning and expertise in its development and a great deal of flexibility in its implementation. That is not new to the child care policy. That, in fact, has been the hallmark of every social policy issue initiative that has been presented in this House throughout the past.
August 11, 1988

Those who feel there are easy answers or those who feel there is only one answer deny not only the present reality but our history. It means working closely with individuals and groups most affected by the issue, recognizing that they can make important contributions to both policy development and the operation of resulting programs. I do not believe any Government is in a position to solve all problems and should never attempt to dictate a single solution to a problem that affects people in different ways.
Another important aspect of our approach to social policy is to focus as much as possible on the future direction of society rather than root our solutions in the past. A good example of this approach is the seniors initiative which my colleague, the Minister of State for Seniors (Mr. Hees), and I announced earlier this year. The initiative concentrates on enhancing health and social services for seniors in a manner designed to maintain both independence and choice for this increasingly significant age group within Canadian society. For example, through the seniors independence program will be funding projects aimed at improving the quality of life and dependence of seniors. Priority is being given to projects involving community groups of seniors and to research activities directed to those diseases most affecting the ability of seniors to function independently.
As in other social policy areas, we believe an effective approach is to put the people most concerned with a problem in charge of developing solutions that work rather than impose solutions from outside the community or from social planners in Ottawa. Where the Government can act to increase the independence of the elderly, such as in the area of more economic self-sufficiency, we have acted as a Government. We have extended the spousal allowance benefits, implemented pension reform, and increased the flexibility of the Canada Pension Plan so that Canadians can make choices with respect to their retirement planning.
Consistent with our focus on the future, we are also assisting Canadians to plan much earlier for financial independence in their retirement years. This has included improving the portability of pensions in the federal sector and encouraging pre-retirement savings through higher RRSP contribution levels and more equitable contribution rights. We have also taken steps to ensure that men and women retiring under similar circumstances have equal pensions. We have also provided for the splitting of pension credits earned during marriages in which divorce occurs.
We have also taken the same approach with respect to health care. Until recently, the sole focus or primary focus of our health care system was to deal with injury and disease, to take an unwell person and make him or her well again. While this will always remain a priority, important new challenges to prevent and where this is not possible to enhance the ability of Canadians to cope better with disease, disabilities and stresses of modern living has become the focus of the health care policy
Canada Child Care Act
of our Government. By promoting more healthy lifestyle choices, we can reduce dependence upon the health care system as well as improve personal quality of life at the same time.
This health promotion strategy also encourages self help and mutual aid practices since it is the community that provides the emotional and practical support to help people make the right choices and to live independently. Over the last few years we have seen the great success of groups addressing alcohol and drug abuse issues. Need I remind Hon. Members who said just a few months ago that there was no drug crisis that they are now seeing the wisdom of the forethought of the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) when he made the announcement of a drugs strategy.
We involved ourselves much more deeply in impaired driving programs. We are finding that teens are taking those programs to heart and are now leading in the development of those programs and in the education of their peers. I need only to mention to the House our strategy on smoking as further evidence of this involvement.
While the Government has instituted national public awareness campaigns and tougher legislation in these areas, community based concern and action have really been responsible for the significant change in public attitude across Canada. One of the more difficult challenges we have responded to is, as I have already mentioned, drug and substance abuse.
Drug dependency claims many victims and can have an absolutely devastating impact on young people, their families, and entire communities. Public awareness can help limit the demand for illicit substances and can bring a hidden activity more into the open, but solving the drug abuse problem requires a deliberate, encompassing and co-ordinated strategy at the local, national, and international levels, including support of innovative community based research and self help.
Like substance abuse, child sexual abuse is a hidden social problem. It has a serious and long-lasting impact on our children, children who in most cases are unable to defend themselves. We are trying to bring the problem into the open, to sensitize communities to the issue, and to soften the impact of the judicial process on children who have been caught up in court proceedings. At the same time, we have severely increased penalties under the Criminal Code for people who abuse the trust that children place in them. However, penalties only deal with the problem after the fact. Improved community awareness and action will ensure that our children are better protected.
Under the pressures of modern life, the Canadian family is undergoing unprecedented changes. There are more single parent families than ever before, more families in which both parents work full time in order to meet their economic obligations, and unfortunately we also see more family breakdown in society.

August 11, 1988
Canada Child Care Act
As more women participate in the paid labour force or raise children on their own, the need for adequate child care services has become an increasingly pressing. Before I get into the substance of the Bill, I should make the point that the Government is using its data bases to bring responsibility to men especially those who have not taken the responsibility of child support. In some provinces as high as 85 per cent of court orders are either in arrears, are being partially paid, or are not being paid at all. There are many issues to be dealt with as we try to provide policies to improve the society in which we live.
Over the past four years the Government has made a substantial commitment to policies and programs which help Canadian families to deal with these realities. New divorce legislation, better means of enforcing custody and support orders, and a harmonization of federal and provincial efforts in the area of family law are some of the initiatives that have been taken. Programs to deal more effectively with family violence, including the increasing prevalence of abuse of the elderly, are also being worked on in conjunction and cooperation with the provinces.
The national strategy on child care which I was proud to announce on behalf of the Government seven months ago was designed to increase the number of quality subsidized child care spaces that meet the standards parents demand for the care of their children. As I said earlier, the development of an effective, workable social policy is always a difficult endeavour. As is the case with the development of other social programs, individuals have very definite ideas about the extent of the child care problem and about the most effective way to respond. As with other policies, this Government has attempted to bring sensitivity, understanding, and flexibility to bear on developing what I believe to be a very caring national strategy.
While our goal is to increase the affordability, availability, and quality of child care services, we realized that we had to respect the rights of parents to choose the kind of care they thought best for their children. We also had to respect the existing programs and services which provincial governments had developed in response to their own past needs and circumstances. We have also had the advantage of two major task force reports and extensive consultations with interest groups and individual Canadians across Canada. The result, our national strategy on child care, reflects a proper balance of choice, quality and quantity.
While it is a very expensive program-$6.4 billion is the federal commitment alone over the next seven years-it does not place an undue burden on either federal or provincial taxpayers. These are important considerations in developing a policy that is not only workable today but also does not create new problems or burdens for future generations. In fact, in the development of social policy, governments of the past used a similar approach.
As Hon. Members will recall, our strategy consists of four primary components: enhanced tax assistance for families with young children, a new child care initiatives fund, an initiative to stimulate accredited day care for Indian children, and a new federal-provincial cost-sharing program. The first two components are already in place and operating. The Indian
day care initiative is in development, and authority to put the cost-sharing element in place is provided by the legislation we are discussing today.
The details of the components of the strategy have been made public before. Members have had several opportunities to discuss and debate them over the last few months. However, let me reiterate one important point. The supplement to the Child Tax Credit, $100 this year and $200 in subsequent years, is a targeted credit like the child tax credit itself. It goes to low and middle income families where parents remain at home to care for their children or use less formal child care. This tax measure makes up by far the greatest part of the new tax assistance we are making available in the national strategy on child care.
Additionally, it should be remembered that the child tax credit is additional to the increases made in former budgets by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson). Members should also recall the early prepayment of the enhanced child credit when looking at the entire record of child care. As well, the enhanced child care expense deduction is for those families of whatever income who are using receipted child care arrangements. Under our strategy the deduction more accurately reflects the total cost of child care, thereby reducing the financial burden of child care services. These tax initiatives will be effective this tax year.
The $100 million child care initiatives fund has been designed to support innovative research and demonstration projects to improve and expand child care services. We all know there are many needs which are not now being met by current child care services in systems. Parents who work irregular hours or on shifts, parents in remote or rural areas of Canada, parents of children with special needs, all have requirements for child care services of a different nature than that which the mainstream delivery system provides. The fund will help us develop ways of meeting these kinds of needs so that the quality of services may be improved and all Canadians may have better access to the services they need. This fund has already been established, looks to the future as well as to the present, and involves parents, community groups, and nonprofit organizations in the effort.
The complicated part of the legislation is the new costsharing Bill before us, the Canada Child Care Act, Bill C-144. It is the means through which the federal Government is going to work with the provinces to double the number of child care spaces across Canada over the next seven years. It follows the tradition of consultation that this Government established in working with other levels of government, rather than dictate to them in their own areas of jurisdiction. I can say quite bluntly that when I had my first meeting with social affairs Ministers of the provinces almost four years ago, they clearly stated to me that they felt the federal Government had no role in child care, that it was solely within provincial jurisdiction.
August 11, 1988

I think it is important for the House and the country to understand the jurisdictional arguments in any social policy development. While I know that Members opposite in their political rhetoric or editorial writers might feel that those are not major considerations, some of us have had enough experience in social policy to know that if we cannot consult and do not work with the provinces on social policy those policies are doomed to failure.
I remind Members as they begin debate not to forget the history of social policy programs. If they were to be effective, they had to be flexible and involve provincial co-operation. I do not say 100 per cent unanimity or consensus, but we need to have provincial co-operation. If people do not believe in flexibility, may I remind my colleagues opposite of 1966. Pensions come under provincial jurisdiction. Canadians wanted a national pension plan. Today we call it the Canada Pension Plan. In Quebec we call it the Quebec Pension Plan. Even at that time we got a national plan with a distinct component for Quebec. It was said at that time that we needed a national plan but that to get it we had to have flexibility. We had to understand the regions. We had to be respectful of that. If that was valid in 1966, and today the Canada Pension Plan and the Quebec Pension Plan have become a major component in pension and retirement planning, then is it not surely valid today, in 1988?
The other point I make to Members opposite, and regrettably I have had too much experience in opposition-


Mr. Keeper:: And you are going to get some more.


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: I hear the NDP from Manitoba again. I ask them to look at the record in Manitoba and I wish them luck.
Their argument has been: "This is not enough, put in more". What they propose is something Canadians do not want. What they propose is a universal plan. They simply take a statistical model and say there are x number of children under a certain age, and because the NDP has so decided, every parent wants their child in this form of child care. Not true.
In addition, there is the cost factor, in their case $11 billion.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The Hon. Member for Vancouver East rises on a point of order?


Margaret Anne Mitchell: Mr. Speaker, since we are listening to a Minister of the Crown, I wonder if he would please make sure his facts are correct.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: That is a form of debate. The Hon. Member will have an opportunity to debate that.


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased I now have their attention.
What they have been saying constantly is that we need more money, more money from the taxpayers. Their program in full bloom is an $11 billion program.
Canada Child Care Act


Mr. Gagnon:: Per year.


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: Annualized. That is the program they have in mind. I say to them that they can criticize, but what they should not be quite so sensitive about is our looking at their proposals, analysing them, and criticizing them. They also must meet certain criteria. Are they acceptable to Canadians? Are they affordable?
This program follows a long-standing tradition with respect to cost-sharing arrangements between the federal and provincial levels of government in addressing social problems, that is, a 50-50 balance in sharing the financial load. At the present time, the provinces are receiving, on average, about 35 per cent from the federal Government. Our strategy calls for a doubling of spaces, that is, 200,000 new and subsidized spaces over the next seven years. The federal Government is committed to providing 75 per cent of provincial capital contributions to develop these new spaces in non-profit facilities, as well as 50 per cent operating subsidies for both existing and new nonprofit and commercial spaces.
I say to members of the Opposition that they are opposed to this legislation and they want to delay it as we saw yesterday in the House. They will have to go back to the people, and we will have to let the people decide why they do not have spaces and why the money is not flowing. It is because the NDP and Liberals decided not to approve the legislation.
The "not for profit" spaces which provinces create during this seven-year "boost" period will be eligible for the 75 per cent capital financing. This will substantially reduce the burden on provincial treasuries and help to make our goal a reality. The legislation will also expand eligibility for matching operating funds to both the "not for profit" and commercial sectors, in recognition of the fact that about 40 per cent of the existing number of spaces are in the commercial sector. We would have a great deal of trouble meeting our twin goals of improved quality and availability if we were to ignore almost half the existing system and in some provinces, such as Newfoundland, because of financial considerations, 90 per cent of the system.
Our national strategy and this legislation also recognize that all provinces are not at the same stage in developing their child care services. Some are behind others. That is why the Government has built into the Bill a provision to increase funding for certain provinces based upon the national average entitlement per child. We believe that child care services should be more equally available across the country because Canadian families are facing similar needs no matter where they live. I suggest that if Liberal Members want to criticize that part of the Bill, they should take a look at their own experience in the fifties and sixties and how the medicare formula was used at that time.

August 11, 1988
Canada Child Care Act
I said earlier that both quality and availability are objectives of our national strategy on child care. It is insufficient simply to create new spaces. Those spaces must provide the kind of quality care that parents demand for their children. At the same time, improving the quality of existing spaces without increasing the number of spaces fails to meet the increasing demands of the services.
That is one reason for the increase of $1 billion in our allocation to the federal-provincial program which I announced a few weeks ago. It is also the reason this Act requires that provincial and territorial governments specify child care service standards as part of the agreements between the two levels of government. It is that method by which we can address the standards issue. Provinces will also be required to establish methods to enforce those standards and to ensure that both the standards and enforcement procedures are widely publicized within each province.
The areas in which standards are to be developed are those areas that contribute the most to improving the quality of child care services. These will include child-staff ratios, group sizes, staff qualifications, program content, parental involvement and, of course, health and safety measures.
I am sure that parents, care givers, and professional groups will be working closely with provincial authorities in developing these standards where they do not now exist. The agreements that we will be negotiating with individual provinces will also include a time period within which these standards are to be put in place.
Under this legislation we are giving provinces the option of negotiating agreements consistent with the national child care strategy or remaining within the day care provisions of the Canada Assistance Plan.
I believe the approach we are taking has significantly higher benefits for provinces than the Canada Assistance Plan program. If we examine the recent history of provincial day care expenditures and reimbursements under CAP, it is clear that we are proposing a significant increase in our commitment to child care services across the country. Over the last few years the federal Government, through CAP, shared about 30 per cent of provincial expenditures on day care. As I have mentioned, that figure will be substantially higher under the Canada Child Care Act.
In addition, I remind Members that in the four years the Government has been in office, even under the Canada Assistance Plan we have increased by 100 per cent the amount of money the Canada Assistance Plan has made available to the provinces and child care givers for child care.
When I hear Liberals saying "you haven't done enough" or "you haven't done anything", in relation to what they were doing that is a rather interesting wicket on which to try to build a case.
Under the terms of the new Canada Child Care Act, the federal Government alone will be committing some $4 billion to child care services, or twice the total combined federal and provincial expenditures of the last six years. The federal proportion of expenditures will increase on average to about 50 per cent and could, in some instances in some provinces, be as high as 90 per cent given the funding formula and the top up provisions for certain provinces.
I think those few statistics demonstrate how much better off provinces will be under the Canada Child Care Act and how much more they will be able to do with the stronger financial support being provided by the Government. The point of our strategy is not to reduce what provinces have been doing but to provide the financial incentive for them to be doing more. Our commitment reflects what provinces can realistically achieve over the next seven years.
All agreements signed with provinces prior to April 1, 1990 will be retroactive to April 1, 1988. For the benefit of our viewers, April 1, 1988, is the beginning of this fiscal year. We have said right along that the money would flow in this fiscal year, and the money will flow as of April 1, 1988. All we now need for the money to be available to the provinces is the passage of this Bill in order that we can sign the federal-provincial agreements. This means that the provinces need not fear that their current activities toward expanding child care services will not be covered, despite the fact that this legislation is being given second reading today and needs passage.
I know that some Members opposite hold some strong views on the issue of child care services. I am sure that all Members agree, however, on the need to improve the availability, quality, acceptability, and afffordability of child care services as a necessity for working parents and for healthy, happy families and children.
On this side of the House we have concluded that our national strategy on child care best meets this need in a manner that respects the rights and obligations of parents, addresses the concerns of provincial authorities, and adapts flexibility to differing regions and community values. As I said when I began my remarks, determining the proper balance and flexibility in social policy initiatives is an important although difficult undertaking. In the final analysis, setting realistic objectives and developing a workable means to achieve those objectives is the only way to achieve progress.
I truly believe that this policy represents a substantial step forward in meeting the needs of Canadian families and children. I am looking forward to the passage of this legislation so that we can finalize the arrangements with our provincial counterparts and realize the goals that we have established together. I look forward not only to the debate but to the passage of this legislation.
August 11, 1988


Mrs. Lucie Pepin (Outremont):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today in this House to reply to the Government on Bill C-144, the Canada Child Care Act.
Mr. Speaker, when I read this Bill, I ask myself, while noting that it is a start, where our priorities as a society are and where the priorities of the Mulroney Government are, in view of the fact that a child care system is not a luxury but an urgent necessity.
Our society has changed radically over the past 20 years. Today, less than one Canadian family in six takes the traditional form of the mother working at home and taking care of the childen while the father works outside the home. Moreover, in many families there is only one parent-in most cases a woman raising her children alone. More than half of Canadian women who have pre-school children work outside the home, and in 45 per cent of families with children, both parents have to work outside the home.
However, only 20 per cent of the children have the benefit of licensed day care services. We also know that 57 per cent of children between the ages of 6 and 14 are left alone after school.
Some people say day care is the woman's business. That is false and completely unfair, Mr. Speaker! Day care services are for the couple to choose, for society to choose, and they are a priority the Mulroney Government has already taken too long to get around to.
It is with great regret that I rise today to discuss the Government's feeble child care legislation. The need for an increase in adequate child care spaces in Canada has been fully explained and documented since the first royal commission on the status of women in 1970. The need for child care is widespread.
[ Translation]
Let us recall Katie Cook's task force on child care, which revealed that back in 1985 there were no day care spaces for over 1 million children between the ages of 0 and 12 whose parents worked more than 20 hours a week.

We deem this to be the core need group. It is not surprising, then, that this need has inspired a consensus among Canadians, a consensus to the effect that the time has come for the Canadian Government to implement a cost-sharing program which will meet the needs of Canadian families.
There are three essential problems with the Canada Child Care Act. First, it is not part of a comprehensive program as far as we can see, as no mention is made of other related legislation, notably full employment, parental leave, fiscal
Canada Child Care Act
reform, beyond certain inadequate tax credits mentioned in the White Paper.

Second, this Bill in no way meets the needs of the Canadian family. The mere fact that the target or goal of this Bill is to create only 200,000 spaces over a period of seven years is arguable and unacceptable, since one million children currently lack day care spaces. And when we realize that the special needs of low-income families and latchkey children are completely ignored in this bill, we are faced with a very serious problem, Mr. Speaker.

Third, as we have seen over and over again, there is no mention of standards, or even objectives if the Minister prefers that term, criteria supported by the report on the task force on child care, the report of the Senate subcommittee on child care, and virtually every child care advocacy group that has been consulted.
Before I continue, I want to discuss the idea of choice. The Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Epp) has chosen to present himself as the sole advocate of choice for Canadian families. Let me go on record now in saying that the only way to provide choices for Canadian parents is to provide the necessary funds through a cost-sharing agreement which ensures universal access to child care.
If the Government fails to take this next step, it is denying a number of parents the right to participate in the workforce as well as failing to provide the necessary assistance to single parents and parents of low income families to meet the needs of day-to-day living in a Canadian society. In so doing it will be denying choice, the choice to work in many instances. It will also be preventing Canadians from providing the best possible future for their children.

Living as we are in a time when the birth rate is very low, when poverty afflicts women most, we must face the fact that in Canada today, one child in five is living in poverty and one child in every three is sexually assaulted.
The Government has a responsability to Canadian families, a responsability to our children, and that responsability must be discharged by creating day care spaces and a good child care system. Yet the Mulroney Government says nothing about low-and middle-income families in this bill, and the witnesses who appeared before the child care sub-committees were particularly concerned about this aspect of the new program. They were afraid that the ceiling mentioned in the new program would force the provinces to cut the funding used to subsidize child care for low-income families. I would like to quote a few passages from the Committee's proceedings, as follows:

August 11, 1988
Canada Child Care Act

I want to talk about the traditional view of child care as a service for low income families under the Canada Assistance Plan. The reality of this new funding program is that provinces such as Ontario will be forced to make hard choices. The Minister said a few minutes ago that the money was flowing. Upon closer examination we can see that it is not flowing that well.
Assuming that there is a limit on the amount of money that provincial Governments will get from this new plan, these Governments will have to choose among subsidies to low income or moderate income families; expansion of the system providing direct funding to improve wages to keep trained people within the system because they leave the system in droves presently; improving the quality of programs which will have to be dealt with in different ways.
The bottom line is to ask what will happen to single parents who are on low income. What will happen to people who, without child care, will be forced out of the labour force, will be unable to enter the labour force, or will be unable to get training? 1 am not suggesting that this is happening in Ontario. I am suggesting that the possibility of it happening is much greater at present. It is possible for subsidies from the federal Government to flow through to the provinces because CAP is an open-ended program. Under this strategy there is a limitation to the source of the money coming from the federal Government, which presents a whole new ball game.
The report further indicates that witnesses from Quebec and Ontario were concerned that the ceiling in the program might penalize populous provinces with well established programs or plans for expansion. In contrast, witnesses from the Atlantic provinces fear that their provinces will not be able to offer help with the expenditures of a program developed under the more generous cost-sharing formula of the first seven years.

What has the Government done to allay these concerns? It has proposed a cost-sharing program for the creation of
200,000	new day care spaces. Those 200,000 new spaces are only 15 per cent of what is needed. At present, we are meeting only 15 per cent of the demand. That means the remaining 70 per cent of the demand is not being met, and that 70 per cent represents one million children who have no day care spaces. This is based on the assumption that the 200,000 spaces will actually be created. We also wonder whether the 200,000 spaces will be created, since it is stated in the Bill that the Government intends to increase the number of spaces across Canada by 200,000 over a period of seven years. Nowhere in the Bill, Mr. Speaker, does the Government make a firm commitment to create the 200,000 spaces it refers to. It does not say that the spaces will necessarily be created. It hopes to create 200,000 spaces.

While the Government will attenuate some of the need, and only part of the need as we have seen above, it has from the beginning blocked itself from allowing flexibility and increasing the inadequate amount of spaces in the future. It is thus
possible that Canadian parents would have been better off without this Canada Child Care Act despite all the inadequacies of prior cost-sharing agreements under CAP.
For example, if a province pledges to create a certain number of spaces in the first year and fails to reach its goal for that year, it will not be permitted by the federal Government to carry those spaces over to the second year even though in that second year, since the program will be running more smoothly by then, the province could achieve the new goal. Since the bill now before the House will under no circumstances allow the funds equivalent to the undeveloped spaces to be carried over from one year to the next, a province could be penalized and might not reach its goal for the seven-year period, even though with adjustments along the way, it would easily have done so.
There is no flexibility in the carry-over of money from one year to the next.
Furthermore, the Bill provides for a seven-year program. What will happen in the eighth year, Mr. Speaker? When all the programs have been put in place and the provincial governments are relying on the federal Government to share the costs, who will pay? Will the provinces be left to their own devices with regard to capital expenditures and the creation of new spaces? Where will the federal Government be? The Bill does not say a word about that. The provinces are anxious to know whether they will have to assume all the unforeseen risks of the child care program in the eighth year.

After the Government's national child care strategy was announced, the Minister of National Health and Welfare, pursuant to discussions with various provincial agencies, had to increase the infusion of money in order to meet his original objective of 200,000 spaces. Extra funds were added, but the result is not exactly promising. Although people may think that the $1 billion announced in July is more money which will create more spaces, it is just the amount of money really needed to create the 200,000 spaces announced in December, 1987. The Government only corrected its own error, its miscalculation of December, 1987 with this extra billion dollars.
As we now debate the legislation provincial governments are undoubtedly restructuring their programs, unable to go ahead with plans they had prior to the introduction of this Bill. The projected plan of the Government of Ontario has already been cut by 12,000 spaces. We do not know how all governments are reacting in the restructuring of their own programs, but we know that different provincial Ministries across the country are entertaining reservations. We know that national child care advocacy groups are displeased with the situation, and due to quick and insightful comments made after the fact we know why.
August 11, 1988



The Mulroney Government has been trying to convince us since 1984 that all is well in the best of all possible worlds with the provinces, but when we look at this bill more closely, we have to wonder if that. ..


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I would like to bring to the attention of the Elon. Member that she has mentioned the Mulroney Government three times now. It is the Government; it is not the "Turner" Opposition nor the "Broadbent" NDP Party. I do not like to disturb the Hon. Member's speech or debate, but it is the federal Government. She should not use Members' names nor the Prime Minister's name. He should be referred to as the Prime Minister and not by his name. Thank you.


Lucie Pépin: Very well, Mr. Speaker. May I continue? May 1 say the Conservative Government, then?
The Government would like us to believe that is well with the provinces-sorry, I already said that. If we take a closer look at the present Bill, I wonder if that is true! I wonder what the provinces really think of the regulatory powers provided for in the bill, of the definition of child care services, of the definition of funding! All this is very vague, and you would have to ask the provinces that want to achieve their targets for the creation of spaces and related services whether they feel secure with a Bill that is so vague about the federal Government's true commitment. We do not know the federal Government's true commitment.
The Minister recently alluded to the 1966 pension plan Bill and the role of the provincial governments, and I would like to say that the federal Government at that time, with all due respect to the provincial governments, demonstrated some leadership, which I think is missing in this child care Bill.

We know that while the Government is providing funds "to create new spaces, much of the money to be provided will not be going to the creation of new spaces but rather to the funding of already existing spaces. We do not know how much of this money will be poured into the costs of sustaining programs already in place, but some estimates reach as high as $340 million.
While specific groups are particularly touched by lack of child care, Bill C-144 does not mention the specific needs. Until now, various child care organizations were funded through the Canada Assistance Plan. While demand was not met, it should be noted that CAP was geared specifically to lower income families. We have to guard ourselves against locking any groups out of the national child care plan in a time of increasing poverty for children and women.
Canada Child Care Act
While CAP dealt with this problem by adding day care and similar services to welfare services, the Canada Child Care Act, which is destined to replace CAP, does not address the problem of low to middle income families. With an inadequate number of spaces being created and no priority being set, is the Government not failing to meet the needs of the most disadvantaged parents of our society?

But there is more! The Bill completely ignores the problem of latchkey children. We know that 57 per cent of children between 6 and 14 are left alone after school. They clearly have special needs. In order to realize their potential and ensure their future, these children must have adequate services, Mr. Speaker; this would also help reduce delinquency and drug abuse among young people. Not only are they ignored in this Bill, Mr. Speaker, but the Government states in the Bill that it will do nothing for them. It is stated clearly in section 2, and I quote:
... does not include... any service relating wholly or substantially to
education.
How are we going to take care of latchkey children?
I recently heard the Minister tell us how important it was to have anti-drug programs for teenagers. In my view, a good after-school child care system is one of the best means of prevention. As you know, Quebec is currently the only province that has a school day care program. There are over
30,000	spaces in educational institutions in Quebec. Yet, unfortunately, under the bill we have before us today, there will be no money for all the children between 6 and 14 in Quebec and elsewhere in Canada, from Victoria to Newfoundland, and all the programs for latchkey children will be abandoned. That is unacceptable. We must remember that in all the reports on child care-Katie Cook's report, the report by the three political parties-it was stated that children must be taken care of, that it was a priority.
However, in our opinion, the Bill's major shortcoming is its failure to provide for quality standards. Bill C-144 makes no mention whatsoever of the quality of child care services. We believe in the importance of quality standards in day care centres, such as the space provided for each child, the number of children per child care worker, training, the quality of the staff, nutrition and so forth. Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, the Bill is silent on these points. The federal Government should demand that the provinces develop quality standards and that these be incorporated into the federal-provincial agreement before the provinces receive any funding. In so doing, it would avoid creating two classes of children in day care. Unfortunately, a parallel situation has been allowed to develop, perhaps unwittingly, in the case of senior citizens who now fall into two categories, namely those who have the ability to pay for services, and those who do not.

August 11. 1988
Canada Child Care Act
The Senate committee also found that witnesses want funding to be adequate, but they also want the federal Government to ensure that provinces have standards necessary for good quality care, that care givers are properly trained and adequately paid, and that services are aimed and managed by those who are interested in children rather than profit. The committee responded with its own concerns and asked: "Will provinces be asked to commit themselves to advancing specific objectives regarding standards in the initial period?" The committee asked before the legislation was introduced: "What other assurances will there be that provinces will set and enforce standards?"

Thus, the provinces must develop standards and these must be incorporated into the agreement before the federal Government provides any funding at all.

But there are no assurances, Mr. Speaker. The legislation states: "An agreement shall specify the aspects of child care services in respect of which standards are required to be implemented in the province and the time within which they are to be implemented". These may not include accessibility to low income families, affordability, or any other specific standard suggested by advocacy groups or task force reports. The result could be substantial disparities from province to province. I submit that the mention of standards and of priorities is essential to any socially just child care program. The federal Government must ask provincial Governments to develop standards before it gives them money.
It is also to be noted that contrary to what the Minister of Health and Welfare stated in the House, it would very definitely be possible for the Government to include various objectives in the legislation, notably accessibility, upon which I commented earlier. Such objectives might also include parental involvement. It is noteworthy that while the Government kept mentioning the rights of parents and the needs of the family, it never addressed parental involvement. Yet, it would have been possible to set such objectives, to set a minimum standard of parental involvement. Precedents already exist. In Saskatchewan, for all centres licensed after October 1, 1982, 50 per cent of board members must be parents. The Government does not seem to have commented on such possibilities, yet it endlessly speaks of parents and choice.
It is strange that on the one hand the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) argues in his tax reform proposals that it is more advantageous to get a tax credit than a deduction, and in this Bill the Minister of Health and Welfare insists on allowing the least advantageous deduction. He would have had here a fine occasion to follow in the footsteps of the Minister of Finance but has failed to do so.

In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I would be remiss if I failed to mention the issue of parental leave. The Government totally ignored the recommendations of the principal report on child care, as well as those of the Katie Cook and Forget reports, which called for extending the period or parental leave from 16 to 26 weeks. A Liberal Government would never have ignored a recommendation of such great importance to families. The proposed legislation makes no mention at all of parental leave.
The Bill is also silent on the question of child care services in the workplace. It is hard to believe that the government would turn a blind eye to this issue when studies have shown that such services reduce absenteeism and provide better accessibility to both parents.
Mr. Speaker, as it now stands, the Bill is totally inadequate and fails to meet the needs of today's families. In 1984, the Conservative Government dangled the prospect of wonderful legislation before Canadians and raised many expectations which it has failed to fulfill. True, it is going to create 200,000 new spaces over seven years, but what of the one million children on the waiting list? The fact is, Mr. Speaker, that the wait will never be over for them.
Summing up, I wonder what the priorities of Canadians are and I question those of the Conservative Government. Children and families are certainly not number one on its agenda.
Mr. Speaker, I wish to move an amendment, seconded by the Honourable Member for Hamilton-East (Ms. Copps).

That the motion be amended by deleting all of the words after the word "That" and by substituting the following:
"This House objects to the principle of Bill C-144, an Act to authorize payments by Canada toward the provision of child care services, and to amend the Canada Assistance Plan in consequence thereof, which is to establish a program that does not provide access and services in all provinces and equal access to low and middle income families".


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I will reserve the decision on this amendment. I recognize the Hon. Member for Vancouver East.


Margaret Anne Mitchell: Mr. Speaker, child care in Canada is in crisis. After waiting four years for the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) to deliver on his campaign promise of an effective national system of child care, Canadian families have been let down once again. The inadequate strategy of the Government will not meet the needs of Canadian families and children. In fact, this fundamentally flawed legislation moves us backwards. There will be fewer child care spaces for our children after the seven years of this government program than would be developed under the existing system.
This Conservative legislation also fails to establish the principles upon which to build an effective national child care system. We should be building the first major national social
August 11, 1988

program since medicare, but the Government has failed to provide leadership and has not set out principles and objectives for quality child care in Canada. Canadian families and their children need greater access to quality child care at lower cost. This Government has not delivered.
We have said and continue to say that the Prime Minister should go back to the drawing-board. He should bring forward a child care program to meet the needs of average Canadian families for child care services, and this should be done now.
Over two million children across Canada under the age of 14 have parents who are in the workforce either full time or part time or perhaps are studying. A great percentage of them are single parents.
Over the past generation there is no doubt at all that families in Canada have changed dramatically. Working parents are now the norm for a variety of reasons, and studies show that this trend will continue. Therefore, it is obvious that every community must have a range of reliable, good quality child care services. Unfortunately we are far from achieving this goal.
It is interesting that for many years in Europe, most western European countries considered child care to be an essential community social service available to all families, but Canada is far behind, and this Bill does not help.
What happens to our children when Mom is at work and there is no reliable child care? This is a constant worry for working parents. Across Canada there are only about 243,000 licensed child care spaces, and almost all these are for 3 to 5-year old children. The care for infants and toddlers is virtually unavailable in most communities or is far too costly. Only 11.5 per cent of children of working parents are assured of good, quality licensed child care. The others are cared for by relatives, neighbours, nannies, and babysitters who very often prove to be unreliable.
Many school children have no care at all and, as my colleague just pointed out, this program of the Government does not provide for school age children who often go home to an empty house. Instead of benefiting from child development programs, many kids are left glued to a TV screen for their pre-school education.
For over 20 years women of Canada have been pressing for adequate, affordable child care. In 1984, the Leaders of all three Parties promised the women of Canada that a national child care program would be a priority. For four years the Prime Minister and the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Epp) repeated this promise, while plans were delayed, press releases were issued, not one cent was spent, and a generation of pre-schoolers went without care.
One reason for the long delay was the resistance of the Government to accepting the reality of today's changing families and its denial that there is a child care crisis in Canada. We have heard this over and over again from Conservative Members on the child care committee. Because of the Tory philosophy that favoured the traditional family, the Government repeatedly tried to think of ways to persuade
Canada Child Care Act
working women to return home. A $200 per year child tax credit was one very expensive tax measures that was introduced in the last Budget for home-makers and for those who had no day care receipts.
As I have said before, this is an insult to women and does not recognize the important role of home-makers. It gives no real choice to women. It would have been far better if the Government had reindexed the family allowance or the child tax credit and provided a much needed improved system of parental leave under the unemployment insurance.
Many parents want to be at home during the first year with their infants, and they should have this choice. We should have a decent extended program of parental leave under unemployment insurance, and the Government has done nothing about it.
Another Tory bias was the opinion that quality licensed child care was not really needed. We have heard over and over again that parents could make their own arrangements and did not need government programs.
The Government doubled the child care expense deduction to $4,000 to help compensate parents with higher incomes, not lower income people who cannot afford to pay taxes. Single parents and poor parents, of course, were not covered by tax credits.
At the same time as they were talking about tax reform and tax credits, they introduced a regressive child care expense deduction which took $2.3 billion in child care moneys away from much needed child care services. We have objected to it all along. It does not give parents a choice.
The Tories have also imposed their market-place philosophy on young children. Children are for profit and federal funds are to go for commercial child care, even though several studies have shown that "for profit" day care centres have lower quality care and very minimal standards. To make a profit, care givers are paid lower wages, staff turnover is higher, staff are less qualified, and the ratio of staff to children is often lower. The Tory strategy even tolerates giant child care chains coming into Canada, offering glitzy laid on programs with a minimum of individualized child development.
It is deplorable that the Liberal child care philosophy also supports federal funding for commercial child care operations.
When the Government eventually announced the national child care strategy in late 1987, it proposed spending a total of $5.3 billion over the next seven years. Some of this money was already in the Budget. We felt that this was a generous amount, but we were astounded that this would create only
200.000	new spaces-the same amount that we have now- over a seven-year period. This is only an average of about
30.000	spaces per year, and it is to cover 10 provinces and two territories, all of which desperately need increased and better quality child care. Therefore, two million children of working parents would still have a total of 4,000 spaces after 7 years.

Canada Child Care Act
An analysis shows that this increase of 200,000 spaces is less than the growth rate which would occur if we maintained the status quo under the Canada Assistance Plan. This is ridiculous. Under the Canada Assistance Plan the projected growth rate is 15 per cent, while under this new Bill the growth rate of child care spaces will only be 10 per cent. We would be going backwards. It is evident that Tory strategy and Bill C-144 are being used to limit the number of day care spaces that provinces can developed. There is no flexibility. It is an arbitrary plan which makes no attempt to assess the real needs of children and families across Canada. It is no wonder that provinces and territories have serious concerns.
It took the Minister four years to realize what research had documented long ago, that care givers have abominably low salaries, many of them under $10,000 a year. In July, he acknowledged his mistake in calculations by adding $1 billion to cover the real costs of child care and to provide for some Indian child care programs, which I agree are desperately needed. However, as was pointed out by my colleague, there was no increase for the 200,000 spaces to which I am sure provinces must have objected.
The new allocation still caps the number of new spaces at 200,000, which does not recognize real child care needs in Canada. As a result, many child care experts and several provinces feel that it would be better to maintain the status quo temporarily, until we can have an election and a new Government with a more progressive plan and with more flexibility to allow child care services to grow in the future. This program caps everything at the end of seven years.
Now, at long last, we have Bill C-144. It is the culmination of the child care strategy that refuses to deal with the real needs of Canadian parents and children and misuses child care dollars. I gave an example of the tax measures earlier. It offers an inflexible, unrealistic plan with no national objectives and no requirements for provinces to develop quality, affordable non-profit child care.
There will be great disparity in the kind of child care that is developed across Canada, which undermines the whole concept of a national child care program. We have only to look at medicare, a far better model which should have been followed. It leaves to the provinces how they would use federal tax dollars. It almost encourages them to use them for poor quality commercial day care. Because the government child care strategy and this Bill are so seriously and fundamentally flawed, we cannot support them.
The Minister has refused to listen to strong submissions from parents and care givers across this country who have years of commitment, experience, and expertise. He has refused to look at research studies and to follow the recommendations in a number of very important studies.
We agree with these groups that the most important priority should have been to establish those clear principles and objectives in the Bill itself and that federal tax dollars should have been directed first to the establishment of a network of
August 11, 1988
quality, affordable, non-profit child care services across Canada with flexibility to meet the real needs of children. There should be program guidelines to require provinces to develop such services, with a period of time for conversion to non-profit societies for centres that want subsidies. We know that it will take many years to develop an ideal child care program, but surely we should be starting in the right way with clear, progressive objectives and flexibility that would allow this program to grow in the future and not be capped after seven years.
Our great concern and the concern of most Canadians interested in child care is that Bill C-144 limits the number of new spaces to only 200,000 at the end of seven years. Studies show that the present limited inadequate system of subsidizing child care under the Canada Assistance Plan has resulted in a 15 per cent growth rate. This Bill will result in only a 10 per cent growth rate. It just does not make sense. I do not know how the Minister can justify it.
Some provinces, like B.C., should be very concerned that by not using the Canada Assistance Plan in the future they will not have the open-ended kind of coverage for children with special needs. This program of the Minister's has not dealt with these children. In a province like British Columbia almost all spaces could be used by disabled and other children with special needs. There is no provision for the extra cost of such services.
Child care needs are greatest in poorer regions of Canada where few centres exist and workers are grossly underpaid. Bill C-144 does have a very complicated, variable cost-sharing formula. It was interesting that the Minister indicated that this could go up to 90 per cent in Newfoundland, I think he said. I am not sure, though, that people understand this. We feel very strongly that this is important. We are worried that the Northwest Territories, which has a very high birth rate, has warned that it can put no money into child care and must have 100 per cent federal funds.
Another concern with this Bill is that it offers capital funding of up to 70 per cent for building non-profit centres for only seven years. What happens afterward? Incidentally, commercial centres will still be able to get tax breaks for their capital expenses after that time. Since it often takes several years to establish a new centre, particularly in rural communities, this is quite unrealistic. It is another indication that the Bill is designed to limit child care rather than to develop a sound national program for child care which is flexible, meets future needs, and improves as the years go by.
I wish I had time to speak of the special needs and concerns of different regions, but I will have to leave that to my colleagues. I am glad that my hon. friends to the right will join us in opposing this regressive Bill. I am glad my colleague from the special committee on child care has spoken today. I note that none of our Conservative colleagues are here. I must say that the Liberals had over 20 years to take action on child care ever since the royal commission on the status of women-
August 11, 1988


Mr. Gauthier:: We did.


Margaret Anne Mitchell: -but the Liberals did nothing that was effective in meeting child care needs. I wonder why the Liberal child care policy endorses commercial child care when it has been proven over and over that it is poor quality care with minimum standards. Other aspects of Liberal policy are very fuzzy.
A New Democratic child care program would be phased in. We know that we cannot achieve the ideal immediately. We have both a short-term and a long-term plan. We would make provincial funding conditional upon meeting national program objectives. We would recognize the present crisis in child care. We would have done this four years ago by introducing direct grants to provinces to assist with the crisis until all these changes could take place. We would use child care dollars for direct funding of capital and operational grants for licensed child care services as opposed to tax expenditures which are targeted only to the wealthier families. We would aim to have parent fees reduced to 50 per cent of the total costs by the early 1990s, with a longer term goal of eventually reducing costs even further. We would provide up to 80 per cent of all government funding for poorer provinces and territories with underdeveloped services. We would insist on parental and community involvement in the development of child care in Canada. This is only common in non-profit centres. We would improve care giver training and wages.
Most important, and I am glad the Minister is here, we would amend the provisions of the Unemployment Insurance Act to give all parents a real opportunity to spend some time at home with their infant children. The Minister has not mentioned this very important aspect which our committee also recommended.
Working Canadian women and their families have great needs for reliable quality child care services. They had hoped for a national child care program which would be a model social program and which would develop progressively into the future. This is the first social program we have had since medicare. We should have built it on the lines of medicare with national standards, with equal access, and with quality services across the country. Taxpayers want their child care dollars to be well spent.
The Government is generous in the amount of money that is going in at the first stage. I must admit that our plan had even less money targeted during the first stage. We want the money to go directly into child care services so that parents will have a choice and will be assured that they do not have to use an unreliable babysitter or in fact provide no care but can go to
their neighbourhood child care centre or have other forms of family support and in-home services available to them.
This child care legislation is the final straw in a flawed and regressive Conservative child care strategy. It does not even attempt to deal realistically with child care needs of Canada. The Minister has made no attempt to assess the real child care needs. He has taken an arbitrary 200,000 spaces over seven years, laid it on, and, boom, there is nothing after that.
We cannot support this program. We ask the Government, in all sincerity, to withdraw the Bill. Children and women deserve better.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I believe there is agreement to call it one o'clock.


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: It being one o'clock, I do now leave the chair until two o'clock this day.
At 1 p.m. the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 2 p.m.

Mr. Russell MacLellan (Cape Breton-The Sydneys):: Mr. Speaker, this morning the Petroleum Monitoring Agency released the Canadian petroleum industry 1987 petroleum monitoring report which related some distressing news. In dealing with Canadian control and ownership of the petroleum industry, the status of control of Husky Oil Limited has been changed from the Canadian category as established by Investment Canada to a foreign classification, by Energy, Mines and Resources. The result is a 1.5 per cent reduction in Canadian revenues from the petroleum industry.
This obviously highlights the Government's sell-out of our country's resources. Indeed, Investment Canada has reviewed and approved 443 out of 443 acquisitions, valued at $38,203,721,000. In other words, no foreign acquisitions have been disallowed.
The Conservative Government is misleading Canadians by stating that it wants to maintain 50 per cent Canadian ownership of our energy resources and will not sell a financially healthy Canadian company with assets over $5 million. As stated in the report of the Petroleum Monitoring Agency:

August 11, 1988
Canadian ownership of the petroleum industry, based on upstream revenues, declined from 46.7 per cent in 1986 to 45.1 per cent in 1987, while Canadian control decreased from 49 per cent in 1986 to 45.2 per cent in 1987.
Why is the Government clandestinely promoting the reduction of Canadian control and ownership of our energy sector?


HUMAN RIGHTS
Mr. Joe Reid (St. Catharines):: Mr. Speaker, 13 years ago, on August 1, 1975, Canada, along with 33 other nations, including the United States and the Soviet Union, signed a landmark agreement which came to be known as the Helsinki Accords. Canada, under the leadership of the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) and the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Clark), has given leadership and direction to honour this country's commitment to human rights.
What about elsewhere? Even since glasnost and demok-ratizatsia, some 300 political prisoners, including 10 Helsinki monitors, still languish in labour camps and exile. The recent decision of Romania to bulldoze 7,000 villages, uprooting and scattering the 2.5 million native Hungarians throughout Romania, is a direct affront to those Accords.
Romania undertook to succour all persons under its jurisdiction without distinction of race, sex, language or religion, just as we did. I would urge the Department of External Affairs to show Canada's displeasure at this ruthless uprooting of defenceless minority groups in Romania today.


NATIVE PEOPLES
Jack Harris: Mr. Speaker, the native people of Newfoundland and Labrador have been the victims of an apparently intentional effort by the Government of Canada to deny them the full rights to which they are entitled under Section 91(24) of the Canadian Constitution and the provisions of the Indian Act. Studies commissioned by me, including an examination of official documents, have revealed that from early after Newfoundland joined Confederation in 1949, a systematic denial of rights has been a fact of our history and continues to affect the lives of native people in Newfoundland and Labrador. It amounts to discrimination against native people because they live in this province. It is time for this hidden history to be fully exposed.
I have therefore called upon the Government of Canada to establish immediately a Royal Commission on Native People
in Newfoundland and Labrador. Such a commission would have a mandate to inquire into the treatment of aboriginal peoples since 1949, with specific focus on the rejection by the federal Government of its constitutional responsibilities with respect to the native people in the province. The commission should have the authority to recommend measures to correct the historic and current injustices, and to ensure cultural survival and promote self-government for the native people of Newfoundland and Labrador. This record of official injustice must be exposed and redressed.


TRIBUTE TO WAYNE GRETZKY, CANADIAN
Mr. Gordon Taylor (Bow River):: Mr. Speaker, today I pay tribute to a great Canadian, Wayne Gretzky. He has lived his life up to now in Canada and for the last nine years has been an Edmonton Oiler. With his tremendous ability as an athlete, the greatest among them all, he won the hearts of every Albertan with his kindness, his courage, his excellence, and his humility. Being the leader in winning four Stanley Cups was a tremendous achievement, but even that was superseded by the honesty of this man who never lost the common touch.
He is and has been Canada's greatest ambassador. He is properly called "The Great One" who, wherever he went, promoted Canadianism, honesty, fair play, decency, and respect for all humans irrespective of race, colour or creed.
We have not lost him; we have gained a great representative. Wherever Wayne Gretzky goes, Canada's best will be on display because in his heart there is a maple leaf. This Parliament applauds "The Great One", Wayne Gretzky.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


THE LATE FELIX LECLERC
Lucie Pépin: Mr. Speaker, today Quebecers are in mourning. Felix Leclerc is being taken to his final rest. A giant is being put to sleep. Felix Leclerc is one of our Quebecois and Canadian poets and singers who set the tone for us, who gave us a taste for Quebec, especially in his songs and poems. Who among us has not hummed Moi, mes souliers and C'etait un p'tit bonheurl He reminded us of our origins and made us proud to be Quebecers. He was a greathearted man who gave us not only the desire to be but also, and especially, the desire to be what we are and what we want to be.
August 11, 1988

I conclude this humble tribute by extending my sincerest condolences to all his family and friends and reminding them that Felix Leclerc will always have a special place in our hearts. I would like to repeat what Felix wrote about death:
"It is better to die on a task that cannot be done than to live resignedly but uneventfully."


ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Stan Darling (Parry Sound-Muskoka):: Mr. Speaker, Canadians across this great country can rejoice at our latest victory in the fight against acid rain. This Government has been pursuing quiet diplomacy. Perhaps it is not the confrontation method the Opposition would have preferred, but we have succeeded.
Last Friday, President Reagan announced that his administration would freeze U.S. emissions of nitrogen oxides at 1987 levels for seven years. Finally, all the hard work of this Government and the Acid Rain Committee is paying off.
No one in Canada doubts that acid rain is a killer and that a great deal of work needs to be done. This summer the information campaign engineered by the Minister of the Environment (Mr. McMillan) has proven to be highly successful in making the average American aware of our concerns and the damage this problem is creating for both our countries.
This is only the beginning, and every day we are making progress. The Americans realize more and more how critical this problem is and that we must combine our efforts to combat this menace called acid rain. Let us give credit where credit is due and encourage our Minister of the Environment to continue his good work.


THE LATE FELIX LECLERC
Cyril Keeper: Mr. Speaker, a singer has died but his songs live. For Canada, Felix Leclerc is proof of the benefits of the Canadian mosaic over the American melting pot. For Quebec, he became the spirit, voice and pride of a whole generation. Felix Leclerc: we remember!


MULTICULTURALISM
William (Bill) Gottselig: Mr. Speaker, there was a very interesting headline in our local newspaper, The Outlook, this past Monday. "Noisy Jim is on the road again," the headline read, and the article went on to say that Jim Kook was going to Ottawa to participate in Cultures Canada 88 as a result of having previously participated in a similar program at Expo 86.
I was very pleased last night to be with Jim and his wife May on the parliamentary lawn, with the historic Peace Tower in the background, at a very special ceremony in which the Minister of State for Multiculturalism (Mr. Weiner) as well as Mrs. Jean Pigott, representing the National Capital Commission, participated.
The various participants in Cultures Canada 88, many displaying costumes from their native lands, were taking part in this very colourful ceremony on Parliament Hill which is the heart of Canada. This once again displayed the colourful mosaic of our country which is greatly enriched by maintaining this heritage. I salute my constituent, Noisy Jim, as well as all participants in this cultural event.


DISASTERS
[Stage Direction]
1985 GANDER AIR CRASH-CALL FOR PUBLIC INQUIRY
Mr. Don Boudria (Glengarry-Prescott-Russell):: Mr. Speaker, the investigation into the 1985 Gander Arrow air crash has been plagued with controversy, contradiction, resignations and confusion. Crucial testimony has been neglected, documents have been hidden from the Canadian Aviation Safety Board members, and tentative conclusions have been nothing short of illogical.
Now there are new revelations. Several firemen who worked on extinguishing the fire resulting from this unfortunate crash are ill from what they believe to be the ingestion of toxic gases. What caused those toxic fumes? What caused fire extinguishing equipment to activate prior to the plane crashing? Why is information being withheld from the Canadian Aviation Safety Board? More important, why blame the crash on the pilot of that plane?
We need a public commission of inquiry into the Gander air crash. We must find out the truth about this most unfortunate disaster.

August 11, 1988


REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Mrs. Barbara Sparrow (Calgary South):: Mr. Speaker, our Government has made three particularly significant contributions toward the economic health of Canada's West.
First was the Western Accord which started the process, now completed, of dismantling the punitive National Energy Program.
Second was the Western Economic Diversification Program which, in its first year, approved 231 proposals for $44 million in assistance to Alberta businesses as of the end of July. There were 503 proposals in the whole of western Canada for a total investment of $345 million. Twelve Calgary companies received assistance ranging from $20,000 to $720,000. Not only does this assist in broadening our economic base, it also creates jobs.
Last month we had the announcement of the western procurement initiative which will increase the amount of federal procurement carried out in western Canada by more than $600 million over the next four years. That is an increase of 16 per cent. In addition, our Government is committed to sourcing a greater portion of contracts over $100 million from western suppliers.
Who can say that this Government has not responded to the needs of western Canada? No one!


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Jim Manly (Cowichan-Malahat-The Islands):: Mr. Speaker, tomorrow at the UN, the Special Committee on Decolonization will consider the illegal occupation of East Timor since 1975 by Indonesia. Since that time Indonesia has waged a genocidal war against the people of East Timor.
This is the human rights situation that Canada chooses to ignore. Because of extensive trade links with Indonesia, Canada turns a blind eye to its human rights abuses. Indonesia has been called the most totalitarian country in the world, and its doors are closed to such organizations as Amnesty International and the International Red Cross.
In spite of Canada's pretence that our development assistance is linked to human rights, Indonesia remains one of our largest aid recipients. Our ambassador even went to the extent of accompanying the former Minister of External Affairs, Mr. Mochtar, on a visit to East Timor during a phoney election campaign.
Canada must recognize that it is time to end the double standard and speak up for human rights in East Timor.


CANADA-UNITED STATES FREE TRADE AGREEMENT-POSITION OF LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION
Mr. Alan Redway (York East):: Mr. Speaker, you may recall that on June 29 the Right Hon. Leader of the Official Opposition (Mr. Turner) made a speech in this House on the subject of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement. Two days ago the Winnipeg Free Press, commenting editorially on that speech and other statements made by the Right Hon. Member, said, and I quote:
"Mr. Turner took phrases from one part of the agreement and applied them to another; distorted the meaning and intent of other passages, and simply falsified the application of yet others. It is a surprising performance from a man who was once regarded, whatever his political strengths or weaknesses, as a man of integrity."
The editorial went on to say:
"There is room for honest disagreement over the likely effects of free trade. The point at issue in Mr. Turner's approach to free trade is not one of honest disagreement but of simple deliberate distortion."
The editorial concluded:
"John Turner these days has a liking for slogans. "Let the people decide" is his latest. Before the people do decide he might direct another slogan to himself, "Tell the people the truth".
Amen, Mr. Speaker.


IMMIGRATION
Ms. Sheila Copps (Hamilton East):: Mr. Speaker, I defy the Tories to tell the truth about the immigration mess they created in this country. I speak not only on behalf of hundreds of people in the Hungarian community of the city of Hamilton, but thousands of Hamiltonians who would like to know when the Government is going to clean up the immigration mess it created.
I met this week with a gentleman by the name of Francisc Anghi in my office. He has been waiting for almost two years to get security clearance so he can apply to bring his family from Romania. He is a Hungarian refugee whose family is under political pressure in Romania. In the meantime, one of his sons has died. Another son is suffering a fatal illness. All he wants to know from the Government is how much longer it will take before he gets security clearance so he can apply to bring his family members to Canada. He is desperate, and there are thousands of other Canadians like him.

The Government claimed to be working on a national emergency concerning immigration policy but it created an incredible backlog in security clearances which leaves thousands of frustrated landed immigrants and Canadians waiting for their families to be reunited. What kind of a humane Government will allow a son to die while the father is waiting for his security clearance?
Let us clean up this immigration mess by bringing back a Liberal Government.

[ Translation]


CANADA-UNITED STATES FREE TRADE AGREEMENT-POSITION OF LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION
[Stage Direction]
Mir. Marcel R. Tremblay (Quebec-Est): Mr. Speaker, on July 21, I told the Leader of the Opposition that the serious Liberal Senators would not agree to submit to his orders. I therefore suggest that he check or inquire with his Senators and Members of Parliament to see whether others are not preparing to imitate the Johnstons and Van Roggens. What you are asking them, Mr. Leader of the Opposition, is to act undemocratically, and they are opposed to that.
All the major newspapers in the country have called your position irresponsible and partisan. In the space of a few weeks, you have contradicted yourself by saying that you were committed to not asking the Liberal Senators to assume your responsibilities for you in the coming weeks.
I hope that you are aware of the gratitude you owe Canadians who will keep the Right Hon. Brian Mulroney as Prime Minister and who may once again give you the chance to be just the Leader of the Opposition, which is already a very big favour in your case.

Abram Ernest Epp: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of State for Multiculturalism is touring the country these days celebrating the new Multiculturalism Act. As a result, he is too busy to consider the redress for Japanese-Canadians the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) promised four years ago. Meanwhile, the U.S. House of Representatives followed the U.S. Senate's lead in passing a redress measure for Japanese-Americans. The U.S. President signed a Bill which provides $20,000 U.S. for every Japanese-American survivor.
Oral Questions
The Mulroney Government should be ashamed of itself. Successive Ministers have failed to deal properly with the National Association of Japanese-Canadians, and they have refused to consider compensation for individual Japanese-Canadian survivors. It is hypocritical to celebrate high sounding principles while one is refusing to act on those principles. The Prime Minister should hide his face in shame for having failed to act on the promises of June, 1984.
Canadians will remember this broken promise as one of the most shameful in the entire Mulroney record.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Right Hon. John N. Turner (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister. We all know that members of Cabinet have not even read the trade agreement with the United States. Nevertheless, the official statement or official interpretation by President Reagan says, on page 86, that a province shall grant investors from the other country the same favourable treatment granted investors from that province. President Reagan is saying that the Government of Quebec cannot use special measures to encourage Quebecers to invest in their own province.
What impact does this have on Quebec's stock savings plan? What impact does it have on possible changes in the plan? And what impact will this have on efforts by the Government of Quebec to ensure that Quebec industries are developed and financed by Quebecers?


Right Hon. Brian Mulroney (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, if I am not mistaken, the Government of Quebec has just issued a statement expressing its satisfaction with the trade agreement, and especially with the provisions relating to investment. Perhaps the Leader of the Opposition should also read the press releases and major documents issued by the Government of Quebec.


SUPPORT FOR INVESTORS-GOVERNMENT POSITION
John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, I think the Prime Minister of Canada should get in touch with the Premier of Quebec and advise him to read the official U.S. text which makes it quite clear that the Government of Quebec would be prevented from promoting investment by Quebecers in Quebec industries.
Mr. Speaker, I am positive that not a single member of Cabinet read the official statement made by the U.S. President

August 11, 1988
Oral Questions
on July 25. I am equally positive that not a single member of Cabinet has read the U.S. bill.
President Reagan also says that no Canadian province may impose local equity provisions. The President also says in his document that no province may give preferential treatment to investors from that province.
What does this mean for a province like Quebec that wants to encourage investment by Quebecers in that province? What does it mean for the Canadian Government, if it wants to encourage Canadians to invest in their own country? I repeat, what are regulations on foreign investment doing in a free trade agreement?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition says not a single member of Cabinet has read the agreement and that not a single member of Cabinet has read President Reagan's statement. He is entitled to his opinion, but I think he is wrong. He is also assuming, since his question directly refers to the powers of Quebec, that the Premier of Quebec and, for that matter, the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Parizeau, have not read the document. However, Robert Bourassa, Jacques Parizeau and practically all Quebec's economic partners have read the document and approved the free trade agreement with the United States.


SMALL PRINT PROVISIONS OF AGREEMENT-GOVERNMENT POSITION
John Napier Turner: The
Prime Minister should explain to his Quebec counterpart that President Reagan's statement or official interpretation will prevent the Government of Quebec from using specific preferential measures to promote investment by Quebecers in their own industries.

No wonder there is uncertainty in the country. No one in the Cabinet appears to have read either the Canadian or the American documents. The President's official statement of July 25 says that no province can give a special break to investors from that province.
What is more, page 58 of the American legislation says that the United States will negotiate, in the words of the American Bill, "the elimination of direct investment screening" by Canada including the elimination of all screening of energy and cultural industries.
Does the Prime Minister not realize that not only are all future investment rules out the window but the United States plans to eliminate any rules at all affecting Canadian investment which are currently on the books? Why has no one in his Government bothered to read the fine print in the documents which the Americans have published?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, that is an insult to the Hon. Robert Bourassa, the Premier of Quebec! It is a direct attack on the credibility of Mr. Bourassa, who says he has read and understood the entire free trade agreement and endorses that document on behalf of the Government of Quebec and the people of that province. The Leader of the Opposition has grievously insulted the Premier of Quebec, and I think the Premier and Quebecers will remember this as one more insult to Quebec.

With regard to the point made by my friend, the Leader of the Opposition-


John Napier Turner: You don't know what is in the Bill, that's the problem.


Martin Brian Mulroney: He says I do not know what the issue is. Perhaps I could point out to him what the Winnipeg Free Press said yesterday. It said, "the point at issue in Mr. Turner's approach to free trade is not one of honest disagreement but of simple deliberate distortion". That is the opinion of the Winnipeg Free Press and of most Canadians.


VISIBLE MINORITIES
Mr. Sergio Marchi (York West):: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Minister of State for Multiculturalism I will direct my question to the Right Hon. Prime Minister.
Several days ago the staff of the Minister of State for Multiculturalism openly admitted that the Minister was too busy on a Conservative campaign tour across the country to deal with trying to settle the Japanese-Canadian redress issue which has eluded the Government and four different Conservative Ministers of Multiculturalism for four years, despite the personal assurances and promises made by the Prime Minister.
Rather than having the Minister indulge in a self-flattering campaign tour to bolster a very desperate record, why does the Government not first honour the Prime Minister's commitment to the Japanese-Canadian community on this issue, establish serious, ongoing negotiations with the NAJC, and genuinely try to solve a very sensitive and emotional issue which is affecting so many Canadians across the country?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend says that the solution to the very serious problem involving Japanese Canadians has eluded the Government. I think he would recognize that we began the process of trying to resolve the problem. We have not achieved
August 11, 1988

that yet, but we were the first Government to begin the process of attempting to solve a historic injustice.
We began that work in light of the statement of the former Leader of the Liberal Party in this House in June of 1984, who said that the Liberal Party and the Liberal Government had no intention of ever paying compensation to or looking after the problems of the Japanese Canadians. We are in the process of improving a great deal on that. I hope there will be a solution very soon.


PRIME MINISTER'S POSITION
Sergio Marchi: Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has made promises and four of his Ministers have issued dozens of press releases saying that there is progress when there really is not. In the meantime, the American experience of a few days ago has quietly but successfully reached a satisfactory conclusion to the Japanese-American redress issue.
Four different Ministers have failed to come up with a resolution. While the Prime Minister was Leader of the Opposition he gave his very clear undertaking that the matter would be resolved, and he has not involved himself since assuming office.
Therefore, can the Prime Minister now give this Parliament the assurance that he will become personally involved and offer political leadership from the top to try to initiate negotiations for a settlement so that the Government, but more important, Parliament and the country, can successfully close a dark chapter in Canada's history? Will he become involved as he said before the last election that he would?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, it is very unusual and should be noted that an official spokesman of the Liberal Party is favourably invoking a precedent just signed by President Ronald Reagan. The President will be delighted to hear that.


Nelson Andrew Riis: He imposed a minimum corporate tax too, Brian.


Mr. Axworthy:: You make Ronald Reagan look good.


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: Nobody can make you look good, Lloyd.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The Right Hon. Prime Minister.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, my friends from the NDP who were in the House at the time will remember, because I think they shared our view, that we were all quite aghast at the statement by the Leader of the Liberal Party and the lack of sympathy which he evinced for Japanese Canadians. The NDP and Conservatives spoke very strongly in favour of an attempt to resolve this sensitive and important matter.
We have moved to the point where we have agreed upon an official apology to the Japanese Canadians who suffered by this unjust action, the creation of a fund on behalf of the
Oral Questions
Japanese Canadians to deal with the problem of racism which affected them so tragically, and we have another step to take. I think my hon. friend would agree that another important action taken by the Government was the abolition of the infamous War Measures Act which violated the rights of so many Canadian citizens.


CANADA-UNITED STATES FREE TRADE AGREEMENT-AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRY
Mr. Vic Althouse (Humboldt-Lake Centre):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Agriculture. Since last October 5, Canada's major farm groups neither supported nor rejected the free trade agreement with the United States. Instead, they attempted to identify clearly issues which must be addressed to maintain the programs and policies which make Canada's agricultural industry "uniquely Canadian".
Now that groups such as the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, Prairie pools, the Wheat Board Advisory Committee, the Union des Producteurs Agricoles de Quebec, the National Farmers' Union, the Maritime Farmers' Council and others say that their concerns over that period of time have been ignored, will the Minister explain why the Government chose to ignore all these important farm groups?


Hon. John Wise (Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, if the Hon. Member is fair, I think he would withdraw the final part of that comment. This Government has not in the past and will not in the future ignore Canadian farm problems. I challenge him to examine the record. To date we have taken some 660 initiatives delivering over $10 billion. That is a record that is unchallenged in the past.
I recognize that some general farm organizations have some difficulty with the bilateral trade agreement. However, if we look to see what the commodity organizations are saying about the agreement, we find that there are about 100,000 grain farmers in the country who support the agreement. There are about 80,000 beef farmers in the country who support the agreement. There are about 70,000 hog farmers in Canada who support the agreement.
Supply management is secure. Since we went forward with the amendments to the CAPS Act that the previous Government did not have the courage to proceed with, there are about
25,000	horticultural people who recognize that the bilateral trade agreement is in their interest.


POSITION OF CANADIAN FEDERATION OF AGRICULTURE
Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Mr. Speaker, the Minister seems to have ignored or is perhaps unaware of the fact that the Canadian Federation of Agriculture which

August 11, 1988
Oral Questions
speaks for nearly all the groups he just cited said: "The CFA cannot support implementation of the FT A in its present form". That is dated July 30, 1988.
Since this is the position of the CFA and the position of most of the component groups of the CFA, will the Minister tell us what, if any, changes he proposes at the last minute to make this agreement acceptable to the farm groups?


John Wise: Mr. Speaker, I am very much aware of the recent statement issued by the Canadian Federation of Agriculture. I have to take issue with certain of their observations because I think they are false. The future picture of the agri-food marketing systems and supply management in Canada is not in jeopardy at all because they are secure under the bilateral trade agreement.
They also challenge the integrity of the Canadian Wheat Board. I believe that is false. They also made some observations about the quality standards of Canadian agriculture commodities. They are not in jeopardy at all.
They recognize as well that we have to take some action to tie up some loose ends. I recognize that, particularly as it relates to the hatching egg industry. We have given a commitment to that industry and we have fulfilled our commitments to the agricultural industry in the past. We have every intention of fulfilling the commitments in the future, including many that are mentioned here.


PROTECTION OF POULTRY SECTOR-GOVERNMENT POSITION
Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Mr. Speaker, what is the Government doing to protect the processing and poultry sectors, as requested by the Union des producteurs agricoles in their meeting with the Senate yesterday?


John Wise: Mr. Speaker, I recognize that there are some loose ends to be tied up. We recall that we were challenged on the fact that we would not proceed to transfer a number of dairy items from the tariff list to the import-export list. We gave a commitment to that industry that we would go forward and do so. Of course, the Opposition Parties should recognize that we have already carried that out.
The other loose ends to which I have referred are the other commodities under the feather industry. We will continue to consult with the industry in order to arrive at a sensible action that will again transfer those items from the tariff list to the import-export list. We have made a commitment on this side to ensure continued day-to-day operation of supply management in Canada. We have full intentions of carrying that out.


UNITED STATES OMNIBUS TRADE BILL
Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister. He will recall that some three or four months ago a Commons
committee unanimously reported to the House a recommendation that with the omnibus Trade Bill in the United States not giving an exemption to Canada we should not proceed with the trade agreement. At the same time, Ambassador Gotlieb, on behalf of the Government of Canada, wrote to the United States administration and Congressional leaders that: "The proposed redefinition of subsidy represents a significant and dangerous departure from generally accepted international norms. If enacted, they would undermine the GATT".
On Section 103 of that same Bill, Ambassador Gotlieb said: "These proposals could lead to U.S. actions inconsistent with the GATT and would exacerbate international trade tensions".
Yesterday the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for International Trade said the Government of Canada no longer has a problem with that Bill. He said that all of the matters have been dealt with and that there is no problem. Yet the very same concerns and issues raised by Ambassador Gotlieb are still in the Bill.
Is the Parliamentary Secretary speaking for the Government? If so, why has the Government changed its position? Why is the Government abandoning its previous position stated by the full Commons committee? Why is the Government not protesting U.S. trade action that will continue to harass Canadian exporters?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, the question by my hon. friend is whether the Parliamentary Secretary, in his response, spoke for the Government. May I say that not only has the Parliamentary Secretary spoken for the Government, he has done so in an eloquent, effective, and tremendous way here in the House of Commons.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Nelson Andrew Riis: We are talking about McDermid.


Martin Brian Mulroney: The House Leader of the New Democratic Party insists on naming him. Yes, it was McDermid who did such a wonderful job.


CANADIAN POSITION
Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, if it is true that the Parliamentary Secretary in his own fashion is speaking for the Government, then the question stands. Why is the Government retreating from its position? Why has it changed the stated position of the Minister in the House that we would protest those measures in the omnibus Trade Bill which contravene the trade agreement even though those measures are still in the Bill as it has been passed by the Congress? Why has the Government once again lost its backbone when it comes to protecting Canadian interests and has subjected Canadian exporters to further trade harassment?
August 11, 1988

Why are we perpetrating a joke on the Canadian people by having tougher trade laws?


Mr. John McDermid (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister for International Trade):: Mr. Speaker, first, the House and the country owe a great deal of gratitude to Ambassador Gotlieb for his work in fighting this omnibus Trade Bill, in having the most severe sections of it removed and other parts watered down. He has done a masterful job of representing our interests in Washington and should be recognized.
Second, we have reviewed the text of the omnibus Trade Bill and we are satisfied there are no provisions in it that would require the administration to take any action which would be inconsistent with the free trade agreement. We have examined that. We have not retreated one iota on this. The free trade agreement is going ahead. We look forward to debating the silly amendments the Hon. Member has brought into the House.


VISIBLE MINORITIES
Abram Ernest Epp: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister who has already recognized the long-standing support of the New Democratic Party for redress to Japanese-Canadians and which, of course, remembers his own question that last day in June of 1984, to former Prime Minister Trudeau when he asked for redress.
The Prime Minister knows that the American President has signed a Bill authorizing compensation to individual Japanese-American survivors. Recognizing that the issue of individual compensation has been the sticking point in all the discussions with the National Association of Japanese Canadians, will the Prime Minister now authorize negotiations with the National Association of Japanese Canadians on the issue of individual compensation for Japanese-Canadian survivors?


Martin Brian Mulroney: I am happy, Mr. Speaker, to refer again to the support of the New Democratic Party for the position I raised in the House of Commons in June of 1984. My hon. friend refers to the fact that compensation was the "sticking point". Compensation was not the sticking point. The sticking point was the refusal of the Liberal Government for 40 years to even acknowledge and apologize for what had taken place.


Mr. Cassidy:: What about right now?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Since this Government has been sworn in, and with the support of my hon. friend in the New Democratic Party, certainly not elsewhere, there has been arranged an
Oral Questions
agreement whereby there is to be a trust fund with respect to anti-racism. There is to be a formal apology delivered in the House of Commons on behalf of the Government and the people of Canada with respect to this tragedy that took place so many years ago.


Margaret Anne Mitchell: But no negotiations.


Martin Brian Mulroney: There are ongoing discussions with the representatives of the National Association of Japanese Canadians at this very moment. I know my hon. friend will be happy to learn that those negotiations are moving ahead and they are in the extremely competent hands of the Minister for Multiculturalism.


REQUEST FOR COMMITMENT TO DISCUSSIONS
Abram Ernest Epp: Mr. Speaker, it is imperative that the Prime Minister's word "negotiate" describe a reality that has not been followed since January of 1985. Through you, Mr. Speaker, I ask the Prime Minister to give his word on behalf of this Government that there will be full and fair discussions with the National Association of Japanese Canadians to arrive at an agreement acceptable to the association to provide the kind of redress that is essential if this blot on the national honour is finally to be expunged.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. friend for referring to this matter because it is indeed a very serious blot on Canada's honour and, to me, it is a matter of very considerable regret that for over 40 years this matter was left untouched by the previous series of administrations. We have made some important progress with respect to resolving the matter and, with the support of my hon. friend, hopefully this matter can be brought to a proper and appropriate resolution which will be satisfactory to all concerned.


FINANCE
Alan Redway: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance. Are the reports true that the Government intends to give a tax break to food companies which donate surplus food to food banks? Whether this is true or not, would the Minister of Finance not agree that it would make much more sense to address the problem of why the number of food banks is increasing even though we are in a period of relative prosperity, rather than giving tax breaks which will in fact encourage more food banks to be created?


Hon. Michael Wilson (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, I did not hear the last part of the Hon. Member's question, but I should point out to him that there is a means now whereby companies which are producers or wholesalers of food are able

August 11, 1988
Oral Questions
to provide food to food banks and receive a tax credit which will provide them with the encouragement I think the Hon. Member is seeking.


IMMIGRATION
Hon. Bob Kaplan (York Centre):: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Minister of Employment and Immigration my question is directed to the Prime Minister. It concerns the Government's soft policy on South Africa. There are in Canada a number of white South Africans here as draft resisters, unwilling on conscientious grounds to serve in the Armed Forces to enforce apartheid, who face possible imprisonment if they return home. They are uncertain as to whether they will be allowed to remain in Canada. There are non-white South Africans here in Canada because they oppose living in a racist society and fascist country, who are also uncertain about their future in Canada.
Will the Prime Minister today declare that South Africans will have blanket approval to obtain landed immigrant status in Canada provided they are admissible under the Immigration Act, as did the former Government with its B-I list, including such countries as El Salvador and Lebanon, countries in Eastern Europe and other countries as well?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, we will, of course, as a Government, look with care at any question that is raised with respect to Canada and Canada's role, and the succour Canada can provide to refugees or people seeking our assistance. We have done that before and we will do so again in this case.
My friend will understand that I must take exception to his reference to a "soft policy" of this Government on South Africa. The former Ambassador to the United Nations, Stephen Lewis, referred to the tremendous leadership shown by Canada in the United Nations with respect to South Africa. The comments of my hon. friend have been repudiated by President Mugabe, President Kaunda, and Prime Minister Ghandi, all of whom believe that Canada since 1984 has been playing a particular and effective role of international leadership with respect to South Africa.


STATUS OF IMMIGRANTS
Robert Phillip Kaplan: Mr. Speaker, I have raised a number of specific measures in the House which my Leader mentioned in his speech last November as the policy of the Official Opposition, the Liberals, and I have asked a very specific question today. The Prime Minister refuses to give a specific answer. Will South Africa be added to the B-I list of the Minister and the Department of Employment and Immigration so that blanket approval will be available to South
Africans seeking haven here, and so a signal will be sent to South Africans in their own country who want to resist the official policy of apartheid in that country?


Hon. Jean J. Charest (Minister of State (Youth)) and Minister of State (Fitness and Amateur Sport)):: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Minister of Employment and Immigration, I will be happy to take notice and transmit the question to the Minister on behalf of the Hon. Member. In the meantime I want to remind the Hon. Member that there is a process now by which people can acquire refugee status, if that is the case, through legislation if they feel compelled to do so because for political reasons their lives may be threatened. That process is there for people who want to make that case and argue it before an adjudicator.
I think it is quite clear that this Government has made its position known on South Africa very forcefully. We have assumed a position of leadership as was demonstrated recently in the sports community. We are very conscious of the role we want to play in the world in this respect.


WESTERN DIVERSIFICATION FUND
David Orlikow: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister responsible for the Western Diversification Program. From information provided by his office a few days ago on all projects released in each of the four western provinces up to July 31 of this year, we see that Manitoba received the smallest amount of any of the provinces, $2,800,000. Saskatchewan with a slightly smaller population received $9,500,000. That is more than three times as much as Manitoba. Alberta received $27.5 million, and British Columbia received almost $50 million.
Some of us suspected that as long as Manitoba had an NDP Government it would be ignored, but since April Manitoba has had a Conservative Government. I would like to ask the Minister what has he got against the people of Manitoba and Premier Filmon so that Manitoba gets grants that are so abysmally small.


Hon. Bill McKnight (Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development):: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to reply to the question of my hon. friend. Over 500 proposals have been approved by Western Diversification in the last 12 months since the Prime Minister established it, totalling some $345 million, to build and strengthen the economy of western Canada.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
August 11, 1988


William Hunter (Bill) McKnight: I know the Hon. Member has a concern for his home province, as do Members of Parliament from that province on the government side. I would like to inform the Hon. Member that some 40 projects have been approved in Manitoba for $20 million.
Yesterday I had the opportunity to provide over $1 million to Otto Bock. That company is processing and putting in a CAD-CAM prosthetic operation to bring technology from Germany. It is investing $3 million of its money and $1 million from western economic diversification to diversify the economy and to serve Winnipeg and Manitoba.
Yesterday I also had the opportunity to participate in an agreement with Morfee Wheel. This is technology developed in British Columbia and transferred to Manitoba by the company to develop truck wheels. It is the first new development in truck design since the disc brake.
I can tell the Hon. Member that everything is well in Manitoba and well in western Canada.


GRANT TO STEINBACH
[Stage Direction]
Mir. David Orlikow (Winnipeg North): Mr. Speaker, the figures I quoted were not pulled out of the air. They were figures released by the Minister's office as of ten days ago.
Why is it that when the City of Winnipeg has so diversified an economic base that it can produce almost anything in the list which he provided, the only grant for over $1 million was to the town of Steinbach which happens to be in the constituency represented by the Minister of Health and Welfare?
It reminds us Manitobans of the type of things we heard when the Member for Winnipeg-Fort Garry was a Minister and his grants were so political.
William Hunter (Bill) McKnight: Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Steinbach is well known for representing his riding. I would like to inform the Hon. Member of the activities that took place yesterday in Manitoba, and the opportunities to sign prior to that meeting with our colleagues from the Province of Manitoba. My colleague the Minister of Health, the Hon. Member for Provencher, on behalf of the Government of Canada was able to sign an agreement on a health strategy with the newly elected Government in Manitoba. This health strategy agreement will contribute greatly to the economic activities that will take place in Manitoba.
The announcement yesterday with Otto Bock for $1.4 million which created a company-


Some Hon. Members:: Order!


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Member for Shefford.
Oral Questions


SHARE SAVINGS PLAN
Hon. Jean Lapierre (Shefford):: My question is for the Right Hon. Prime Minister and follows on my leader's. I would ask the Prime Minister not to hide behind Robert Bourassa.
If, for example, the federal Government wanted to match Quebec's stock savings plan, can the Prime Minister tell me how, under the terms requiring certain results and national treatment, we could continue to require something like the head office being located in Quebec or Canada, or at least 50 per cent of the salaries being paid to employees in Quebec? Would such conditions for a stock savings plan be acceptable under the Free Trade Agreement?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, when the Leader of the Opposition hears the Member for Shefford speak of his leader with affection, he must be worried when he hears such things.
The question from the Hon. Member for Shefford, who has set the record for hypocrisy... The Hon. Member for Shefford is more or less repeating his leader's question, except that the question from the Leader of the Liberal Party was more precise.
I took the liberty to answer by using not only the arguments in the document but also the arguments made by Premier Bourassa and his Liberal Government in Quebec. He says that the Hon. Member for Shefford need not worry, Quebecers approve of the free trade treaty.


PRIME MINISTER'S POSITION
Jean-C. Lapierre: Mr. Speaker, an unsatisfactory answer if there ever was one! I want to ask the Prime Minister, and I am not asking him to repeat Mr. Bourassa's arguments, I want to ask him whether he is prepared to set up a federal stock savings plan and whether, in that case, the free trade agreement wouldn't be an obstacle because of the standards of performance and national treatment provisions. My question is this: Wouldn't all more or less generous stock savings plans be at risk as a result of the free trade agreement?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, my understanding of the Hon. Member's question is that there is nothing in the free trade agreement which would affect the ability of the Government of Canada to establish a stock savings plan.

August 11, 1988
Oral Questions
TRANSPORT	PUBLIC SERVICE


MOVEMENT OF GRAIN THROUGH ST. LAWRENCE SEAWAY
Iain Francis Angus: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Deputy Prime Minister, in the absence of the Minister of Transport and the Minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board. The Deputy Prime Minister will know that those two Ministers met with officials from the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Seaway industry approximately three weeks ago. They offered a plan of action to the Government to deal with the current crisis in the movement of grain and other products from the West through Thunder Bay, the Great Lakes, and the St. Lawrence Seaway.
Is the Deputy Prime Minister prepared to advise the House and the thousands of men and women who are affected along the system what action the Government is now prepared to take?


John Wise: Mr. Speaker, anyone with a knowledge and understanding of the importance of the agri-food industry in Canada would not be surprised by the negative effects on a whole variety of aspects of the Canadian economy.
The Minister in charge of the Canadian Wheat Board is in Winnipeg today meeting with the provincial Minister of Transport with respect to the Churchill issue. The Department is analyzing the report of the coalition. The Hon. Member will appreciate the fact that any decision that is made will have to be made in the interests of the coalition of the ports in all regions, Canadian farmers, and certainly in the interests of our grain customers.


GOVERNMENT POSITION
Iain Francis Angus: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is directed to the Minister of Agriculture. It has now been three weeks, and there are more layoffs every day. At the very least could the Minister indicate when the people of Canada can expect a decision and an announcement by the Government on the actions that it will take to assist those who are suffering because of the lack of movement of grain?


John Wise: Mr. Speaker, I think the Hon. Member must also appreciate the fact that the federal Government stays out of the day-to-day operations of the Canadian Wheat Board. The Canadian Wheat Board does not tell our grain customers where to buy their grain.
The Hon. Member might take some satisfaction from a copy of a telex I have here. It is signed by the Commissioner of the Canadian Wheat Board. It states: "I can assure you that we are continuing to pursue all possible marketing opportunities".


SECOND FIRING OF IMMIGRATION OFFICER
Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister. I would like to ask the Prime Minister why the Government continues to wage a campaign of harassment against Canadians and, in particular, government employees who want to tell the truth to Canadians about a number of issues.
I would like to ask specifically why, for the second time, the Government has fired John Quigley, the immigration officer from Toronto who last year had the guts to tell the truth about a bad immigration policy.


Jean J. Charest: Mr. Speaker, my information is to the effect that Mr. Quigley has been informed that his services are not required any more because of an abuse in telecommunication privileges. Mr. Quigley has all recourses open to him from now on. If he wants to appeal that decision, the law provides for that type of recourse.


CANADA POST CORPORATION
Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, I would like to direct my question to the Prime Minister. I have a case here of a woman who, for 15 years, delivered rural mail. Last month she was terminated by Canada Post allegedly because of a disagreement over air conditioning, but the real reason was because she was a founding member of the Rural Route Mail Carriers of Canada and a founding member of Rural Dignity. Why was Sue Eybel fired from Hagersville? Why was John Quigley fired from Toronto? Why is the Government running a campaign of harassment against employees who are trying to fight for Canadian rights?


Mrs. Lise Bourgault (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to respond to the question about the alleged firing of the post mistress in the riding referred to by the Hon. Member. Mr. Speaker, I intend to ask for a full investigation of this matter, and I will get back to the Hon. Member with a detailed reply.
August 11, 1988


BANKS AND BANKING
Simon Leendert de Jong: Mr. Speaker, my question is addressed to the Minister of State for Finance. The Minister is, of course, aware of the hearings which the Finance Committee held on bank charges. He is also aware of the representations the small business community across Canada has been making to him and to Members of Parliament that many of the same recommendations, made concerning bank service charges to the consumer, by the Finance Committee, be applied to small business. Many small businesses feel captured by the banks and feel that they are unable to object to many unfair charges imposed by the banks.
Is the Minister prepared to act on behalf of the small business community of Canada against the big banks?


Hon. Tom Hockin (Minister of State (Finance)):: Of course, Mr. Speaker, the Government is prepared to act. We made this clear a good number of months ago.
First, all the principles which we came up for the consumer: disclosure, advance notice, a complaints mechanism, and abolishment of obnoxious charges, should be applied to the business community as well.
The Hon. Member is very late in coming to this issue. We have a meeting today between the small business organizations and the Bankers' Association. I hope they will be able to resolve the details to make sure that we can have in place a regime just as strong for the small business sector as we have for consumers.


REQUEST FOR INTRODUCTION OF REGULATORY LEGISLATION
Simon Leendert de Jong: Mr. Speaker, my second question is for the same Minister.
The Finance Committee has issued a good report dealing with credit card charges, bank services charges, and yet we are afraid that once the public spotlight is removed the banks will revert back to former practices as they are now beginning to do with increases in credit charges. Is the Minister prepared to introduce legislation to regulate the banks to ensure that there will be fair banking practices not only for consumers but for the small business community of the country?


Thomas Hockin: Mr. Speaker, I do not know where the Hon. Member is coming from. His Party wanted a voluntary agreement for bank service charges a month or two months ago. Suddenly the Member and his Party want the Government to do it all. What we have accomplished is that together with legislation and a voluntary approach we have protected the consumers, and improved their relationship with the banks. We will do the same for the small business community as well.
Oral Questions


Mr. Speaker:: There will be a single question from the Hon. Member for Algoma, followed by a single question from the Hon. Member for Fondon East and that will close Question Period. The Hon. Member for Algoma.


AGRICULTURE
Mr. Maurice Foster (Algoma):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Agriculture.
Last week he issued a press release announcing the grape adjustment program as a result of the trade deal with the United States. In that press release the Government is committed to a strong and viable grape and wine industry in British Columbia.
Could the Minister explain, since approximately over 2,000 of the 3,400 acres of grape vines are expected to be removed, how you could have a strong and viable grape industry when more than two-thirds of it will be removed? Could the Minister answer even one question for the grape growers? Is the adjustment assistance subject to income tax? The growers have no idea about the program or whether the adjustment assistance will be taxable.


John Wise: We have not reached a final decision on that particular issue, Mr. Speaker.


VETERANS AFFAIRS
Mr. Jim Jepson (London East):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Veterans Affairs.
Last June at a Royal Canadian Legion Dominion Command convention the Minister announced that the Veterans Independence Program would be extended to those veterans serving Canada in Canada during wartime. We hear from the Opposition of a very imminent election. Could the Minister tell this House whether this program will be in place prior to the next election?


Hon. George Hees (Minister of Veterans Affairs and Minister of State (Seniors)):: Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to answer this very good question from a Member who pays particular attention to the welfare of our veterans who deserve our attention so well.
I would like to advise the Member and all Members in this House that we have been working on this matter very, very hard, with good progress, and by about the middle of next month we expect to be able to announce the date when this will actually take place.

August 11, 1988
Privilege-Mr. Nowlan PRIVILEGE


REQUEST FOR REFERENCE OF DRESS CODE TO STANDING COMMITTEE
Mr. Pat Nowlan (Annapolis Valley-Hants):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today in deference to the Chair with a tie around my neck and a shirt on my body.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: I rise in deference to the Chair but not in deference to common sense. I did not mean to stimulate a national debate yesterday. I really thought we were going to go on to serious things yesterday. In view of the ungainly, unseemly conduct of the New Democrats on something so fundamental as child care, I suggest today, because of the way the New Democrats treated child care yesterday, that my question of privilege on dress for Members is most relevant indeed. If the legislators of the land cannot be dressed comfortably in the halls that make laws, what hope do we have for child care, Mr. Speaker?
Having said that, I am not trying to impede the progress of the House. I sit on the far right wing of the front bench of the Tory Party, and I am glad to be a member of the Tory Party and/or sit on the right wing. Having raised the question of dress I would like to show to my colleagues and to you, Mr. Speaker, that I am not necessarily right wing totally in most situations. If we are inane and stupid enough to meet here on August 10 in the middle of the summer, then I suggest it is time we got our dress code to conform to the realities of the land.
I wrote a letter to you yesterday, Mr. Speaker, after, with respect, you gave a very impetuous and interesting decision.
To quote your words, you would not recognize me "because he was not dressed according to the customs and traditions of the House and, until he is, he will not be recognized". This was your reply to my hon. friend, the Hon. Member for Okanagan-Similkameen (Mr. King), whose area raises second grade apples.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: Because he prefaced his remarks on the apple industry and you would not recognize me, you did a great disservice to the apple growers of the Annapolis Valley. Because the bells rang yesterday afternoon I did not want to create a constitutional conference and crisis. If I had come in in my garb as I did in the Question Period, I would have put the Table, the Clerk, the Greffier, Mr. Marleau, and you in an unconscionable position as to whether or not to count my vote. Quite frankly, most of the votes yesterday did not matter a gosh darn anyway.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: It could have been that way. I would suggest, Sir, without making a federal issue of the matter-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: -that it is time this matter of dress code was referred at least to the Standing Committee on Management and Members' Services so that we could come up with a rational, reasonable code for the middle of the summer.
I just want to put on record, without taking any more time of the House, my letter to you yesterday:
"Dear Mr. Speaker,
My dear John. With the greatest respect and thoughts to you personally, you made a G.D. ruling. I did not want to create a scene but only to have the matter referred to the Members and Services Committee. For surely if there are summer dress codes everywhere else in the land, ie: messes,-"
That is for the neutral people over there in the NDP. That is armed services messes. It continues:
"-and if we are stupid enough to be here in the summer, then we too should have a summer code.
On the basis of your impetuous and ill-considered ruling, I may come into the House tomorrow in Bermuda shorts and a bikini shirt and reverse the outfit the next day.
Quite frankly, as a Back Bencher, 1 am not too worried about the recognition from the Chair-that is the perpetual state of all Back Benchers, for I truly am concerned about the health of the Members during the summer.
Yours in the Twentieth Century and no bib and tucker for the eons before.
Yours sincerely,
Pat Nowlan
PS: I know 1 am being presumptuous, and you of all people know the reason for the tie, for the men of the old world-chasing women with one hand and eating bones of lamb with the other and sometimes slurped gravy on their waistcoats- those days are gone. There is no more dripping gravy, women are free and so should we-be."
I ask for this matter to be referred to the Management and Members' Services Committee.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Speaker:: I know that Hon. Members would want me to thank the Hon. Member from Annapolis Valley-Hants (Mr. Nowlan) for his impetuous and interesting intervention.
Of course, I responded immediately to the communications which the Hon. Member sent to your chairman and left a verbal message. It was an extremely polite message, but it was a direct one. I said, of course, that I would be very pleased to hear the Hon. Member today if he was properly attired according to the customs and traditions of this place.
I must say that the question the Hon. Member raises puts the Speaker in a harrowing position. It is extraordinarily difficult for anyone who is a Member of this place and a colleague of all the others to place greater distinction or prominence on one person's dress as opposed to another. That is why I think perhaps it has always been so easy to ignore dress, whether elegant or something less, provided that there was a tie around the neck.
August 11, 1988

I am not suggesting that this is the only test. If there was only a tie, there might be some other problem. However, I am always in the hands of Hon. Members as I am your very humble servant, and if it should happen that a committee would wish to give some guidance to the Chair, I would be guided by it and accept it most willingly.
I want the Hon. Member for Annapolis Valley-Hants to know that I knew full well that he had a contribution to make to this important matter yesterday and that given its importance the Hon. Member would at least conform with present standards and approaches and make the intervention that he did as I said, in such an impetuous and interesting way today. I have, out of friendship and a long comradeship that I have enjoyed with the Hon. Member from Annapolis Valley- Hants, put aside and ignored perhaps some of his other remarks, recognizing that all Hon. Members use humour and sometimes shock value to bring attention to the burning issues that they bring to us from all across this land.
The Hon. Member for York South-Weston (Mr. Nun-ziata) on a point of order.


Mr. Nunziata:: Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a nonimpetuous submission on the same subject. With the greatest of respect for the Hon. Member for Annapolis Valley-Hants (Mr. Nowlan), the issue is not whether there should be a summer dress code or a winter dress code. I would ask you, Sir, to review the dress code in the House of Commons in view of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Under the Charter one is not permitted to discriminate based on sex. In the House of Commons, our female colleagues are not required to wear ties. Whereas it may be a custom and a tradition here in the House of Commons that men are required to wear ties, I would submit, Sir, that you as the Speaker of the House of Commons and the House of Commons itself should adhere to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and lead by example.
In other words, males should be entitled to the same privileges as female Members in the House. The issue is not whether a male should or would or would not wear a tie. The issue is whether we are required to wear ties. Sir, I would ask you to review your policy and the policy of the House of Commons on that requirement. It is in breach of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to require a male to wear a tie.
Rather than referring the issue to a committee, I would ask, Sir, that you honour the letter and the spirit of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and allow men the same freedom and rights that you allow women in the House of Commons.


Margaret Anne Mitchell: Mr. Speaker, I must say on the same subject that I concur with the statements of the previous Member. I look forward to the day when indeed the Speaker has the
Business of the House
privilege of perhaps wearing the kilt in the House. Perhaps even more important is the dress code for pages and clerks who wear very heavy woollen winter clothing because of tradition. I would ask that they have a summer attire of some description.


Mr. Speaker:: Before I recognize the Hon. Member for Windsor West, (Mr. Gray) I should respond to the Hon. Member for York South-Weston (Mr. Nunziata) and the Hon. Member for Vancouver East (Mrs. Mitchell). Your Speaker has listened very carefully to the important intervention that has been made. I am not sure that it is my place to consider the dress code against the Charter of Rights, but perhaps there is another place where that can be done. Both Hon. Members will note that I confined my remarks strictly to the dress of male Hon. Members. Not even the Speaker would have the nerve to get into the question of dress for Hon. Members who are ladies.


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Hon. Herb Gray (Windsor West):: Mr. Speaker, this being Thursday, I want to ask the Government House Deader for a statement of business which the Government intends to call over the next several days.


Hon. Don Mazankowski (Deputy Prime Minister and President of the Privy Council):: Mr. Speaker, we will be continuing today with Bill C-144 and hopefully we will conclude that by this evening, and it will be followed by Bill C-130.


Michael Morris Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if I could ask the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Mazankowski) exactly what are the Government's intentions with respect to Bill C-273, the Bill on political rights. Prior to the brief recess that Parliament took, the Government House Leader and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister made very clear that the Government had no intention to interfere in any way with the private Members' procedure. As a consequence they were not prepared to co-operate with Members from all three Parties, including the Hon. Member for Ottawa West (Mr. Daubney) who proposed the Bill, to accelerate the consideration of Bill C-273, the Bill on political rights.
I have before me the letter which the Government House Leader has sent to my Leader today. It requests support for or co-operation with a series of killer amendments which were put forward by government back-benchers, clearly at the behest of the Government. I understand they were prepared by senior officials of the Government, the Privy Council Office, the Treasury Board, and elsewhere.

August 11, 1988
Business of the House
Three weeks ago the Government was saying that it would not interfere with Private Members' Business in any way. Now the Deputy Prime Minister is involving himself in it directly. His officials are involved in it. He has had a couple of backbenchers put forward a series of amendments which he knows very well repudiate the commitment made by the Conservatives in 1984 to grant political rights to the vast bulk of people working for the Government of Canada. This also frustrates the private Members' procedure which had led to the unanimous reporting of the Bill from the legislative committee, with support from Members of all three sides and particularly from Members from areas where the Public Service is represented. These Members felt that we had come up with a good Bill, but the Government has now decided to meddle in it.
What is happening? Could the Deputy Prime Minister explain what the devil is going on? He should know that the amendments he has had proposed on behalf of the Government are completely unacceptable to those of us who have been trying to get a reasonable balance between the need for very senior people in government to be politically neutral and the need to give political rights to the vast bulk of people working for the Government, and that was the promise of the Conservatives before they took power back in 1984.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I regret very much that the Hon. Member is taking such a strident attitude and referring to these as killer amendments and interference. The fact is that there is an NDP caucus and there is a government caucus. This issue was debated in our caucus, and some concerns were raised about it. The amendments that are being proposed are being proposed as a caucus initiative by private Members. I do not know why the Hon. Member would want to take offence with that.
The fact is that we are trying to achieve what the Hon. Member suggests he wants to achieve, except he wants to play politics with the issue. All we are trying to do is strike a reasonable balance, a balance that would maintain the impartiality of public servants while at the same time give public servants political rights. There is a gross over-exaggeration in the Hon. Member's interpretation of the amendments, and I regret that very much.
I think we all recognize that we have been served very well by a Public Service that is impartial. There are concerns in all corners of the House and indeed throughout the country about the need to maintain that kind of impartiality. It was in that spirit that members of caucus on this side of the House have debated the matter somewhat thoroughly and-


Michael Morris Cassidy: That's not true.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: The Hon. Member says that that is not right. I do not normally talk about what goes on in our caucus. I certainly do not hear the NDP Members talk about what goes on in their caucus nor do I care.
This in fact is the case, and if it is the case, I would ask the Hon. Member to withdraw his charge that this is government interference. This is a party matter. Certainly Members on this side of the House have the right and indeed the obligation to put forth their views, especially on a Private Member's Bill. I take exception to the Hon. Member.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, I would like to-


Michael Morris Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, perhaps the Deputy Prime Minister could stay in the House. On a point of order, the Deputy Prime Minister should stay in the House for this matter. He shouldn't fly away on this issue. What a cop-out.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Michael Morris Cassidy: You will not be here next time, Mailly, not after that performance.


Mrs. Mailly:: Do not hold your breath.


Michael Morris Cassidy: You will not be here. How are you going to vote on these amendments?


Claudy Mailly: I won by 9,000, you won by 64.


Michael Morris Cassidy: Why are you not getting your Deputy Prime Minister to come back into the House? Why do you not get him here to face the music? Where is he? Go and get him now; show you care about your constituents.


Claudy Mailly: Show respect for the Speaker.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The Hon. Member for Ottawa-Vanier has the floor.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, I-


Michael Morris Cassidy: Show that you care about your constituents. Do not just sit there like a lump on a log.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: We have had the opportunity to listen to the Hon. Member for Ottawa Centre. He has received a reply from the Hon. Deputy Prime Minister. I would now like to hear the Hon. Member for Ottawa- Vanier.


Michael Morris Cassidy: I find this totally preposterous, Mr. Speaker.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, I would like to address the same question. I am sorry to see that the the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Mazankowski) had to leave. Nevertheless-


Michael Morris Cassidy: He chose to leave.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: In the spirit of the new rules that apply to this House, the rules we call parliamentary reform, there is indeed a Private Members' Hour tonight at five o'clock, at which time private Members' initiatives are taken up and studied. Tonight, we are taking up Bill C-273 which proposes to extend certain political rights to public servants. I agree
August 11, 1988

with that Bill. I was a member of the committee that studied it and I know that the Bill submitted to the House at report stage, amended by serious consideration of all members of all Parties and in consultation with experts in the field, represented the viewpoint which I supported and endorsed.
At the time I was sorry that the Government did not take the initiative to make the Bill a government order so that we could indeed have sufficient time for all Hon. Members to ensure that the Bill was properly discussed. That was not done. I now find the House in a situation which is very difficult.
There are 25 amendments to this Bill and we have one hour to discuss them. It will be physically impossible. I do not criticize the Hon. Member for Ottawa Centre (Mr. Cassidy) for getting quite upset. It is impossible for the House to deal with these amendments by the Government, on the order of the Government, and by government members acting in concert with the government initiative. I therefore take great exception to this whole process.
I would hope that the Hon. Member for Ottawa West (Mr. Daubney) would withdraw his Bill. That is the only decent thing that can be done because the Bill has been absolutely torn up by the Government. As the Hon. Member for Ottawa Centre said, killer amendments will not help this Bill in any way.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I would hope that the House Leaders would be able to discuss this matter without discussing it now on the floor of the House of Commons because we have Orders of the Day to consider. The House Leaders could discuss the matter and then return to the Chamber and make the agreement. I do not think that this is the time to continue raising these points of order.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Parliamentary Secretary to the Government House Leader arising out of the Government House Leader's statement.
I would like to know what are the Government's intentions if by ten o'clock this evening or at ten o'clock this evening, Bill C-144, the child care Bill, has not yet reached the point of second reading. Will the Government call Bill C-144 tomorrow, or will it instead proceed to Bill C-130, the Bill to implement the trade deal?


Richard Grisé: Mr. Speaker, as the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Mazankowski) said a few minutes ago, we will now proceed with Bill C-144 and, if we find agreement in this House to conclude the second reading stage tonight, then-


Derek Nigel Ernest Blackburn: In one day?


Richard Grisé: If we conclude second reading tonight, as the Deputy Prime Minister said, we will deal with Bill C-144 followed by Bill C-130. I think it is very clear that the Deputy
Business of the House
Prime Minister said that we will deal with Bill C-144 followed by Bill C-130.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, on the same point, I am just seeking clarification. I appreciate what the Parliamentary Secretary has informed us, but the question is: if Bill C-144 is not completed at second reading stage before 10 o'clock tonight, what will be the business of the day tomorrow?


Richard Grisé: Mr. Speaker, once again, the Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap (Mr. Riis) is putting a hypothetical question. He is asking what will happen if Bill C-144 has not concluded second reading stage tonight. That will depend upon how many speakers rise and how Members of the House will react to that. We will act accordingly.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, this is totally preposterous. I would like to ask a question of the Parliamentary Secretary in simple, clear language. There are 50 amendments dealing with Bill C-130 before the House. We have until six o'clock tonight to table further amendments if members of the Opposition, or government members for that matter, so choose. It will be impossible for us to organize the day tomorrow if the Parliamentary Secretary does not come clean with us. For tomorrow, August 12, at ten o'clock, what does the Government intend to call as the order of business in the House of Commons? Will it be Bill C-144 or Bill C-130?


Richard Grisé: Mr. Speaker, I will repeat it in French, although I thought I made myself pretty clear. The Deputy Prime Minister said in the House a few moments ago, in his reply to the Liberal House Leader, that today we were considering Bill C-144, and that if we managed to finish second reading this evening, we would then proceed with Bill C-130. I have now said the same thing three times over, and this is the same information the Deputy Prime Minister gave the House a few moments ago.


Robert Phillip Kaplan: Mr. Speaker, the Parliamentary Secretary is playing a game with us. That might indicate to people following these debates why the Government has difficulty getting its business through the House. At the end of the day there are two possibilities. We might be continuing on Bill C-144, not having concluded second reading, or we might have concluded second reading. The difference is very important for this House.
We in our Party, like the NDP, have Members who want to participate in tomorrow's business if it is Bill C-144, and different Members if it is Bill C-130. The purpose of the Thursday question is to settle for the advantage of all Members what the score is, where we will be, who ought to be prepared to speak, and what the government order of business will be. Nothing can be clearer than the position which the

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Parliamentary Secretary put to us if we conclude second reading of Bill C-144 tonight. He has given a very clear answer to that. However, what if we do not? That is a possibility for which we want to be prepared.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The Deputy Prime Minister is in the House and he can answer that.


Robert Phillip Kaplan: We can have an orderly day in the House tomorrow-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The Chair is naturally the servant of the House, but I would hope that on a Thursday this type of discussion would take place with House Leaders in House Leaders negotiations.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: They do not. They are playing games.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The Deputy Prime Minister is here, and I am sure he will be able to clear it up.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I regret the confusion. I just walked into my office and watched the exchange going on. I can only assume from the comments made that it is the intention of the Opposition to filibuster Bill C-144, the child care Bill. That being the case we will call Bill C-130 tomorrow.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Does the Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap have any further remarks?


Nelson Andrew Riis: For clarification, Mr. Speaker, I believe we have heard that if the debate on Bill C-144 is not completed at second reading stage tonight then we will definitely be going to Bill C-130 tomorrow. All we were seeking was clarification so that we can plan. I take some offence at a lot of government Members yelling that we have to wait until tomorrow. We try to operate this place as effectively and efficiently as possible and to do that-


John Napier Turner: Oh, yes, of course! What did you do yesterday, you turkey?


Nelson Andrew Riis: -we have to have some indication of what is coming up.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Orders of the Day. A point of order?


Michael Morris Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, I have a question.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The NDP House Leader has straightened that out. I will listen to the Hon. Member for Ottawa Centre.


Michael Morris Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, I wanted to put this on the record. The Deputy Prime Minister suggested that the amendments put forward to Bill C-273 were what he called a caucus initiative, indicating that that was somehow different from a government initiative. I was trying to point out that on several occasions the Hon. Member for Ottawa West has raised this issue with his caucus, and while I was not present, I
understand his colleagues were quite happy to see that Bill go forward. What has changed-


Some Hon. Members:: Order.


Michael Morris Cassidy: -is that the Government has decided to intervene. The letter to my Leader, if I can continue-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: When Bill C-273 comes up for debate I hope the Hon. Member will bring that to my attention.


Michael Morris Cassidy: This is a matter of government business.


Some Hon. Members:: Order!


Michael Morris Cassidy: Without being announced as such, particularly when the Deputy Prime Minister writes to my Leader about it.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Orders of the day.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Epp (Provencher) that Bill C-144, an Act to authorize payments by Canada toward the provision of child care services, and to amend the Canada Assistance Plan in consequence thereof, be read the second time and referred to a legislative committee.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Before I recognize the Hon. Minister, earlier today during the course of debate on second reading of Bill C-144, the Hon. Member for Outremont proposed to move the following reasoned amendment on which the Chair reserved:
That the motion be amended by deleting all of the words after the word "That" and by substituting the following:
"This House objects to the principle of Bill C-144, an Act to authorize payments by Canada toward the provision of child care services, and to amend the Canada Assistance Plan in consequence thereof, which is to establish a program that does not provide access and services in all provinces and equal access to low and middle income families."
After consideration, the Chair finds a major procedural difficulty with the wording of the proposed amendment. As stated in Beauchesne's Fifth Edition, Citation 744(1), a reasoned amendment "must be declaratory of some principle adverse to, or differing from, the principles, policy or provisions of the Bill". In her amendment the Hon. Member simply indicates her objection to the principle of the Bill and, as indicated in Beauchesne's Citation 745(4), "an amendment which amounts to no more than a direct negation of the principle of the Bill is open to objection".
August 11, 1988

I must therefore rule the amendment out of order as it does not constitute a reasoned amendment and as it amounts, in its form, to an expanded negative.
May I point out to the Hon. Member and the House that the results sought by the amendment can be achieved by simply voting against the principle of the Bill, that is, by voting against the second reading motion. Furthermore, the Chair would like to remind the House that the text of a reasoned amendment should include words indicating that the House does not wish to give a Bill second reading. For that purpose, I refer Hon. Members to page 531 of Erskine May's Twentieth Edition.


Hon. Bernard Valcourt (Minister of State (Small Businesses and Tourism) and Minister of State (Indian Affairs and Northern Development)):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to address Bill C-144, the Canada Child Care Act. As my colleague, the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Epp), indicated, this Bill provides for implementation of the most important component of the national strategy on child care. It responds to the child care needs of Canadians with an innovative, flexible policy that is both generous and equitable. It represents a major move forward for children, parents, and families throughout the country.
Child care is probably one of the most pressing social issues facing legislators today. This Bill reflects this Government's strong commitment to improve the quality and quantity of care in all regions of the country. The Government will spend $6.4 billion on child care over the next seven years, and another $1 billion annually after that. This is a significant response to the realities of our society today and lays the foundation for an improved quality of life for the Canadian family in the future.
As Minister of State for Indian Affairs and Northern Development, I am especially pleased that the national strategy on child care has been expanded to recognize the special needs and concerns of Indian people. Indians must be full and productive participants in society if Canada is to go into the 21st century a more mature and stronger nation. Today a wide range of federal programs and services is provided to Indians. For example, CMHC has a rural and native housing program, DRIE's native economic development program, and CEIC's native internship program.
Mr. Speaker, Indians must also have access to child care, child care that is both flexible and affordable, so that they can concentrate on their jobs and improve their quality of life. As Hon. Members are aware, despite progress made in recent years, economic conditions in Indian communities lag behind the national average. This means that the ability of an Indian family to find good child care for its children while one or both parents work can be essential to that family's well being.
I am very glad to say that as a result of this Government's initiative, some 2,000 child care spaces for Indian children will
Canada Child Care Act
be created over six years, that is, for children living on reserves.
However, creating child care spaces according to the provincial model will not resolve a specifically Indian problem. Like all Canadians, Indians are very concerned about their children's well being, and anyone who visits Indian families living on reserves will see how important children are to those families. Child care must therefore meet safety and other standards while also respecting the social and cultural traditions of the group in question, in this case the Indians.
Mr. Speaker, Indian child care in Canada is underdeveloped. Most provincial governments have been reluctant to extend their programs to Indian reserves since they are, admittedly, a federal responsibility.
Only the Province of Ontario finances Indian child care through a contribution agreement with the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. On some reserves, bands have set up their own daycare, but such cases are few and far between.

The Government of Canada has a special relationship with Indian people living on reserves. It was in recognition of this relationship that Health and Welfare Canada, in consultation with the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, developed the special Indian component of the national strategy on child care. This component provides for an expenditure of $60 million over six years to develop and stimulate the growth of accredited child care services on reserves. This is the first time in Canada's history that such funds have been made available specifically to serve the needs of Indian children.
Although the administrative details of this initiative are yet to be worked out, the funding schedule has been set and some basic goals and principles have been established for the program. Beginning April 1, 1989, the Government of Canada will invest $5 million in each of the first two years of the program, $10 million in each of the third and fourth years, and $15 million in each of the final two years of the program. The funds will be administered by Health and Welfare Canada with assistance from Indian Affairs and Northern Development.
This money will be used to fund a number of significant pilot projects designed to determine exactly what is needed in terms of Indian child care and how to deliver that. It is anticipated that the program will create about 2,000 child care spaces over six years. Equally as important, it will help us establish how the Indian child care system should work.

Mr. Speaker, obviously Indians will be fully consulted on the implementation of this program in their communities, as will the provinces. Since this Government came to power, we have always taken this approach, and we intend to start consultations in the very near future.

August 11, 1988
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Mr. Speaker, we have reason to expect that the program will develop in such a way that Indians will be able to exercise direct control over a child care system that is also in line with our approach to the provision of services to Indians.
Our primary objective will be to create services, with and for Indians, which respect Indians values, traditions and culture. Indian child care should not merely reflect the kind of system established by the provinces. It will be thoroughly Indian, while meeting current standards for health, safety, child-staff ratios, staff accreditation and licensing.

I want to emphasize that Indians will continue to have access to the $100 million child care initiative fund, another important element of the Government's national strategy on child care. Among other things, the child care initiative fund supports applied research and demonstration projects which address the needs of certain groups in society. Indians have been designated as one of the target groups for this research and plans are already under way for a major study of child care on Indian reserves.
The fund will help child care training institutions develop course materials which are sensitive to Indian culture and Indians will be encouraged to participate in this special training.
The national strategy on child care is more wide ranging and flexible than any such program ever offered by a federal Government. Today's generation of Indian children must become full and productive partners in the Canada of tomorrow. I am sure that Hon. Members of this House can contribute meaningfully to that future by giving this legislation unqualified support and speedy passage.


Robert Phillip Kaplan: Mr. Speaker, for us in the Official Opposition the idea of child care is obviously important. It is an idea whose time has certainly come. How can the Minister possibly consider that his Government has responded to the promise it made in the last election campaign with this program which was not introduced in the four years of its normal mandate and will only create 200,000 additional day care spaces in the coming four-year period when the need, which is recognized by the Government I believe, is for one million additional child care spaces? With the good times which Canada has known in the last four years and the problem which the Government has recognized, how can it say that 200,000 additional spaces to be created over the next four years is an adequate response?


Bernard Valcourt: Mr. Speaker, I am not surprised by the statement made by the spokesman for the Liberal Party. Canadians must find that strange. Kids were not born in this country on September 4, 1984, for the first time. We have had children in Canada for a long, long time. As far as I can recollect no Liberal Government ever even attempted to create such a program as we have for the parents of Canada.
We know where the Liberal Party stands on many issues. On the issue of child care it says that this is not enough. Of course anyone can make that argument. The issue today is whether this Bill provides a good program for Canadian parents and their children.
Liberals and socialists do not consult. They tell people what they need. Our Government has listened to the people. A task force has studied this and spoken to people. There are, of course, certain vocal groups who say that this is not enough. They would rather spend $14 billion and tell Canadians that that is what they will receive. That is not the Conservative way. The Conservative Government respects people and respects what they want.
People want a choice and that is what this Bill does. Canadians will not be forced into anything specific for which they do not have a choice. That is what this program is all about.
Our Government wants to implement this Bill. It is on our agenda. Yesterday, the Hon. Member's leader was in the House telling Canadians and the Prime Minister that we should call an election. We have not even had four years in government. Today they complain that we have not yet adopted child care.
If the Liberals were in government we would not even be discussing child care for Canadians because they would be on vacation or campaigning for an election. I find it very strange that he accuses us of bringing in this measure in the fourth year of our mandate. We have accomplished many things in those four years. We could have done it the Liberal way and ran measures down the throats of Canadians. Instead, we have consulted with Canadians. We have used an approach in which we are sure that Canadians support us.


Robert Phillip Kaplan: Mr. Speaker, thank you for giving me an opportunity to come back to the thin soup served by the Minister in answer to that question.
The Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney), three times during Question Period, was content to put forward what he considered to be comparisons between his Government and the former Government. The Minister has done the same thing. I do not think they should hope to be able to continue living in the past. That will not be good enough for Canadians, to hear them criticizing the former Government as a way of seeking applause for their Government's record.
The times have changed and the Official Opposition has changed. An example is the policies we have developed on South Africa in light of events over the last few years. It is ridiculous for the Government to continue living in the past and acting as if Canadians will be satisfied to have comparisons between this terrible Government and the former Government.
August 11, 1988

There was no answer to my question. Does he really believe the Government has fulfilled its campaign promise by providing in the fourth year of its mandate a program that will only deliver 200,000 additional child care spaces spread out over the next four years when the need today is for a million spaces?


Bernard Valcourt: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member talks about living in the past. He wants Canadians to believe that the Liberal Party is living in the present and the future. Canadians will see for themselves.
I am a Member from the Province of New Brunswick and I remember the past with the Liberal Government almost bankrupting the country. Today we hear that 200,000 spaces is not enough. It means that we would need more money to put into this program. It could require some $10 billion or $14 billion, but the Liberals do not care about the future. They did not mind almost bankrupting the country. We had terrible unemployment rates across Canada. They had a deficit of $38 billion. The Hon. Member believes that Canadians will trust the Liberal Party with the finances of Canada.
The Hon. Member asks whether this measure fulfills our promise to Canadians. Yes, it does.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Mr. Speaker, under the current day care policy we would have produced more day care spaces in six years than this proposal before us will produce in seven years. Will the Minister tell us why the House and Canadians should approve such a retrogressive step? Why should we be pleased with this legislation that will produce less day care spaces than the existing program?


Bernard Valcourt: Mr. Speaker, they would impose on Canadians something they do not want. Socialists do not care what people think; they have all the answers. They have the corner on principles, on virtue, and on truth. We know what they are suggesting with their universal system. It would be to ram through a system on Canadians, without giving them a choice. Canadians have told us otherwise, and we have answered accordingly.


Lucie Pépin: Mr. Speaker, I would like to tell the Fisheries Minister that he is spouting fine words, instead of answering and stating the facts correctly. I would like to tell him that twenty years ago, it was difficult to set up day care centres because women had four children on average and worked at home. In the last twenty years, the model of the traditional family has changed.
When the need became apparent, studies were done by Rosie Abella and Katie Cook, but the Conservative Government, when it took power, shelved them and set up another committee, which I was on. However, the Conservative Government has not even answered some of the recommendations made in the report of this all-party committee.
Canada Child Care Act
So he says, "What do Canadians want?" Well, I am telling you: they want accessibility for all children from low- and middle-income families and they want quality services.
I would like the Minister to tell us what his Government will do with the new Bill to provide access for all children from low- and middle-income families, when this is not mentioned at all and no priority is given to this kind of family. So what will his Government do for these families in 1988?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The Hon. Minister's time has expired, but I will allow him to answer the question.


Bernard Valcourt: I will be brief, Mr. Speaker. The Hon. Member asks me what the Government has done for families in 1988. It introduced Bill C-144 and contributed more than $6 billion for a child care system to be set up in cooperation with the provincial governments throughout Canada. That is what the Government. . .
Look, Mr. Speaker, I understand that the Liberal Party is sorry that it cannot claim authorship for this major social program, but that is what Canadians decided in 1984 when they gave us a mandate.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Questions and comments are concluded. Debate. The Hon. Member for York Centre (Mr. Kaplan).


Robert Phillip Kaplan: Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed being able to participate briefly in the question and comment session with the Hon. Minister about this child care program. When he was pressed on the question of whether he considered the program the Government is delivering today to be adequate fulfilment of the Government's promise to Canadians during the last election, he said "yes". This program will create 200,000 additional day care spaces in the Canadian stock of all day care spaces, including private and public, over a seven-year period.
During the last election campaign, Canadians, particularly the millions of women in the Canadian population, were promised an adequate, comprehensive day care program.
In my riding alone, the day care shortfall today is 20,000 spaces. That means that one-tenth of this magnificent program delivered by the Government to the millions of women to whom it promised adequate child care is needed in one small corner of Metropolitan Toronto. This is not an adequate program.
It is very significant that the program is being delivered today. It is very significant that at the beginning of this debate the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) of Canada stood outside in the hall telling the media that the Government had fulfilled its promise to the women of Canada in delivering this child care program. I think the Government saying that our

August 11, 1988
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determination to debate this Bill until the end of today constituted a filibuster is also significant. Why is it a filibuster? This is the first day the subject has been debated in this House of Commons. It is a one-day debate about a $6 billion program that the Government claims delivers on one of its major promises. We have been brought back in the middle of the summer with an election call, we hope, coming very soon. This Bill has been put on the menu and we are told we have to finish the debate on second reading by the end of the day or we will be accused of filibustering.


Margaret Anne Mitchell: Filibustering after two hours.


Robert Phillip Kaplan: We will be accused of filibustering after only two hours as my friend from Vancouver observes. I think that is easy to understand. The Government does not want this matter to be fully debated. It does not want the Canadian people to see what I call the thin suit of its day care program in the light of parliamentary debate and examination. The Government wants a one-liner. It wants to be able to say it delivered on a promise to establish a comprehensive day care program in Canada, and the less said about it, the better, because when we look at this program we find it is a pathetic farce and fraud. It is a particular fraud on the women of Canada. They are the ones for whom this program is the most meaningful.
Members opposite like to blame all their shortcomings on the former Government. I was a Minister in the former government and I was proud of it. However, we were not a government that was in a position to deliver the programs required by this country for all time. The need for day care is something that snuck up on the people of Canada and on successive governments. We were not as sensitive as we should have been in the past, and I mean all of us, to the situation of women. We did not recognize until very recently that what we thought was the typical family was very far from the typical family. A typical family, we thought, was one where one of the spouses, the wife, in most cases, was at home looking after the children. If she was not, she was out working to provide fulfilling activity for herself, to enrich her life and to provide some extra spending money to supplement the earnings of the main bread-winner, the husband. But anyone who thinks that is the typical family today has a lot to learn and one can learn it in my riding and in any other riding in our country.
The fact is that there are very few families where there is a spouse living at home and keeping the home fires going as the main occupation. Women are working and in a lot of cases they are the only wage earner in the family. They are the bread-winner. They are working to support their families and we are tying a hand behind their backs by not having an adequate day care program.
Until medicare was established, we caused suffering in Canada by not having such a program. Medicare is now a program equally meaningful to men and women. Day care is not. I think we should be blunt about recognizing that part of the reason for the delay in bringing in day care was the fact that this place was mainly peopled by men with the perspective that did not recognize the actual facts of family life and the terrible burden carried by women in our society. I see this, if
not during the rest of the year, in election campaigns, when I make a point of being at bus-stops and subway stations at six-thirty in the morning when people in my riding are going to work on a typical day. I see the women, not the men, leading young children to whatever kind of day care arrangements they have been able to make so they can go out and make a living in order to keep their families going.
The Minister has the nerve to say that Canada cannot afford a better day care program than a measly 200,000 additional spaces to be created over the next five years. That man should be ashamed of himself when he makes such a statement like that about the economic and social needs of our society and about the simple question of social justice in the field of day care. To wait until a hot summer day, probably hours before an election will be called, to try to twist our arms so that we do not have time to tell the Canadian people the truth about this fraudulent effort to validate a campaign promise is too much. I do not think we should let the Bill go through today even though it is an important measure and even though I would rather have 200,000 additional day care spaces than none.
We cannot let this Bill go through without letting the Canadian people hear what is wrong with it. In the last election campaign, three big beautiful promises were made to the Canadian people about day care by each of the national Parties. The Liberals made their promise as well as the New Democratic Party and the Conservatives. Each was different. I was interested in the subject, and I am glad to be able to speak today, because it is the most important issue in my riding, in my opinion.
The issue of day care can bring out on a day's notice a large crowd of people, mainly women, with babies in their arms, with problems they are looking at the legislators of this country to solve. We have seen this in the front pages of the newspapers in Toronto over the last few days as a municipal government tries to cope with the delivery of a social service without adequate help, without comprehensive help, from the federal Government. Yet the municipal government, which mainly draws its revenue from property taxes is continuing to provide the level of service it did in the past, although a low level, at great difficulty to its own tax base.
I am not saying it is easy to finance a day care program for Canada, but it is important. It is essential and the sensible economic development of our country requires that we do it.
The promises of each of the political Parties were different and only one of those Parties won the last election. The Conservatives won with 211 Members of Parliament. That promise was what meant the most in my riding. I think people were expecting that when the Conservatives were elected they would deliver a universal, comprehensive day care program that would solve the problem the way the old age pension has solved the problem of our senior citizens being the poorest Canadians in our society-they were before but they are no longer-and the way in which medicare solved the problem of poor people and people in poor regions not being able to afford proper medical care. Medicare solved that problem. People expected that a strong Conservative Government with a sacred trust to keep would have delivered that program.
August 11, 1988

Our program, which I hope I will have time to talk about in a moment, was not brought forward because we were not the government. The NDP program, which I do not agree with, but which would have done a lot more than the program delivered by the Government, is on the shelf because the NDP did not form the Government either. The Government frittered away its majority and its claim on five years or four years of control of the House to deliver a comprehensive day care program. In the dying hours of Parliament we have a pathetic attempt by the Government to make the women and the people of the country think that it is fulfilling a campaign promise that we expected would be fulfilled five years since.

I wish to pay tribute to my colleague, the Hon. Member for Outremont (Mrs. Pepin), our child care critic who has worked very hard for the past four years, on all the reviews requested by the Government, all the committees that drafted their reports and were directed by the Government to proceed with a review of the work they had already done. The Hon. Member finally produced a report which we in the Official Opposition have adopted as our own.

I am proud to have circulated the Official Opposition's proposals on child care. They are comprehensive and they cost a lot more than the ones before us today, but they will work and give us a day care program; not the type of program that the NDP have talked about which is delivered in state-owned institutions to children across the country, and not a program which forces the closure of day care programs run by women in their homes in my riding. As far as we are concerned, for profit types of day care centres are perfectly acceptable. In the Liberal Party we have no objection ideologically to entrepreneurs who believe that they can deliver a good day care program and make money at it. In our view there is absolutely nothing objectionable to that. In fact, we propose to stimulate their activities by providing government funds to them under circumstances that I have described.


Margaret Anne Mitchell: Misuse of tax dollars.


Robert Phillip Kaplan: The NDP consider that a misuse of funds. I hope that we will be talking about that in the next election campaign. Certainly day care will still be an issue in the next election campaign. Perhaps the Conservatives will have nothing more to say about it except to claim that they did what they promised. In my riding, in Toronto, and in places where people have turned their backs on the Conservatives, they will be wanting to know what type of real, serious, effective day care programs will be introduced after the next election when hopefully a Party other than that presently on your right, Mr. Speaker, will have the opportunity to keep some of its promises on the subject of day care.
I have talked about the inadequacy of the day care program delivered by the Government. One other fundamental difficulty with that program is that it does not establish national standards. The Government revels in the concept of consultation and how wonderful it is to consult with the provinces and
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to consult with the groups in society that are interested in an issue. That is motherhood, and it is easy to agree with. Even the former Government recognized that consultation was desirable. It is not a contradiction of the concept of consultation to also advance the concept of leadership.
Canadians expect the Government to provide leadership, and expect Parliament to provide leadership. They particularly expect it when we are talking about money being spent through the Government that has been raised from the Canadian people. We have taken their money through taxes and we have established a priority. The basic principle of democratic accountability requires us to provide some leadership in the area in which we are turning over that money to be spent, whether by provincial governments, day care agencies, or whatever it is. We must establish some standards. After all, we are using the money received from the voters. We have to be accountable for some type of standard.
This Government does not understand or agree with that fundamental principle. It feels it is enough to say how it feels and then to write cheques across the country and let those who get the money deliver the program or a substitute for the program at whatever level they consider proper. I do not think that Canadians want that type of federal government. In a country with such a diversity as ours in economic standards the Canadian people want Parliament to set objectives or to set standards for the child care program. We want to support a national level in as many areas of Canadian life as possible, and certainly in those areas where we are turning over federal taxpayers' money to keep programs going.
I deplore the feature of this day care program which does not establish any standards. It says to the provinces: "It's your jurisdiction. You may establish programs. Here is some money, we hope that you will spend it wisely". We ought to do better than that, and Canadians expect us to do better than that. Failure to show leadership in this area and in many other areas is a reason why Canadians are turning their backs on the Conservatives and why their standing is as low as it is with the Canadian people.
I want to share with people in the House the dilemma that one has on how to vote on second reading of a measure as bad as this. We support child care. We want to see federal tax dollars and federal standards and objectives established in this area of child care. The Government has brought forward a measure which we feel is a political fraud because it does not deliver an effective universal child care program. Yet the Government will characterize it as such. Therefore, it is a dilemma. We want to indicate to the Canadian people that we support child care. We want to see this $6.4 billion spent in the area of child care. With our recent amendment put forward by the Hon. Member for Outremont (Mrs. Pepin), which was not found to be in order, we wanted to demonstrate that this program is terribly lacking. I hope that in the speeches that will be delivered by members of the Official Opposition we will be able to indicate that we want the $6.4 billion to be spent over the next seven years. We want more to be spent. We do not approve of a program that is so woefully inadequate and so fraudulent in political terms.

August 11, 1988
Canada Child Care Act


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Questions and comments, the Elon. Member for Vancouver East (Ms. Mitchell).


Margaret Anne Mitchell: Mr. Speaker, 1 have a number of questions. I obviously do not have enough time for them, but I would like to, first of all, clarify a couple of points that the Member made. I must say that I am surprised to see this Member, whom I have a great deal of respect for, repeating some of the misinformation that the Minister himself is promoting regarding the NDP policy. First of all, does he not realize that non-profit day care, which is what we advocate, is not the same as government institutions? There could be public day care as well. We have no objection to that. I wish that he would check into that and clarify that non-profit societies are quite a different thing than government institutions. We are saying that we believe that federal money should go to child care that is not for profit. On the other hand, we are not opposed to commercial day care, providing it is self-sustaining. If parents want to use it and pay fees for it, fine. We are not saying that it should not be commercial. We are saying that it should not be supported by tax dollars. I wish he would be more clear about that.
We are also very much in favour of in-home day care. We want women in the home or people in the home to be licensed as family day care homes, so that they will have decent pay in order to have the chance for all the resources and support that they need. They will have money to get fences and everything will be prepared the way it should be. There would be good quality family day care homes, not just baby-sitting with kids plunked in front of a TV set. If parents still want to use casual informal care, that is their right. We should not be paying federal money. I wanted to clarify those points first.
I will now get to my question. The former Minister, who is well informed on matters of justice, mentioned the question of national objectives. I do not agree with what he was saying and what the Liberals keep saying about national standards. It is not the role of the federal Government to establish standards in areas that are provincial jurisdiction. This was analysed over and over again in our committee, with considerable expertise on this.
In both medicare and health and welfare, the question of standards are a provincial jurisdiction, but certainly those standards should be based on principles. I would ask him to clarify a little bit more the significance of not having national objectives. Also, does he feel, as I do, that the Government seems to be trying to push this particular social program-the only new social program that we have had for many, many years-through before Meech Lake is applied, and has deliberately not put in "the national objectives", which would be required under the Meech Lake Accord?
There is no statement of principles on which provinces would be required to base their standards. There is also no enforcement mechanism as we have in medicare. I wonder if he would comment further on that and if he has any suggestions as to how this should be developed in a way that is closer to the medicare model.


Robert Phillip Kaplan: Mr. Speaker, I am glad the Hon. Member got up and stated the NDP policy in her own way, because she can certainly state it better than I can, and I accept her statement of her own policy. I am glad also that I can emphasize a very important difference that emerges between the NDP and the Liberals on this subject. That is, we do not think that for-profit operations are bad. We think that they may be entitled to receive support from the taxpayers if they are prepared to meet the standard of the programs-


Margaret Anne Mitchell: You better read the studies.


Robert Phillip Kaplan: The Member is indicating that the studies may show that there is something wrong with some of the profit day care centres, but that may be all the more reason why the federal Government ought to turn to them, or to turn to them through the provinces, and encourage them, with tax dollars, to do something. For the life of me, I do not accept as a principle-and I know that the NDP do-that when something is run for profit it is not going to be run as well as something that is non-profit.


Margaret Anne Mitchell: Where does the profit come from?


Robert Phillip Kaplan: I think that profit and the opportunity to make profit assures an efficient operation. Now, efficiency-


Margaret Anne Mitchell: Read the studies. That is not true.


Robert Phillip Kaplan: I did not interrupt the Hon. Member while she was speaking. Efficiency can be a very desirable component of any operation. There is nothing wrong with having an operation more efficient, providing that it is delivering the goods. If day care can be delivered efficiently by entrepreneurs and profit produced at the bottom line, I do not think that we should turn our backs on it. I think in fact it has a lot to commend it. That is the difference between the way that the Liberals look at things and the way that the NDP look at them.
The Hon. Member made a comment about standards. She does not feel-and I am shocked to hear it-that it is the place of the federal Government to set standards. Well, maybe the difference between us is semantic. I do not mean by standard precise definitions, ceiling heights of rooms where day care centres are to be established, or fire regulations or things like that. I recognize that these are matters which are very regionalized across our country. To try to specify construction materials and size and shape, and even hours, can be totally out of whack with local standards in a particular community.
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But I insist that it should be the part of the federal Government, wanting to provide leadership, and hopefully a government does want to provide leadership, to set as much of a national standard as it can. We have done this to a degree in medicare, a degree that I think we can be quite proud of. We have not only made sure that high quality medicare is available right across our country, in poor parts of our country and in well-off parts of our country, but that it is accessible, wherever it is found, to poor people and to people who are well off. That is the kind of national standard or national objective that I would like to see.
Finally, the Elon. Member wanted me to comment on the Meech Lake idea about opting out, I suppose, of a shared-cost program. I hope that this would be a program where all the provinces would want to participate. The question of opting out and sharing costs and having different programs and getting compensation for them would not arise. That, after all, is a matter for the federal Government to negotiate. If the federal Government goes about it in a sensible way and has the support of the Canadian people, I do not see why provinces would want to opt out and to provide programs of their own that might be different and lead to the test of whether they meet national objectives or not.
In other words, I would like to see programs rather than references to the Supreme Court of Canada about the interpretation of Meech Lake.
Mis. Copps: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Hon. Member whether, in his assessment of the situation in his own community, the excessive demand in the City of Toronto, for example, where they have more than 1,000 children on a waiting list, trying to get into available spaces, this program will in any way alleviate that incredible demand.


Robert Phillip Kaplan: 1 am glad that the Hon. Member asked me about Toronto, because she is an expert not only in Toronto but in Hamilton as well. I did my own research on the subject and found that the demand in my riding of York Centre, unfilled, is for 20,000 additional day care spaces. That is just for one riding, one corner, of the municipality of Metropolitan Toronto. Those 20,000 spaces are needed now, not spread out over the next four years.
We have a program that delivers to our whole country
200,000	spaces, and over the next seven years you will see the total inadequacy of it. I do not think that the Government deserves our co-operation in rubber stamping this Bill by ten o'clock tonight so that they can go out to the country and claim that they fulfilled a promise.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Questions and comments are now terminated. Debate. The Hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Works (Mrs. Martin).
Canada Child Care Act


Mrs. Shirley Martin (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Public Works):: Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise and to take part in this debate about something that is very close to me, having chaired the parliamentary committee on child care, along with the Hon. Member for Vancouver East (Ms. Mitchell) and the Hon. Member for Outremont (Mrs. Pepin), who have already spoken on this subject. As the Hon. Member for York Centre (Mr. Kaplan) said, we cannot let this go through without the facts being heard, and without hearing what is wrong with the Bill. I think it is time that some of facts are put on the record to correct what has been said by Members opposite.
The Hon. Member for Vancouver East commented in her speech this morning that I was not present in the House to listen to what she had to say. I can assure her that I was listening to what she had to say through the medium of television which we happen to have in this place. I would like to correct some of the things that she said.
The Hon. Member mentioned that two million children under the age of 14 have parents who are working. She also said this included parents who work not only full time but 20 hours a week or are studying for 20 hours a week. Two million children under the age of 14 do not all need licensed day care spaces. Parents who work 20 hours a week may be working three or four hours a day. One spouse can be working while the other is at home looking after their child. People can also be working when their child is in school. Let us not mislead people by saying two million children under the age of 14 need licensed day care spaces.


Margaret Anne Mitchell: I did not say that.


Cyril Keeper: Do not mislead the people.


Shirley Martin: I am not misleading people. I am commenting on what was said this morning.


David Orlikow: That is not what the Member for Vancouver East said.


Shirley Martin: Perhaps when the "blues" come in we can check that-


David Orlikow: You need new glasses.


Shirley Martin: I am not using glasses-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Order. The Hon. Member will have plenty of time to ask questions or make comments. I hope he will show some courtesy to the Hon. Parliamentary Secretary.

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Canada Child Care Act


Shirley Martin: Mr. Speaker, it is apparent the New Democrats do not like to hear the truth.
I would like to go on with something else that was mentioned. Only 11.5 per cent of these children can be assured of quality licensed care. I take a little bit of exception to that because the Member said that other children are in the care of relatives, neighbours, nannies, or baby-sitters and are in unreliable care. I do not believe the care of a grandmother, a neighbour or a nanny is necessarily unreliable care.


Margaret Anne Mitchell: I did not say that either.


Shirley Martin: I come from a single parent family. When I was seven years old my father died and I was raised by a single parent mother. Fortunately, I had a very loving mother who gave me good care. I know what it is like to be a child of a single parent. I also worked when my two children were born. I had to work throughout their upbringing and used care outside of the home as well as within the home. I was fortunate in that my husband shared that care with me. He looked after the children while I was at work and I looked after them when he was at work. I had the help of family and I also had to use outside care. It was licensed care and it was not non-profit care but it was care given by a very loving woman because she cared for children. Yes, she made a profit but that did not mean the care was any less. So I have been involved in some of what we are talking about today.
I really find it difficult when so much is being said that care cannot be good care unless it is non-profit licensed care. Care, and good care, comes from the people giving that care. It does not matter whether people are getting paid for it through a non-profit system or a profit system, they are doing it out of the love of caring for children. They are doing it as a neighbour for maybe minimal dollars. Nobody looks after children because they want an easy job. Nobody looks after children just to make money. You cannot look after children unless you really care about them. If you care about children you care about the quality of the care given to them.
The Hon. Member for Vancouver East went on to say that Tory Members on the child care committee favoured the traditional family. I do not make any apologies for saying that we favoured the traditional family. We recognize that we have traditional families still in this country. Traditional families also have needs as far as raising children are concerned and have to be included in any policy that we set.
Most single parents in this country are in that position by circumstance, not necessarily by choice. They need help in raising children. The legislation before us will continue to give them the help with the care they need. The legislation also recognizes that parents who are at home require help. It also recognizes that where two parents work and are paying for their child care they deserve some recognition for the dollars they pay out. This legislation recognizes the cost of child care and allows parents to make the choice of and how they will
care for their children. It also recognizes that when those children are under school age that cost of care is more expensive. They should, therefore, have a higher tax allowance. We have done that.
The Member went on to say that the Tories on the committee said that quality was not needed. That is not true. We all agreed, unanimously, on the committee that quality was very important. Where we disagreed is how that quality could be delivered. I mentioned earlier that quality is delivered by caring people in the child care field whether or not it is for profit. The Hon. Member for Vancouver East and the Hon. Member for Outremont would have to agree that as we crossed this country and visited 31 cities in every province and the territories, in the small towns and large towns, we listened to what the people of Canada wanted as far as the care of their children was concerned. Quality was definitely one of the items they were looking for. Quality came in many different ways and certainly was not synonymous with non-profit licensed care.
The Member also mentioned that we took $2.3 billion away from services. We did not take $2.3 billion away from services. We took $2.3 billion and have directed it to parents to allow them to care for their children and meet their responsibilities in raising them. They can decide how they want to raise their children. While we directed to parents $2.3 billion through the tax system, we also invested some $4 billion to provide additional day care spaces. All I have heard so far in this debate is that we are limiting growth to 200,000 spaces. It needs to be said that we are directing subsidized funding to create 200,000 spaces that we will share with the provinces, spaces to help those who cannot pay for their own child care. That is only growth in the subsidized spaces, not in total child care spaces in this country. For those people who can afford child care and can pay for it out of their own pocket, that space is not one of the 200,000.
As the Hon. Member for York Centre (Mr. Kilgour) said, he sees nothing wrong with the profit side of the picture coming into child care. If the need is there, entrepreneurs will create the spaces for children and supply those spaces. We heard from some excellent people who had turned their homes into child care centres. Some had 10 or 12 children in them and some had as few as 5. They provided good care. The entrepreneurs are not large chain systems which do not care about children. Entrepreneurs are neighbours, friends and relatives who care about children and are willing to go into the market to provide spaces for children.
Then the Member mentioned that there was no provision for latchkey children. The Hon. Member knows better than that. There is nothing in the legislation that restricts the beginning or the continuance of after-school and pre-school programs. It is part of the over-all child care provisions in the provinces.
August 11, 1988

The Province of Quebec has a system in which the school boards themselves are involved. For other provinces provide the space is provided for child care within the school system but the programs are run by the parents, by non-profit organizations and in some cases by for-profit organizations.
The spaces are there to look after children pre and postschool and they will continue to grow. Under the $100 million initiative fund, which no one on the opposition side has bothered to mention, the total federal dollars that have gone into the care of children, can be used to improve methods for caring for so-called latchkey children. Again, the numbers are inflated in that in many cases, parents may work during school hours but are at home when their children come home from school. We are not dealing with the total number of figures that are being played with in this debate.
The Hon. Member for Vancouver East and the Hon. Member for Outremont would also agree that the committee listened to Canadians, not necessarily to people within the House but to Canadians from coast to coast, people who had a very definite interest in coming to the committee to tell us what they felt. Those people said that they do not want the school system to look after latchkey children, they want space within the school. They did not want a curriculum that continues on after three or three-thirty when the children get out of school. They said they wanted space within the schools so that they could run child care programs that meet the needs of the children when they are finished a day in school.
The last thing a child wants when the bell rings at three o'clock is to go into another regimented curriculum after school. They need to let off steam. If they are anything like my boys, they need to let off an awful lot of steam. It is this type of flexibility, recognizing the differences across the country and the need to meet them, that this Bill addresses.
The strategy provides funding for the provinces to deliver child care services under their jurisdictions. We have not intruded upon their jurisdictions whatsoever. As far as standards are concerned, the Hon. Member for Outremont mentioned that there are no standards in place. The Bill provides that the provinces must have standards in place and that they must publicize these standards as well as the methods for their enforcement. There are arrangements to ensure that standards are put into place by the provinces.
The Hon. Member for Vancouver East also mentioned that the provinces would be encouraged to use the dollars for poor quality care. I do not believe that the governments of the provinces, no matter what Parties they represent, care so little about children that they would bring in services of poor quality. They too have to answer to the electorate. They have to answer to the parents. More than that, they have to answer to their own consciences. I cannot believe that the Government of any province would be encouraged to use dollars for poor quality service.
Canada Child Care Act
We are working together with the provinces in providing care for the children of Canada. We know from our many tours across Canada and from the people to whom we have listened that people want flexibility. This legislation has addressed the service side of it by putting $4 billion into additional subsidized care spaces for those parents who cannot provide full payment for child care services.
The strategy provides tax measures that allow parents who can pay for child care to realize some return on those dollars that they are putting into the system, providing wages and dollars toward supplies that are required. We have increased the present $2,000 deduction for child care services to $4,000 for pre-schoolers. After that, the tax deduction continues but it remains at $2,000 unless a child is disabled, in which case it remains at $4,000. We have addressed the concerns of parents who are paying for child care services.
Then we come to the parent at home. We could not do as much for the parent at home as we may have liked to do. The parent at home stays at home out of a desire to be in the home with the child. A woman who has a career may come to the point in her life where she must ask what is more important to her as an individual, can she stay home with her child or must she continue to work? That is a very difficult decision for a parent to make, whether it be a father's, a mother's or a joint family decision that is made.
We have tried to recognize the choice these parents make by offering an additional $200 per child that is at home with his or her parent. It may not be enough in some people's eyes. It is certainly not intended as a replacement for wages that might have been earned, but it is a recognition that parents make a conscious decision to stay home and raise children.
In looking back on my life, I worked when my children were young and I only wish that I had been in a position to spend more time with them. I can honestly say that if I had the chance to do it over again, that is probably what I would do. I admire the women who have to make the decision about being in the workforce or staying at home. It is not an easy decision to make, but with this legislation we are attempting to make that decision a little easier to make.
We cannot help all people in all situations, but we can certainly help by working with parents, with care givers and with provincial Governments to ensure that the children of Canada who are our greatest resource receive the care that they truly deserve. I feel that this legislation will do that. It would be nice to be able to do more. There is still more to be done with parental leave which, as the Hon. Member for Vancouver East mentioned, was something that we were unanimous on during the committee hearings. We need to have changes there.
I think we have made headway. We have shown leadership by forming the committee, the first all-parliamentary committee. We listened to 2,000 people across Canada. Because we listened to the people, we have come up with legislation that we feel meets the majority of the needs. Therefore, I move:

August 11, 1988
Canada Child Care Act
That this question now be put.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some Hon. Members:: No.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Debate, with the Hon. Member for Brant (Mr. Blackburn).


Derek Nigel Ernest Blackburn: Mr. Speaker, I find it difficult to trust people around this place sometimes in terms of the length of debate. I have to assume that if a Member is allowed 20 minutes to speak, the Member would want to use the 20 minutes.


Margaret Anne Mitchell: Point of order.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: There is no necessity for putting the question. We are carrying on with the debate.


Margaret Anne Mitchell: Mr. Speaker, I wondered if you had omitted the 10-minute question period of the last speaker.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: There are questions and comments. I will recognize the Hon. Member for Edmonton-Strathcona (Mr. Kilgour) for questions and comments and I then I will recognize the Hon. Member for Winnipeg North Centre


Mr. Kilgour:: Mr. Speaker, I thank the Hon. Member for her thoughtful speech. Would she explain how she sees the essential differences between our proposals and those of the two opposition Parties? Perhaps she could explain for my benefit how we will be helping single parents. She understands the matter far better than I do.


Shirley Martin: Mr. Speaker, under the current child care legislation, the Canada Assistance Plan, single parents who are not able to pay for child care are eligible for assistance on a dollar basis and in some cases 100 per cent care. Sometimes it is on a percentage of income basis. To give you an example, we visited a child care centre here in Ottawa which had 44 children in its care. The care of only four of those children was paid for by the parents. The other 40 were subsidized by the Government.
I might mention that as we crossed the country one of the things we heard from parents, advocates, and specialists in the field, was that they wanted to see child care taken out of the Canada Assistance Plan and governed by its own Act. That is exactly what this Government has done. Child care is covered by its own Act so we can be sure the money goes toward child care.
Under this legislation subsidies will still exist. If you have a single parent who cannot afford to pay for the care of her child and she wants to get back into the workforce to improve herself and provide an income to support her children, the
Government can still assist her with the cost of child care through local social service agencies in her community. That has not changed. In fact, it is improved by the fact that not only can the dollars be provided, the federal Government is willing to pay 75 per cent of the cost of creating new child care spaces. That does not exist under CAP. I might explain that a bit further. This does not involve simply creating a brand new child care centre in a building. It means that if you have a child care centre which can perhaps accommodate only 12 children, and it wants to expand, then 75 per cent of the cost of improving that centre and creating additional spaces can be paid.
It also means that if a parent wants to spend her time with her child and has decided that she can help other mothers by taking children in, in other words an unlicensed facility, which the Hon. Member for Vancouver East has some concern about, that parent could apply to become a licensed centre and receive capital funding to add whatever is necessary to her home to turn it into a licensed child care facility. That is going one step further in that as a licensed facility she can provide receipts to the parent who will then be entitled to a tax deduction. It may mean putting a fence around the facility. It may mean adding an extra washroom in order to meet standards. Standards do exist. There has been discussion about whether standards exist. They do. In short, 75 per cent of the capital cost for expanding or creating facilities is available to the small entrepreneur, not necessarily just for the large child care centre.
By the same token, if someone comes forward and says they want to put in a 35 space child care centre they can draw up a business plan and under this legislation we could provide 75 per cent of the capital cost. I think that is very important to creating additional spaces.
Single parents are being looked after in a different way, too. A lot of parents, primarily single parents need assistance with parenting skills. In many cases they need someone to talk to. Under the $100 million initiative fund there are plans to help groups that can offer help in parenting skills.
Another thing that the capital dollars can be used for is toys. Many of these children come from single parent homes which do not have the funding and the children do not have toys. They need toys, including educational toys, to help develop their learning skills. The money can be spent to make sure there is a proper kind of educational toys not only in the larger centres but in the smaller family centres as well.
There is a lot there for the single parent and I am glad the Hon. Member asked me that question because I think it is important that it be clarified.


Cyril Keeper: Mr. Speaker, I am in a bit of a dilemma and I seek your guidance. I have a specific question I want to ask but I know that my colleague, our day care critic, also has a
August 11, 1988

question for the Eton. Member and she would like to go first. Is it possible to accommodate us?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I would be more than delighted to let her ask her question. We have only a couple of minutes left so you can split it up the way you want. Is the Hon. Member giving up his time?


Margaret Anne Mitchell: Mr. Speaker, I will be as quick as I can.
I would ask my hon. friend, who I shared many hours with on the day care trail, to read the "blues" because she did misunderstand some of the things I was saying. For example, 1 said it was baby-sitters who may be unreliable. I certainly was not referring to the other categories, although it maybe came through that way.
As to the question of profit and non-profit, I would ask if she has had a chance to read a study completed recently in Toronto with reference to compliance with the Day Nursery Act. Its findings were very similar to a research study done for our committee. She will recall that that study's conclusion was that generally speaking, and there are exceptions, the for-profit day care centres tend to have minimum standards with lower salaries and other criteria which are not as high quality. The Toronto study found that for-profit commercial centres are less likely to meet the requirements of the Day Nursery Act. They are likely to be bigger. They are more likely to have spaces which they are not licensed for. There are more complaints launched with regard to this sector. They are likely to have a higher staff-child ratio violation and differences in the numbers of supervisors. Non-profit tend to have less supervisor turnover and hence more stability in care given.
There are many other criteria but those are the conclusions of that study and they are similar to the study we did. I am glad the Hon. Member for York Centre (Mr. Kaplan) is here because this concerns his riding and he should read the information from Toronto.


Shirley Martin: Mr. Speaker, I agree with my hon. colleague that we spent many hours crossing the country on this particular subject and I am sure that is why she is as anxious as I am to see this Bill get speedy passage so that we can start to create an additional 200,000 spaces.
Some of the problems she raises were well handled by the Hon. Member for York Centre when he said he sees nothing wrong with funds going to help those centres improve the quality of their service and the wages of care givers. However, I will also bring to the Hon. Member's attention that, if she is honest, she will remember that we heard as many complaints from parents about the quality of non-profit day care as we did about for profit day care.


Derek Nigel Ernest Blackburn: Point of order, Mr. Speaker. You recognized me but then I sat down very quickly and I want to know if I will be recognized for the floor at 6 p.m.?
Public Employees Political Rights


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Yes, I will recognize the Hon. Member at six o'clock for debate.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: It being five o'clock, the House will now proceed to consideration of Private Members' Business as listed on today's order paper.


PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS-BILLS   PUBLIC EMPLOYEES POLITICAL RIGHTS ACT MEASURE TO ENACT
[Stage Direction]
The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-273, an Act respecting political rights of public servants, as reported (with amendments) from a legislative committee.
Mr. Daubney:: Point of order, Mr. Speaker. As the sponsor of this Bill, I rise on a point of order. I have reviewed the amendments which have appeared in the Order Paper today. Many of them are sensible modifications which clarify parts of the draft Bill and in fact improve it. However, I have grave reservations about a number of others which will fundamentally alter the Bill. I also have some concerns about the process which has led to the motion before us today. In light of that, and in light of the recent decision in the Federal Court of Appeal on the Osborne case which recently struck down Section 32 of the Public Service Employment Act for all but Deputy Ministers, I cannot acquiesce in a process which would allow this Bill, standing in my name, to become a vehicle for the imposition of more, what I would consider to be, unreasonable restrictions on my constituents and on public servants in Canada. I, therefore, withdraw Bill C-273 standing in my name.


Mr. Speaker:: I have to advise the Hon. Member for Ottawa West (Mr. Daubney) that under the rules of the House it will be necessary to have the unanimous consent of the House. The House has heard the proposal of the Hon. Member for Ottawa West that he withdraw his Bill. Is there unanimous consent for it?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Speaker:: Accordingly, the order is discharged and the Bill withdrawn.
Order discharged and Bill withdrawn.


Mr. Speaker:: Under the circumstances, there being no business before the House, the sitting is suspended until 6 o'clock p.m.
Before leaving, out of courtesy I wish to remark that the Hon. Member for Ottawa Centre (Mr. Cassidy) sent the Chair

August 11, 1988
Public Employees Political Rights
a thorough and helpful note with respect to certain amendments. I want to assure the Hon. Member that I read it with very great interest and I thank the Hon. Member for taking the trouble to do that.


Michael Morris Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, I want to express sympathy to the Member for Ottawa West (Mr. Daubney) and also want to express on the record, on behalf of some of my constituents, gratitude to him. His Bill happened to have the luck of the draw and was brought forward whereas a similar Bill standing in my name was not brought forward. The Member persisted in bringing it forward and I regret with him the fact that the Government chose to bring forward amendments which would have so weakened or undermined the principle of the Bill that they could honestly be called killer amendments. They have led to the situation in which the Member had no choice but to feel that the Bill should be withdrawn.
As it stands, in the forthcoming election public employees will have the right to participate fully because of the Federal Court of Appeal decision in which I was involved. I am glad of that but am sorry that this House has proved incapable of legislating, as we were responsible to try to do, because of the intervention of the Deputy Minister and the Government.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a very short statement. I join with my friend from Ottawa West (Mr. Daubney) and tell him how disappointed I am that the Government intervened at this time. The Government had an entire process before it at report stage. We brought forward a Bill which we thought was a result of serious study by the committee.
The Government never even made an appearance before that committee to help with the drafting of this Bill. At the last minute, today, it came forward with a series of amendments which, as the Member for Ottawa Centre (Mr. Cassidy) said, are killer amendments which would have the effect of neutralizing this Bill or making it absolutely impossible.
I thank all those who worked with us and gave a lot of their time, energy, and good advice toward the drafting of this Bill.
I regret exceedingly that the Government intervened and am very saddened by the fact that after four years the Government did not have the courage to come forward with a Bill of its own.


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, killer or no killer, I, too, would have found some of the amendments to be very unreasonable restrictions applying to many of my constituents in Ottawa-Carleton. At this point in the process I would not have supported some of the amendments which were brought in last night. I want to congratulate my colleague, the Member for Ottawa West (Mr. Daubney), and everyone else who worked so long and hard to bring us this far
in the process to enhance full legal rights for public servants. We were awfully close.


Claudy Mailly: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member has my sympathy. I think it is really too bad this had to happen, because the Bill tabled by the Hon. Member was a very praiseworthy initiative, and the Hon. Member for Ottawa- Vanier (Mr. Gauthier) was right when he said we had worked very hard and were happy with the results of our work. I realize some Members expressed certain reservations because they thought the Bill gave public servants too much freedom. There were even public servants who made some very serious representations which some of my colleagues also took very seriously. However, I am sorry to see it all end this way, because I believe this Bill should have been allowed to pass and that it reflected most honourably on the Hon. Member for Ottawa West (Mr. Daubney).


Richard Grisé: Mr. Speaker, I simply want to provide some clarification, especially with respect to the comments made by the Hon. Member for Ottawa Centre (Mr. Cassidy) and the Hon. Member for Ottawa-Vanier (Mr. Gauthier). I would of course like to start by congratulating all Members who took part in this debate, especially the Hon. Member for Ottawa West (Mr. Daubney). I agree with my colleague, the Hon. Member for Gatineau (Mrs. Mailly), the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Revenue, who said that some Members of this House made certain comments on the substance of the Bill and suggested a number of amendments.
I would like to make it quite clear there was no Government interference. There was no meddling by the Government in a Bill...


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Richard Grisé: I listened to you and you can listen to me. A number of amendments were made.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Richard Grisé: Go ahead and laugh.
Mr. Speaker, I think it is important to clarify the situation, and the fact is that, today, the Hon. Member for Ottawa West decided to withdraw his bill. I repeat, Mr. Speaker, that this was in no way the result of any direct intervention by the Government.


SITTING SUSPENDED
Mr. Speaker:: There being no business before the House, the sitting is suspended until six o'clock p.m.
At 5.08 p.m. the sitting of the House was suspended.

August 11, 1988


SITTING RESUMED
[Stage Direction]
The House resumed at 6 p.m.


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Epp (Provencher) that Bill C-144, an Act to authorize payments by Canada toward the provision of child care services, and to amend the Canada Assistance Plan in consequence thereof, be read the second time and referred to a legislative committee; and the motion of Mrs. Martin (p. 18222).
Derek Nigel Ernest Blackburn: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate at second reading of Bill C-144, principally because it is the most important piece of social legislation to come from the Government since it came to power in 1984. 1 am sorry that there is so much disagreement in this debate over a national child care program. All joking aside, this really should be a motherhood issue.
We all agree on the need for such a program. Using Health and Welfare Canada's own figures, there are over 850,000 children in this country under the age of six who have parents working more than 20 hours a week or who are studying full time. That enormous number of children are being served by just over 220,000 child care spaces at the present time. That is clearly inadequate.
Anyone just taking a cursory look at these figures can see that there is a crying need for child care right across the country. This problem is national in scope. Our children need care and their parents need our assistance. It is up to the federal Government to provide national leadership in dealing with this problem.
What has been the Government's response? It has come up with a program designed to create about 200,000 new spaces over a period of seven years. Clearly this will never meet the needs of over 850,000 children and their families. In fact, doubling the number of child care spaces over a period of seven years is a lower rate of growth than has been achieved without a national program. Child care spaces have doubled in just two years, from 1984 to 1986.
This raises a very relevant question. Why is the Government creating a program which is designed to fall far short of demand? Why start a program doomed to fail? If we are going to spend over $5 billion on child care, let us get it right the first time.
Let me touch me briefly on a few of the problems I see with the Government's proposal. In the first place, almost half the money for this proposal will not create new child care spaces. It is earmarked for tax expenditures. I thought we had realized in this country that tax expenditures are, in most cases, less
Canada Child Care Act
efficient than direct capital spending. It is hard to target a tax expenditure specifically.
Most of this $2.4 billion in tax expenditures will be used to double the child care tax deduction. This is clearly a regressive move. It does nothing to help the poor single parent. If one does not have enough income, one cannot take advantage of a tax deduction.
This measure flies in the face of tax reform as well. We are supposed to be moving from tax deductions to tax credits. Credits are also part of this patchwork quilt that the Government is calling a national program. Less well off families will get an increase of $100 in the child tax credit in each of the first two years. This is hopelessly inadequate. First, one cannot use this money to get child care if no spaces are available. One cannot break the cycle of poverty and dependence with a mere $200.
Conservatives are always saying that they want people to be self-reliant. But how can you get a single parent off welfare and into the workforce if the solution is to hand out $100 per year to hire a babysitter?
The real weakness of this measure can be seen when we compare it to the de indexing of things like family allowance that the Government has pushed through. It turns out that this measure will give back to Canadian families less than the $1.5 billion they will lose through de indexation. Inflation will eat up more than the Government is handing out.
What is most troubling about the Government's proposal is the lack of a set of national objectives and standards. There are no minimum standards of care established anywhere in this program.
We are discussing the needs of our children. They deserve adequate care. However, even this is not guaranteed by the Government's program.
We do not have to dictate terms to parents. We just simply must assure families that they can expect certain minimum standards of care for their children.
We just went through the debate on the Meech Lake Accord. It clearly says that national objectives can be set in such programs. Here is the perfect opportunity to demonstrate how our system of Confederation can work. We can establish a truly national program in an area of provincial jurisdiction.
Here is the perfect opportunity, moreover, for a federal Government to show some leadership. I see no leadership in this proposal. Instead, I am struck by the Government's curious lack of vision. Everyone can see the crying need for a national program. I have already outlined the figures. Where is the program that will meet the needs of our society?
It has been estimated that if all of the money used for things like tax expenditures had been used to create new child care spaces, we could create about 170,000 more spaces. That would at least be an add-on start.

August 11, 1988
Canada Child Care Act
We have the opportunity to show that we understand the needs of average Canadian families. The Government could have shown that it understood their desire for quality affordable child care. Instead, we are fighting the same kind of battle we fought over deindexation. We have to show the Government that we have as much concern for the care of our children as we have for the security of our seniors.
This should also be a time to show our commitment to equality for women. We know that there are a lot of single parent families. Many of those families are headed by women. We know that single parents need affordable child care in order to work. We should be encouraging women to increase their participation in the labour force. We should show them that we want them to reach their full potential in society, but we should also realize that they will never achieve that potential if they are deprived of the opportunity to work because there are not enough child care spaces in Canada.
This proposal will not give them any choice, and the Government is simply not being open and honest about that. This program will not meet their needs.
Just as it fails in quantity, it also fails in quality. Instead of an affordable national program of quality child care with minimum standards, the Government is offering this patchwork, piecemeal approach. Instead of demonstrating a commitment to fairness for Canadian families, the Government is offering a program which is not even designed to meet their needs.
Instead of showing a vision of Canada where all its citizens can reach their full potential, the Government is content to throw money at the problem in a pre-election period. Incidentally, the fact that the Government wants to move with what I would call indecent haste, in trying to get this Bill through second reading after we have been debating it for just three hours at most, is totally unacceptable. As I said at the outset, this is the most important single piece of social legislation to come forward from the Government after it has been in power for almost exactly four years. Yet, in four hours, it wants to get this through second reading, out of the House, and into committee. There is absolutely no justification for this kind of haste at this time, election or no election on the horizon.
Canadians are not going to be fooled. They know this program is inadequate and should be rejected in its present form. It is a dilemma for all Members of Parliament who are opposed in principle to the mechanics of this Bill, or to its technical aspects, in view of the fact that child care and money for child care is very important. Nevertheless, there is no point in starting out on a national program unless we have the very best program we can put into place at the outset. If we do not have a good program with national standards and objectives, we may very well be wasting a lot of that $6.4 billion.
What should be put in its place? Canadian families should have access to a comprehensive, flexible and affordable system of child care. They need to know their children are safe and
secure while they are out earning a living. Children should not have to stay at home watching television all day with some well-intentioned teenager who is simply not qualified to assist, train, educate or care for those children. That means we have to put money into creating spaces in non-profit community organizations, not tax expenditures. This would give parents a voice in the kind of care their children receive. It would also allow us to guarantee quality. We should make funding to the provinces conditional on compliance with a set of minimum national standards and objectives.
I realize that such a system cannot be set up overnight, but in the meantime we should provide a series of good faith grants to the provinces. That way we can get started on the road to meeting the needs of Canadian families while we negotiate cost sharing with the provincial Governments. We must also be flexible. We have to realize that not everyone will have access to this type of child care. This is of particular concern to our remote or rural communities.
Parents should have the choice of going to licensed home care. That is why the Government should also fund home services which meet national standards. In that way it can ensure that facilities in these homes are adequate. This would give Canadian families real choices. They would no longer have to worry about the level of care their children receive. Canadian families need a comprehensive system of child care. They want a system that is fair for all families regardless of where they live or how much money they earn. They need to know their children will be safe and secure in the child care system. We should, therefore, reject the Government's proposal and get on with the job of meeting the real needs of Canadian families.
Let us show Canadian families that we understand their needs and have the vision to meet them. We are not opposed to the private sector being involved in child care. However, we argue that public funding should not be used to assist the private sector. If it wants to be in the business community and its job is child care, then let the market determine, through profit and loss, the quality of care for the children of its clients. We are not opposed to that. But we are opposed to, on the one hand, a lack of national standards and, on the other hand, giving money to private sector child care homes or institutions, which we feel is not fair to the taxpaying public of Canada. If the private sector wants to run a private operation, this is a free country, let it do so.
Also, based on the evidence that came before the committee, I would argue that non-profit child care is much more efficient and is of a higher quality of child care, generally speaking- and there are exceptions-across Canada.
In closing, I want to cast my mind back to some of the other great battles that have been fought in this Chamber in terms of bringing forward progressive social legislation. I can recall the critics, and most of them were either large C Conservative or small c conservative, when Tommy Douglas and Woodrow Lloyd brought in OHIP and medicare in the Province of
August 11, 1988

Saskatchewan. They said it could not be done. They said it would be wasteful. They said the Government had no business being in the medical care delivery system. They said it would be a great encroachment upon the private sector in what, in those days, was a market-driven medical care system. I do not think there is a Conservative or Liberal left in this country today who would want to go back to the pre-medicare system.
We are the envy of many progressive-thinking U.S. Senators and Members of the House of Representatives. I do not think I am quoting Michael Dukakis out of context when 1 repeat what I heard him say a couple of weeks ago in Atlanta. They would dearly love to have our medicare system in the United States, and one thing he said that night with respect to medicare was that 38 million Americans have no medical coverage at all and that he would initiate and bring in a medical care system similar to ours to cover those 38 million.
Those of us who fought the medicare battle some 25 years ago were considered radicals, unacceptable to the so-called market-driven medical care delivery system we had in those days, but today, I would argue, there are very few Canadians, rich, middle-income or low-income, who would want to get rid of that system.
I can recall a time, towards the end of the Diefenbaker period, when a professor of my university was called upon to head a commission of Mr. Diefenbaker's Conservative Government to find out whether or not it was financially viable to bring in a Canada pension system. After several months of hearings here in Ottawa and across the country, the conclusion was, no, this country could not afford a Canada Pension Plan as was being put forward at that time by the New Democratic Party and the Liberals. They said the country could not afford it and it would infringe upon the Great West Lifes of this country, the insurance companies that had it all wrapped up in their tidy little hands. We all know that when it comes to life insurance companies, if one reads the fine print one will find that the exclusionary language in almost every life insurance policy is appalling, to say nothing of the fact it is downright misleading. We fought that battle and finally got the Canada Pension Plan. Now we come to a national child care program.
I am arguing this evening that perhaps for some old fashioned thinkers in this House we are being a little too progressive or aggressive. I want Members in the House to think back to the medicare fight and the Canada pension fight, just those two issues, before we proceed much further with this Bill. Members will find that what we are arguing for and promoting is not perfect by any means, but we are moving in the right direction. There is no more precious commodity-if 1 can put it in those crass words-than our young people. Regardless of background, education or family income, unless they are all give an equal start in life, an equal opportunity to develop, the waste that will continue in this country will be inestimable. All one has to do is to look at those countries where child care and day care are virtually tied up in the private sector, where there are very few, if any, public
Canada Child Care Act
programs. You will find that if one is born in a black ghetto, or a hispanic ghetto in the United States, or a poor white ghetto, one does not have nearly the opportunity to develop as a young human being that one would have if one were born into a middle-income family or upper-income family.
We do not want that type of society in this country. We want to give all our kids an equal start in life and an equal opportunity. They may not all have equal qualities or capabilities, but the very least we can do is to provide them with an equal chance to get started.


Margaret Anne Mitchell: I would like to congratulate my colleague on his remarks. He mentioned early in his remarks that, in his view, rather than having tax measures that were regressive and would take money that was very much needed for child care services, having regressive tax measures, and also having a tax credit of $100 for the first year and $200 thereafter for families not using licensed care, it would have been better for the Government to have reindexed the family allowance. Would the Hon. Member elaborate on that a little? Does the Hon. Member consider that the Government should have reindexed the child tax credit which would have targeted lower income families and, as the years went on, would also have increased upward the income range eligible for the child tax credit? These are two things that have been detrimental to families that have put particular economic pressure on low and average income families and contradict any family policy goals that the Government espouses.


Derek Nigel Ernest Blackburn: In response to my colleague, the Hon. Member for Vancouver East (Ms. Mitchell), this is an extremely important aspect of this Bill. A tax deduction favours a few, or favours those who are earning higher incomes. To a considerable extent those on lower incomes are excluded, and those not paying any income tax at all because their incomes are so low are entirely neglected.
In order to make a policy or program like this fair and equitable, in my view there is only one way to do it, and that is by direct funding and making whatever the program is directly accessible to those individuals and their children. The minute tax policy is used in order to pay in part for any social program, literally hundreds of thousands of Canadians are excluded, or those with higher incomes are favoured.
In terms of raising the income cap, it is a well known fact that the heaviest portion of the tax burden in our country falls not on the rich, not on the poor, but on those in the middle-income area from $25,000 up to $40,000 a year. Those people in our society are becoming terribly fed up with having to bear a substantial burden, more than their fair share of taxation. These are very important aspects of this Bill. We feel that we have to reject those aspects of the funding as being unfair, inequitable, and not working in the best interests of all Canadians.

August 11, 1988
Canada Child Care Act


Mr. Skelly:: Could the Hon. Member for Brant (Mr. Blackburn) outline how the Conservative Government has completely misled the people of Canada on this particular legislation, and how it has limited the number of day care spaces that will be created? I appreciate the speech made by the Hon. Member for Brant, and I know he can outline how the people of Canada have been misled on the number of spaces that have been created for young people in this country.


Derek Nigel Ernest Blackburn: I appreciate that question very much. I am very happy that the Prime Minister (Mr. Mul-roney) has come in to listen to my speech this evening. It is the first opportunity I have had to stand across from him and deliver a speech, although I have heard his speeches on many occasions.
Referring to what is misleading, when people take a look at the total sum that the Government is talking about they think that that is a total cash outlay of some $6.4 billion almost overnight as it were. Second, somehow this will automatically jump up the number of child care places to accommodate the total need. We all know that that is not the case.
I am not prepared to say that the Government is deliberately misleading the people in this regard. I leave it to the people to read the legislation, to read what is in the Bill, and to come to their own conclusion. I am quite sure that they will come to the same conclusion as my hon. friend from Comox-Powell River has come to.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, my friend the Hon. Member for Brant (Mr. Blackburn) expressed gratitude that I would be down to listen to his speech. When I heard the Member for Brant was speaking on child care I immediately rushed to the House. I was up in my office working and I rushed to the House, because when I saw the astounding miracle that he had worked on the NDP defence policy, I could hardly wait to see what was going to happen on child care.


Derek Nigel Ernest Blackburn: Both make a lot of sense too.


Martin Brian Mulroney: I thank my distinguished friend for his welcome. I am always delighted to listen to his contributions to an important matter.
I rise, Mr. Speaker, with great pride to join in this historic debate on the Canada Child Care Act. In government we all have two general goals: to try to build a productive economy, and to try to build a caring society. These objectives are by no means mutually exclusive. Indeed, in many ways they are complementary and result in a nation hopefully that is more civilized and more prosperous.
First, I know that all Members of the House, irrespective of political Party, will join with me in saluting the tremendous leadership role of the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Epp) for bringing forward child care and fostering a national consensus on a very important matter.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: I gather the NDP is holding its applause for a little later.


Derek Nigel Ernest Blackburn: A lot later.


Martin Brian Mulroney: I think that the national consensus engendered by the Minister of National Health and Welfare, and by the Minister responsible for the Status of Women on the four principal objectives of availability, accessibility, affordability, and above all, quality, has been a commendable achievement, and on behalf of all Members of the House I want to underline his tremendous contribution to our national well-being.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: As a result of this initiative we will be allocating $6.4 billion over seven years, creating 200,000 new quality spaces and virtually doubling the number of spaces available today. That strikes me, irrespective of Party, of being a major contribution to the national well-being of Canada, and I would think that all parliamentarians would want to celebrate that fact.
In so doing we are honouring an important commitment that I made on behalf of my Party during the last election campaign. At the First Ministers' Conference in Vancouver in 1986 I said that one of the most important factors contributing to the persistent and persisting inequality of women in this country is the lack of affordable, flexible, quality child care. We have been determined from the beginning of our mandate to seek to create and implement a national child care program worthy of the name. With this Bill I believe that we are in the process of doing just that.

And in the process, Mr. Speaker, we are preparing Canada for the social and economic challenges of a new decade and a new century. Consider the following: Today, more than half of Canadian mothers with young children are in the work force. The Canada child Care Act, with its emphasis on flexibility, will help facilitate choices in child care. We want parents, and this is something you tend to forget, we want parents to be able to choose the kind of child care best suited to their values and their requirements. We recognize that there are different needs in each family just as there are different needs in various regions, from British Columbia to Newfoundland and Labrador.
The demands of adequate child care, say in Williams Lake, British Columbia, clearly differ from those required in Burlington, Ontario, or in Rimouski, Quebec. But the fundamental objective, we believe, is the same everywhere, to give all Canadian mothers the possibility of going to work, secure in the knowledge that their children are in clean, safe and supportive surroundings. The Canada Child Care Act is about protecting children, about helping parents, about strengthening the Canadian family. Most of all, we want the best of care for our future generations.
August 11, 1988

We are living in an era of remarkable economic and social change. These are challenging times, but they can be rewarding for Canadians individually and for our society as a whole. Some 56 per cent of Canadian women are in the workforce today, as compared with 45 per cent in 1976, and 35 per cent a decade earlier, in 1966.
It is a matter of particular pride for me that of the nearly
1,300,000	new jobs created since I had the honour of being sworn in as Prime Minister, fully 728,000, or 56 per cent of all of those jobs, have gone to women in Canada.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: That is a spectacular growth rate of 15.5 per cent in women's employment in less than four years, as compared, for example, to 8.8 per cent for men. That means that the number of women's jobs has been growing almost twice as fast as the number of new jobs for men. That is catchup. There has been a growing demand and an historic injustice, and the policies of the Government are important economically. I am proud to be associated with the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) in this. The economic policies of the Government have made an important social statement, and these figures indicate that Canadian women, having been left behind for so many years, are now playing catch-up and getting their fair share of economic jobs and equality of opportunity in Canada.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: Of that growth in women's jobs, 78 per cent, more than three-quarters, have been full-time jobs, reversing almost completely the trend under the previous Government, where employment for women was essentially part-time. The unemployment rate for women has declined from 12 per cent to 8.4 per cent, a decline of nearly one-third in less than four years. I think that all Members of the House would agree that this is a happy development for all Canadians.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: The number of women employed in managerial and administrative positions has grown by 36 per cent between 1984 and 1987.
These are strong indicators, not perfect, but strong and vigorous indicators, that we are moving in the right direction as a country, that we are moving towards fairness and equity for women. We are guided by these principles of fairness and equity as we prepare for the societal changes of the next decade.
If you look anywhere across Canada, at our universities, you can see the dimensions of the winds of change that are about to sweep across this country. Women account for nearly half, and
Canada Child Care Act
in some areas more than half, of the enrolment in our faculties of medicine and law and business.

In Quebec, especially in business administration and international trade, more and more women are outdistancing men in so-called traditional jobs or careers.

This is a major development. Women have moved as well into small business in a very big way. Women accounted for 95 per cent of the net increase in unincorporated small businesses between 1980 and 1985. The number of self-employed women grew by 118 per cent between 1975 and 1986.

With these changes to the face of our economy, there has been a strong and positive evolution in attitudes during the present decade. What used to be known primarily as women's issues are now called, quite properly-and I think the Hon. Member for Outremont (Mrs. Pepin) will agree-society's issues.
Child care is such an issue. It is about social justice, but it is equally about economic justice. In terms of social justice, we want Canadian mothers to be able to participate in the work force if they choose, to the degree they wish to do so, to expand their own horizons, to develop their own capacities, to enhance their own prosperity and to pursue their own dreams. At the same time, we also want to respect the decision of those mothers who choose to remain at home to raise their children.
That is why this important and historic initiative is based on the fundamental principle of choice.

Freedom of choice, this is what this is all about. This is not a unitary, uniform, homogenized society. There are different people with different dreams and different options, and this gives Canadian women freedom of choice.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: This initiative recognizes the needs of both women with children who work outside the house and women with children who choose to work at home with their children.
Canada has long been a world leader in promoting social justice for its citizens. From the time of the baby bonus in the 1940s and Old Age Security in the fifties, down to the Canada-Quebec Pension Plans and medicare in the sixties, Canada has been well regarded in the international community for its by and large generous and civilized approach to social programs across the country.
I believe and I hope that Members of the House from all sides will agree with me. I hope that perhaps a decade from now, a generation hence, the Canada Child Care Act will be

August 11, 1988
Canada Child Care Act
regarded as perhaps the most important social innovation in the 1980s.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: Our critics-and there are a few here in the House-say that the child care program is-


Derek Nigel Ernest Blackburn: Very few.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Well, the Member from Brant is saying very few. He is very right.


An Hon. Member:: Sixty-six per cent of Canadians.


Martin Brian Mulroney: I think, measured by any standard, all Members would agree that $6.4 billion is a substantial sum of money. By contrast, and to put it into some perspective, consider the debate, for example, on child care in the United States of America, in the general election that will soon take place. Vice-President George Bush, the Republican nominee for President, has proposed a $2.2 billion package of tax credits for low-income families. Governor Michael Dukakis, the Democratic nominee, has proposed a $2.5 billion program for the children of working parents.


An Hon. Member:: Jesse Jackson.


Martin Brian Mulroney: That is in a country with 10 times our population.


An Hon. Member:: Don't use them as an example. They have the worst child care program in the world.


Martin Brian Mulroney: We are proposing for Canadians a $6.4 billion program over seven years, and I think that that is a great tribute to Canada and its notion of justice for working women.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


An Hon. Member:: How about comparing it to Sweden, Holland, Norway, Denmark, France, Italy, Germany?


Martin Brian Mulroney: I believe that those figures tend to put the debate in a different and, I think, quite interesting perspective. We are doing this, which is very important, within the fiscal framework of responsibility that the Minister of Finance introduced in November, 1984, and which-may I say to his great credit and because of his very, very significant leadership-this Government has respected ever since and will in the future.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: There is a very important economic and social reason for this, Mr. Speaker. It is not being hung on a given concept of deficit reduction. There is a very important reason of social justice associated with this. The notions of deficit reduction and social programs are not at variance one with the other.

Indeed, Mr. Speaker, our program of financial restraint and our economic policies have encouraged sufficient growth in the economy that we are able to afford this important, most historic initiative. It must not be forgotten that when we assumed office, the deficit was at $38 billion and ticking like a time bomb. We have defused that. Less than four years later, the deficit has been reduced by nearly $10 billion a year, and we are right on target for reducing our borrowing requirements by half over five years. I think this is a most significant achievement for any Government of Canada.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Martin Brian Mulroney: We began, Mr. Speaker, from the premise that Canadians needed more work. We began from the principle that governments don't create wealth, people do.

Governments do not create wealth. Governments can, however, create conditions within which new wealth can be generated by Canadian citizens, by the genius of the entrepreneurial spirit, by the risk-takers who create jobs, by those who have vision and believe in job creation. Governments cannot create those themselves but they can create conditions conducive to that kind of economic growth if they get their spending down, as we have, if they get their deficits down, as we have done, if they encourage, not discourage, investment if they attract investment and in the process attract jobs, and if they reduce regulatory constraint to economic growth, as we have tried to do from the very beginning of our mandate. The result of this, Mr. Speaker, has been lower interest rates, which has produced sustained growth in a climate-controlled inflation.
The 1.3 million new participants in our economy today resulting from new jobs created are paying into our envelope of social programs rather than drawing from it.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: Canadians are now themselves with their own hard earned money, rather than with borrowed money that does not last and is shoved on to the backs of our young and new generation, creating a broader and a deeper national pool of new wealth. It is based on that new wealth that the Government and the people of Canada provide the kinds of programs and social justice, such as the national child care program that is before the House of Commons today.
I think that by creating an additional 200,000 quality child care spaces many more mothers will have an opportunity to participate in the labour force.
While this is very much about social justice, it is equally about economic justice.

August 11, 1988

[ Translation]
And in the strictest economic terms, we cannot hope to achieve our economic potential in the 1990s wihtout the full and fully engaged participation of as many Canadians as possible who wish to enter the job market.
In the coming decade, we will have to make some real economic and social choices for this country. We will need, for example, more qualified immigrants, not fewer, if we are to sustain our economic growth. We will need a more literate labour force. It is, in both human and economic terms, a terribly sad fact that one Canadian adult in four is functionally illiterate. In the coming era of technological change, in a time when research and development must be a national hallmark of excellence, we must have a work force whose skills are fully developed and whose potential is fully realized. I think those are some of the dimensions of the economic and social challenges that we will face in the coming decade.

And so, Mr. Speaker, in a very special way the constant challenge for a civilized and tolerant Government is to be, as best it can, formed, as any Government is, of human beings with their own imperfections, both competent and caring. For without the prudent management of our nation's fiscal resources we cannot free up new resources on the social side to meet the increasing demands of an increasingly complex society. We all know that it requires that kind of growth and new wealth to meet the constant demand of society. So it is a matter of some pride to the members of this Government that we have been able to expand our social framework within a fiscal framework of some considerable restraint.
Many of these issues are of special concern to women and to working mothers, but not exclusively. They affect all of us. In a very special way, they have a particular effect on women and working mothers. We have sought to respond to a number of them in constructive ways, for example, the spousal allowances. One of our first acts in government was to extend spousal allowances to all low-income widows and widowers aged 60 to 64. This increased income protection to about
50,000	widows and provided some $200 million in additional benefits. We introduced improvements to the Canada Pension Plan with an improved benefits package, including an early retirement option, increased disability benefits and improved pension benefits for women, which benefited about 230,000 Canadian women. We have increased fourfold our assistance to disabled persons' organizations. The tax changes from the first Budget changing the definition of disability have resulted in increased benefits for another 85,000 Canadians.
On drug abuse, which affects us all but in a special way affects mothers who are charged with the responsibility and the heartache that comes from the impact of this situation, the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Epp) has brought in a $200 million five-year strategy to curb this tragic situation which afflicts not only our youth but all professional and income levels of our society.
Canada Child Care Act
In a major CBC news report a few weeks ago Dr. Ivan Porosko, director of a cocaine treatment program in Toronto, described cocaine abuse in Canada as an epidemic, a most interesting choice of words, with which most mothers in Canada would agree. They are asking the Government of Canada to get rid of this savage problem which weakens our family and debilitates our country.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: In the very sad and tragic area of battered women, we are creating 500 new shelter units which can accommodate an additional 25,000 women and children per year.
On child abuse, the Government has enacted Bill C-115 which addresses in a substantive manner the sexual abuse and exploitation of children.
With regard to native women, about which demands have been made in this House of Commons year after year, and many members of the NDP raised this with Conservatives when we were together in the Opposition, I am honoured to say and to point out to you, Mr. Speaker, that we introduced amendments to the Indian Act which replaced discriminatory elements and gave back aboriginal women both status and band membership, thereby benefiting 10,000 native women in Canada.


An Hon. Member:: No money to house them.


Margaret Anne Mitchell: No resources.


Martin Brian Mulroney: We have introduced amendments to the Criminal Code to ensure that victims of crime are given increased attention in the criminal courts, and we have secured agreement from the provinces and territories on a statement of principles for victims.
Regarding the proceeds of crime, we have instituted procedures to seize, freeze and forfeit the proceeds of crime. At the request of all Members of this House, we have imposed stiffer penalties for impaired driving and established new provisions for mandatory blood testing.
In a very important social problem area, the question of AIDS research, we have introduced a $ 129-million initiative for research, public awareness and education and community services. Perhaps we cannot reduce the pain and suffering of AIDS victims, but we can remove the social stigma which is attached to it and we can concentrate and ensure that more and more resources go to the research so that we can find a cure for this debilitating and unfair disease which affects so many people in Canada.
This, I think, is a solid record of achievement of which all Members of this Parliament can be proud. It indicates that this Government has provided strong and improved social programs that go hand in hand with economic renewal, and the child care program is but the most recent illustration of that.

August 11, 1988
Canada Child Care Act
There are those who argue that this can be done in a vacuum, that this can be done with borrowed money, that this can be done overnight while raising the deficit and driving up interest rates. There are even those who argue that Canada's social, cultural and environmental programs will, for example, be adversely affected by a free trade agreement with the United States of America. Elowever, in the final analysis, action speaks louder than unfounded fears.
In the last nine months, our Government has, among other things, passed a tough new Environmental Protection Act, the most comprehensive environmental legislation among the leading industrialized nations-


Some Hon. Members:: Order, order!


Martin Brian Mulroney: We have renewed the Official Languages Act for the first time in 17 years. We have acted to provide copyright protection to Canadian artists and musicians. We have established the first ever legislative recognition of Canada's multicultural heritage-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Martin Brian Mulroney: And if you don't like to hear it, we're going to repeat it again.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Rossi:: Point of order, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Member for Bourassa (Mr. Rossi), on a point of order.


Carlo Rossi: Mr. Speaker, instead of talking about day care, the Prime Minister gave an overview of the four years of this Parliament. He talked about crime, he talked about everything but day care. So it might be ... This is a point of order. I think that he should talk about something to do with day care, not crime, drinking, pensions, etc. He is out of order.


Mr. Speaker:: I accept the Hon. Member's intervention. [English]
Perhaps I can just say that I know that the Right Hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) would know that during some parts of his speech, there seemed to be some agitation on the other side, I think aimed at the question of relevance. I would ask the Right Hon. Prime Minister to keep that in mind.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I apologize to my hon. friend who takes offence at some of the important questions that we are discussing. I have always thought that the Canadian family and the needs of the Canadian family involved day care, but also all of the other important matters that were unaddressed for 20 years and that this Government has now dealt with.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, among other things, we have introduced the $6.4-billion child care program that we are
debating today. These are the actions of a Government determined to strengthen Canada's social, environmental and cultural programs, and in our judgment they are all linked together. They cannot be cut off one from the other. They go to the well-being of families, they go to the well-being of working mothers, they go to the well-being of Canadian who need jobs, and all of them must be considered together. Only a Liberal would believe that you could cut off one from the other. There must be a program but there must be a way to pay for it, and that is why we believe in a strong economy.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: They are the actions of a Government determined to lead in implementing coherent national programs.

These actions clearly illustrate that this Government is committed to social justice for all Canadians. Child care is the centrepiece of that commitment. We embark on this initiative with pride and with confidence. We have every reason to believe that this program will work well and respond to the needs and aspirations of a vibrant, modern Canada. Years from now, when historians are assessing our stewardship of the country, I hope that they will say that this initiative in particular provided substantial benefits for Canadian women.

I hope it will be said that we in this Parliament developed the right social and economic initiatives for the times. I hope it will be recorded that we strengthened the social future of Canada and that our years were marked by a certain generosity of spirit, that all of us worked together on the fundamental issues to build a more tolerant society.
I have been somewhat taken with the fact that members of the Opposition seem to believe that Canada, Canadian women and Canadian families do operate in a vacuum, that child care can be segregated from drug abuse, from drunken driving, from the absence of jobs. I am being asked whether this fits together and whether we have done something.
I stand today before a Party that for 20 years had the pleasure and the privilege of sitting here talking about child care but which never once fulfilled its responsibilities to the family. I stand before you, Mr. Speaker, and say that the women of Canada understand that with the creation of 1.3 million new jobs, 56 per cent of those jobs have gone to working women, and that is a tremendous contribution to social justice for all the women of Canada.
Most of all, I think it will be recorded that the child care initiative that has been brought forward today, representing billions of dollars, recognizes and understands a commitment

August 11, 1988

to justice, fairness and equality for Canadian women. This is what the Parliament of Canada is all about.
There are cheers from the children in the gallery.


Carlo Rossi: You're making the kids cry.


Martin Brian Mulroney: A seven-month-old baby understands, but the Liberals don't. I could say that that was a loud and ringing endorsement from one of the principal beneficiaries of the child care program.
I think all of us can take pride in the fact that for the first time a national child care program has been brought forward which will double in a period of years the number of spaces available to women and their children, thereby strengthening the most important element of our society, which is the Canadian family.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Speaker:: I should advise Hon. Members that under the rules there are no questions or comments after the Right Hon. Prime Minister's speech.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In the spirit of reform, and given that this is the Prime Minister's first speech on any Bill in this House-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Jean-Robert Gauthier: -in four years-


Some Hon. Members:: Sit down!


Jean-Robert Gauthier: It is the first time he has participated in anything and we cannot ask him questions.


Some Hon. Members:: Sit down!


Richard Grisé: That is not true, and you know it!


Simon Leendert de Jong: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. While I recognize that under the Standing Orders the Prime Minister need not necessarily answer questions after an address to the House, surely, with his consent and that of the House-


Some Hon. Members:: No!


Simon Leendert de Jong: -he might want to take some questions. Surely he should have the opportunity.


Mr. Speaker:: The House can of course do anything by consent. But I do not see that there is consent to depart from the rules. The Hon. Member for Davenport (Mr. Caccia) has the floor in debate.


Some Hon. Members:: Stick around, Brian.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I would ask the co-operation of Hon. Members. The Hon. Member for Davenport has the floor in debate.
Canada Child Care Act


Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: Mr. Speaker, with fewer than 40 Members on the Tory side, the Prime Minister has delivered tonight what is obviously-


Cyril Keeper: How many Liberal Members?


Claudy Mailly: There are only four of you!


Mr. Caccia:: -going to be described by historians as his swan swong, his last speech in this Chamber as Prime Minister of Canada. It is very revealing to notice that his own backbenchers do not have enough confidence in him to subject him to a question period, which would have been the natural thing according to the rules that apply to everybody.


Alan Redway: When was the last time Turner answered questions in this House?


Charles L. Caccia: Evidently our belief in democracy is so weak that we believe the Prime Minister as an elected Member should not be subjected, as everyone else is, to a question period. Why should the rules be different? Why should the back-benchers of the Tory Party be afraid and lack enough confidence in their own Leader to see him subjected to a few questions? This is a real indication of weakness and fear on the part of the supporters of the Prime Minister.


Mr. Malone:: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I believe the Hon. Member is out of order. The rules of this House are well known. They are written. The rule that the Hon. Member objects to was a rule of this House-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I would hope there would be a little more decorum this evening. I am listening to a point of order by the Hon. Member for Crowfoot (Mr. Malone) and I hope he can complete it so we can carry on with debate.


Arnold John Malone: Mr. Speaker, thank you for helping me admonish the Liberals. The rules of this House on the point that the Hon. Member for Davenport is raising were the rules which applied when his Party was in government. The practice of this House is the same as it was when his former Leader was Prime Minister of Canada. For the Hon. Member to come here today and use the media and the medium to try to impress upon Canadians that there is somehow something inappropriate or wrong or unusual or different from past practices is inappropriate and wrong.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: That is not a point of order, but I appreciate what the Hon. Member is saying. I hope other Hon. Members will not raise points of order if they are not a point of order. I would love to listen to them in debate, but otherwise I will recognize the Hon. Member for Davenport. Does the Hon. Member for Gatineau (Mrs. Mailly) have a point of order?

August 11, 1988
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[ Translation]


Claudy Mailly: Mr. Speaker, this is really a point of order. A few minutes ago, during the Prime Minister's speech, the Speaker of the House rose to comment because a Member of the Liberal Party objected to the content of the speech, saying that it was not relevant.
So I rise on the same point of order. I believe that the speech by the Member who just spoke is not relevant either. He is talking about...


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: That is not a point of order either. I would like the debate to begin with the Hon. Member for Davenport.


Carlo Rossi: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member for Davenport started his speech at 7.02 or 7.03. It is 7.09 p.m.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I know what time he began. The Hon. Member for Davenport has the floor.


Charles L. Caccia: Mr. Speaker, the fact of the matter is that unanimous consent was sought and denied. That is a rule that everyone understands.


Claudy Mailly: It happens all the time.


An Hon. Member:: When was the last time Turner answered a question?


Charles L. Caccia: The fact is that the Prime Minister did not respect the rules of relevance and the Speaker got up to remind him of that fact. For a good half of his speech he did not speak on the Bill before us.
As I said, he had his swan song and I hope historians will record it as such, as his last speech in this House, and that he will be remembered, unfortunately, by Canadian historians as the Prime Minister who weakened Canadian federalism and virtually sold Canada to the Americans. That will be the sad legacy he leaves behind.
He also raised a number of rhetorical balloons, so to say, and they must be punctured one by one, because this is a place for debate and a rebuttal is perfectly in order.
The fact is that the Prime Minister got carried away in his rhetoric. He seemed to imply that only as of 1984 have women entered the labour force in increasing numbers. That is not true. That trend was set in place long before the election of 1984. Certainly no one will take that theology as a fact.
After four years in power women are still earning 65 cents for every dollar men earn. The Government has done nothing to correct that imbalance. The Prime Minister implied that enrolment of women in universities has been increasing under the present regime. We know very well that the enrolment of our female population in universities has been increasing for a number of years. It has nothing to do with who is in power.
The Prime Minister would like the public to believe that the number of self-employed women and women owners of unincorporated businesses is on the increase as a result of the Tory Government. That is sheer nonsense. This trend has taken place for a number of reasons and certainly not because a particular Party is in power in Ottawa. That development has nothing to do with what happened in September of 1984.
The Prime Minister made a big item of freedom of choice, which is a codified manner of excusing to the public the fact that the Bill which we are debating tonight will not set national standards for child care. That is what he means when he speaks about freedom of choice, and the public ought to know that. The Prime Minister referred several times to the fact that over the next seven years $6.4 billion will be made available for child care. In reality it is $4 billion, and I will return to that later.
The Prime Minister compared the Canadian measure to what Vice-President Bush is proposing in the United States, which is $2.2 billion, and to what democratic presidential candidate Dukakis has proposed, which is $2.5 billion. Well, so what? Since when does Canada take its lead from the Americans on social policy? Is that now becoming the bench-mark for the quality and standard that we want for Canadians? Is that where the Prime Minister takes his inspiration for what Canadians should be given?
The Prime Minister referred to the time bomb of the deficit. Those are his own words. Well, the time bomb imposed by the deficit was conveniently forgotten in the weeks and days preceding the last by-election. At that time the deficit did not exist. Why is it that when we approach a by-election and a general election, as we now are, the Government spends like a drunken sailor? It has been estimated that in the time leading up to the by-election and in subsequent weeks the Government spent $14 billion in commitments and promises leading to the fall of 1988.
The Prime Minister made reference to the prudent management of our nation's resources. He is very proud that he is capable, therefore, to offer this measure. I would like the Prime Minister and each Tory Member to address themselves to the estimated expenses of projects proposed in the White Paper on defence as compared to what the Government is proposing for child care. The Prime Minister should do that before he has the nerve to talk about the prudent management of our national resources. I will return to that in a moment.
The fact is that in the four years of the Government's mandate, low-income families earning up to $25,000 a year have seen their taxes increased by 22 per cent. That is what the Tory Government has done in the last four years. The fact is that the Government attempted to deindex senior citizens' pensions. It was stopped but it tried in 1985, didn't it? The fact

August 11, 1988

is that the Government was successful, unfortunately, in deindexing family allowances. It was successful in deindexing the child tax credit. Is that the prudent management to which the Prime Minister referred? Does the Parliamentary Secretary agree with that?


John Horton McDermid: Yes.


Charles L. Caccia: The fact is that, as a result of Bill C-22, there has been an increase in the cost of drugs which will mainly affect senior citizens. Is that prudent management by the Tory Government? The fact is that, with regard to the production of social and co-operative housing, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation has virtually been put on ice. Those are the facts in reply to the rhetoric of the Prime Minister.
Contrary to the impression the Prime Minister has attempted to create in this House, we have had fine legislation by the name of the Canada Assistance Plan since 1966. That was introduced in the Pearson years. The Prime Minister seems never to have heard of that. Under the Canada Assistance Plan we laid the foundation for all the fine social measures which exist today, including the measure which makes it possible today to have the basic minimum in child care.
That brings me to the substance of this Bill which is, in a way, a deathbed repentance by the Government in its fourth year in government. I intend to make eight points which will make the life of the Parliamentary Secretary rather unpleasant.
First, the measure before us provides for only one-seventh of the child care spaces which are being requested by the provinces over the next seven years. It is estimated that 1.4 million child care spaces are required in our society. This Bill provides for 200,000 only. That fact is established by the projections of the provinces.


John Horton McDermid: What nonsense. You are totally wrong.


Charles L. Caccia: The Parliamentary Secretary's ignorance is so visible. He need only do his homework. Having offered one-seventh of the requirement for the next seven years as proposed by the provinces and the two Territories, the Government has imposed a ceiling on each province. I will use as an example the Province of Ontario from which both the Parliamentary Secretary and I come. The imposition of the ceiling under this Bill in Ontario will mean a reduction in Ontario's plan for child care by some 12,000 spaces. That is my second point.
Third, this measure would build fewer child care spaces in Canada over the next seven years than would be possible under the existing legislation because of the ceiling to which I made reference a moment ago.
Fourth, it was very revealing that the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Epp), in his speech this morning, avoided committing the Government to the establishment of national standards in child care. This measure would allow for the balkanization of this important social program and will prove right those who oppose the Meech Lake agreement and
Canada Child Care Act
said that there would never be another national social program. Bill C-144 proves that. We will have different standards in each province. That is the net effect of the wording of the legislation.
The Minister carefully avoided the words "national standards" in his speech because he knows very well that that is the fact. Each province will go its own way and there will be no national standards on child care. The Government has no guts and no political will to set national standards. We saw the same situation with Bill C-74, the Environmental Protection Act. This is the same pattern and it is what I call the Meech Lake virus.
Fifth, this Bill does not set priorities. The net effect will be that the needs of the most disadvantaged parents will not be taken into account as a result of lack of priority. As my colleague, the Member for Outrement (Mrs. Pepin), pointed out in her excellent speech earlier today, this Bill will make things more difficult for needy parents.
Sixth, this Bill completely ignores the existence of latchkey kids. I hope the Parliamentary Secretary knows what latchkey kids are. He has a limited knowledge of social affairs. I will explain to him what latchkey kids are. They are the kids who go to school with a key around their neck. He has probably never seen them. They do exist in large numbers in west Toronto where I come from. This Bill ignores completely the fact that after a certain hour kids come home to an empty house. A measure like that in this Bill would have been the ideal vehicle to address that particular social need.


John Horton McDermid: Day care kids do not go to school yet.


Charles L. Caccia: If the Parliamentary Secretary has something interesting to say, he can speak tonight, tomorrow or next week. We will hold our breath and listen to his wisdom with great interest.


John Horton McDermid: Three-year olds do not go to school.


Charles L. Caccia: The Parliamentary Secretary's lack of sense of humour is becoming a bit too strident.


John Horton McDermid: Your lack of knowledge is becoming evident in your debate.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Order, please. I would hope Hon. Members would give the Member the courtesy of completing his speech. There will be questions and comments.


Charles L. Caccia: My next point deals with the situation in Davenport where we have consulted a number of day care centres this morning. I was given some interesting statistical background. For instance, we were informed that the average waiting list at the Dovercourt Boys and Girls Club is some 15 people. This is one of many day care centres in Toronto. There is a great potential for expansion, which this Bill will hardly be able to meet.

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The waiting list is one and a half years at the Dovercourt International Day Care Service. The average waiting list at the Elarmony Day Nursery is 100 to 120 children. The waiting list for special needs children at the MacAulay child development centre is 30 names. The average waiting list is 20 children in the case of the Old Davenport Child Centre. At the Sister Regina Mass Day Nursery, the average waiting list is 35 to 36 children. The waiting period can be fairly long. In the case of St. Chad's Day Nursery, the average waiting list is at least 20 names. Time does not permit me to cover them all.
Let me conclude with the comparison of the Government's priorities. This measure offers $4 billion over the next seven years plus a total of S2.3 billion in tax credits.
Let us compare the priority the Government gives to kids with its priority on defence equipment projects over the next 10 years.


John Horton McDermid: It is 27 years.


Charles L. Caccia: I will make it 10 years to make it easier for the Parliamentary Secretary to understand. On the one hand, the Government is offering our kids in direct funds, $4 billion over the next seven years, while on the other hand, there is the following breakdown in Tory defence equipment projects over the next 10 years: $8 billion for nuclear powered submarines; $12 billion for ship borne helicopters over five years; $2.7 billion for a second set of patrol frigates over nine years; $750 million for minesweepers over 10 years; $420 million over 10 years for all terrain troop carriers; $250 million for heavy trucks over approximately four years. The funding for tripling of reserve forces is $9.2 billion over 15 years. The battletanks yet to be announced will cost some $1.8 billion to $2.8 billion over the next five years.
The comparison is $4 billion toward a social program on child care versus that $25 billion. That is the priority and the prudent management, to which the Prime Minister referred a few minutes ago, of this so-called Progressive Conservative Government. What a sham.
What a disgrace that the Government would see less value in preparing the young generation under 14 years of age to grow up in our urban centres and in rural Canada by allocating $4 billion in the next seven years compared to $25 billion to be allocated to defence equipment projects. The Government believes that defence projects must have greater importance, because of our NATO commitment, than the value of our next generation. I find that a form of pornography of power and reverse priority that one could ever see in the history of our country. It is disgraceful and shameful.
If the Minister of National Elealth and Welfare said today that his measure takes into account all of the requirements of the provinces and the 1.4 million kids for the next seven years, my comparison would have lost its meaning and its impact. I would be the first to admit it. Such a measure would have taken into account the requirements of the provinces and the
Territories. Instead, the Minister came in with a measure that meets the needs of only one-seventh of our youth and their respective families. The conclusion is that this measure shows the bankruptcy in terms of social values and priorities of the Government, whose days are numbered. The sooner an election is called, the better.


David Kilgour: Mr. Speaker, we know quite clearly that the Member who spoke is very much against the Bill that has been proposed. However, his Party is opposed to everything the Government has proposed, except Meech Lake. I think the Member himself opposes Meech Lake and therefore opposes everything the Government introduces. Perhaps that is a fault in our system.
We know what his Party opposes. We know that it supports the Senate and the unfettered rule of the Senate. Will he, without any personal attack, tell us what he would like to see in a day care plan and how much it would cost?


Charles L. Caccia: Mr. Speaker, it is regrettable that the Hon. Member, for whom I have great respect, was not in the House when the Member for Outremont (Mrs. Pepin) made the position of our Party quite clear. She established our Party's position point by point. She analysed for every aspect, and in much greater depth than I, what are the shortcomings and the alternatives that the Liberal Party of Canada would produce. That would take me much longer than the few minutes available to me.
However, they are on the record for everyone to see tomorrow in Hansard. They are also outlined in great detail in a document entitled Choices for Child Care: Now and the Future. I would be glad to supply the Hon. Member with a copy of this document which sets out a very positive Liberal approach to this matter. I know of his sincere interest in these matters.
Our basic position in principle is that we want to focus on the needy first. We would want to take into account the requirements of the low income and middle-income Canadians first as a major priority, to ensure that there is fairness built into the system. That has been the Liberal position on every social measure that has been adopted over the decades. That has been our guiding principle. This is what probably differs from the approach of the Progressive Conservative Government.
As I mentioned in my speech, this measure fails to take into account those youngsters who go home after school to an empty house because their parent or parents work. That is a very serious vacuum which we addressed in our interventions here today.
We also indicated that the requirements of Canadian society in 1988, because of the evolution in the family structure, particularly with respect to single parent families, are such
August 11, 1988

that a much larger number of families must be addressed. I think we have been pretty positive in our criticisms and in defining alternatives. In addition, I took the liberty of comparing the priorities of this Government in the over-all picture by addressing the amount of money that is being made available for this badly needed social measure compared to the Tory defence equipment projects over a parallel period of time.


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the Hon. Member for Davenport (Mr. Caccia) about his new-found interest in day care. He has been a Member of this House for a number of years. He was in a previous Cabinet but I have never heard him talk about day care before. This is a revelation. Here is an individual who was in the Liberal Cabinet of Pierre Elliott Trudeau. He was, 1 must say, a less than effective Minister of the Environment. I never heard him talk about day care. I never heard him advocate day care. I did not see any day care programs whatsoever come out of that administration. I am glad the Hon. Member for Outremont (Mrs. Pepin) is sitting beside him, dropping, I am sure, some hints in his ear, because she understands the problem. I will give her full marks for that.
Great hypocrisy has been shown in the House tonight by the Hon. Member who talks about day care as if he has been an advocate in Davenport for years and years. He has never discussed it before. He has never debated it before. This is the first time he has ever stood up in the House of Commons and talked about day care. What a show of hypocrisy!
I might also point out that the statistics the Hon. Member talked about, comparing day care help and defence expenditures, was playing loose with the truth, and he knows it. The statistics he was giving were all selected figures, some spread over 20 years and some spread over 10 years. He knows full well that the submarine program this Government is talking about will cost the taxpayers of this country one-half of 1 per cent of the social spending in this country. For him to stand up and try to compare the day care figures with defence spending is a total fallacy, and he knows it. He is playing very loose with the truth.


Charles L. Caccia: Mr. Speaker, I am so glad I have touched a raw nerve. I am delighted to see the Parliamentary Secretary angry at being put into a corner to such an extent that all he can say about my intervention is to use the word "hypocrisy". He has run out of steam. He has no other argument. Out of sheer desperation he has to refer to my record as the Minister of the Environment. This is one of the most pathetic arguments I have heard because the record can be seen by anyone. It is just another example of Tory bankruptcy. When one has good ideas, one does not refer to hyprocrisy or former performances, but to the subject matter at hand. We are debating day care tonight.
I am sorry the Parliamentary Secretary did not like former Prime Minister Trudeau. He was a great Prime Minister. I am sorry the Parliamentary Secretary has no positive words to say about him. I served under him and I am proud of that fact. I
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know there are millions of Canadians who would love to see Mr. Trudeau as Prime Minister of this country any time, any day, to replace the present, weak leader-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I regret to interrupt. I have given a little more time than necessary, but I would like to cut it off right now. Questions and comments are now terminated. Debate.


Cyril Keeper: Mr. Speaker, it was, of course, time to cut things off. When the spokesperson for the Liberal Party is hearkening back to the Trudeau era and is making it quite clear that he has no confidence in his present Leader, I think it is time to move on. I did have a question for him but I will ask it another day.
I want to zero in on this whole question of day care, I must say, quite in contrast to what the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) did in this House. He covered the waterfront. He talked about things that affect families, but he did not say a great deal about the legislation before us. His speech sounded very much like an election speech. I am surprised that at the end of his speech he did not announce he was going to see the Governor General. Perhaps he is on his way there now.
Day care has been in and out of the headlines of the newspapers for the last couple of years. When the Prime Minister was campaigning before the last election, he made big promises with respect to day care. We then had a couple of commissions and studies which took a look at day care, but the Government's program on day care kept being put off and put off. Finally the program was unveiled and made public. What stands out in my mind, and I am sure it stands out in the minds of most Canadians who observe what is going on in politics, is the headline which stated that the Government was going to spend $6.4 billion on day care. Coming from a Conservative Government this was a surprise because at first glance we had the impression that here was a Government doing something substantial, that here was a Government taking a step forward in the day care field, because $6.4 billion is a lot of money. It sounds like a lot of money and when it is spread across the headlines, one has to be impressed. The time for day care has arrived.
So I am not surprised if many Canadians, at least at this moment, think that the Government is doing something substantial in the area of day care. But if we step back a little from those headlines, from those billion dollar figures, and examine what the Government is doing, perhaps we will get a little perspective on the situation.
The first thing I want to point out is that, of course, it is necessary to make real advances in the area of day care in order to meet the kinds of needs which have emerged over the last couple of decades. We must first begin by comparing the Government's program for day care with the need in the community. If we accept at face value the Government's indication that its program over seven years will produce some

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200,000	new day care spaces, clearly that will be an improvement. However, my understanding is that there will still be a couple of million children who will require day care spaces. In other words, the amount of day care spaces being provided is nowhere near what is needed. We can debate the amount of need that exists in the community. We can debate whether all children should be in day care centres. We can debate whether most mothers would prefer to stay home and take care of their children rather than working and having to send their children to day care.
When we use statistics to point out the size of the need in the country some government Members accuse us of being social engineers, or of wanting to regiment society and shove every child into day care. However, in spite of those political points that are being made, and even though those political points may be effective in some quarters, or perhaps are persuasive to some people, it does not erase the reality that the amount of spaces that will be created by the day care program of the Government in no way matches the need.
Over the last two decades increasing numbers of women and increasing numbers of mothers have entered the labour force. Therefore, there is a social revolution. Rather than things being as they once were where the father would be in the workforce and the mother would be at home with the children, this situation has changed radically. If one looks at the statistics, it can be seen that the number of families in which the mother stays home rather than works as well as takes care of the children is in the minority today. For the majority of families the social reality is that both parents are working.
When both parents work we as a society must ask the fundamental questions: "How do we take care of our children? How do we take care of young Canadians? How do we assure ourselves that young children receive the loving, adequate, and competent care that they require in order that they will grow up to be good people, competent, mature individuals, and good citizens?" That is what the day care question is about. It is about the making of mature and responsible human beings.
It is important to note that there are many families in which both parents are working and there is a need for quality care for those children. Those children should not be cared for as a happenstance. The Government has stated that it is spending $6.4 billion on day care. While that makes a big splash and a big impression, the impact on the social reality is a fraction of what is needed. First, that is over seven years, therefore, there is less than $1 billion a year. This is a fast emerging social need that demands a radical restructuring of our spending priorities so that we can find the resources necessary in order to provide the services.
If we put the day care program of the Government in the light of what is required and needed then it falls short of the mark. Some people might say that that is okay because we are making some progress and while some people would like to go faster, we are going as fast as we can.
If we compare what the Government is doing with what is needed, we might accept that as a perspective and as a way of
looking at and evaluating the day care program of the Government. If a much more thorough analysis is conducted of the Government's day care program, for example, a budgetary analysis, and we compared the program against what is needed and what was in place already, if we compared the budget for day care that exists today under the Canada Assistance Plan, which has present legislation, budgets, and a track record, with the program the Government is bringing forward now, the Epp program, and if we looked behind the headlines, we would find out something that is quite shocking because it radically changes our perspective on this program. If the present program for day care were left in place, the Canada Assistance Plan, there would be more day care spaces created over the next seven years than there will be under the initiative of the Government.
When I first heard that stated I was short of breath and knocked back. I could not believe it, because I had been reading the headlines and they gave me the impression that the Government was taking a bold initiative. However, when someone took the time to study the details of the program and its budget, they found out that the Government is replacing an existing day care program with a new program that will produce fewer day care spaces than the old program would have. We have a retreat on day care and a cut-back. There is a diminished commitment on day care. In fact, it begins to make a lot of sense. While it would be surprising to see a Conservative Government take bold action on day care, it makes a lot more sense when we understand that it is replacing a program that is in place with a new program that will cost less and produce fewer spaces. That fits much more with our experience of the Government.
When the Government has changed social policies over the last four years it has always meant a lower priority on the scale of social programs, and it has meant fewer dollars for social programs. For example, when the Government decided to do something about old age pensions, what did it do? When government Members spoke in the House they spoke of improvements, but what they attempted to foist on people was a deindexation of the old age pensions and removing the annual cost of living raises that go up with inflation. Over a period of years that would have destroyed the pensions. That is much more typical of the actions of the Government. The point that we must realize is that the Government is introducing a program that will have a less positive impact when it comes to day care than the program that is presently in place.
I wish to return to the question of day care from a different angle. What are the elements that make up a good day care program? I want to take some advice from people who have studied this very closely, particularly the women's organization, the Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women. It was established in 1973 as an independent organization funded by the federal Government. The Council's mandate is to advise the Government and inform the public on matters of concern to women.
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This is what the Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women, who is there to advise Government on day care, says about child care. It ends up with a question, but it says this, that almost two million pre-school children across Canada need child care services because their parents work or study more than 20 hours a week. But there are only 244,000 licensed child care spaces to meet their needs. The federal Government's national child care strategy for the next seven years will do little to address the child care crisis. By 1995, at the end of the seven-year period, only 25 per cent of current need for licence spaces will be met. More than half of the funds allocated by the federal Government to child care during that time will give tax breaks to higher-income parents.
The proposed program will do little to make quality child care services available to all children and families who need it. It does not adequately recognize the contributions of parents who care for children at home.
That is the comment of the Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women on the Government's child care strategy. It ends up with a question that it would like to ask Members of Parliament and candidates in the next election, and that is: What steps will your Party take to ensure that publicly-funded, non-profit quality child care services are universally available to all families who need them in the same way that health and education now are?
That is the question that we have to ask the Government. What is it prepared to do to see that there are publicly-funded non-profit quality child care services, universally accessible, in the same manner as health and education? In other words, we would not tolerate a situation in which the vast majority of Canadian children did not have access to health care or did not have access to education, to schools. So why do we tolerate it when it comes to child care? Each of these elements is necessary in order for a child to get a fair chance in our society, to grow up to be a healthy, mature, responsible citizen.
So this Government has failed the challenge of child care. It has failed to bring in a program that is adequate to the need. Not only that, but it has brought in a program that will be producing fewer day care spaces than the existing program. So what it has produced is a fraud, a deception, a sleight of hand. It gives the impression through the headlines that it is taking bold action because you could read figures like $6.4 billion. But if you do a budgetary analysis, you will find it is in fact going to be spending less and creating fewer spaces than if it left things as they were.
The status quo is better than the Tory initiative. That is the sad reality of this day care package that is before this House. That is a tragedy for the children of this society. We would not tolerate a situation in which children did not have a school to go to. We would not tolerate a situation in which children did not have the health care that they needed. Why does this
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Government ask Canadians to tolerate a situation in which children that need care do not have a child care program available for them? That is the question that this Government has to answer.
I want to sum up by saying that the Government has been shrewd and clever in its management of the news, in its management of the headlines. But when it comes down to the substance, when it comes down to meeting the human needs, it has failed. It has failed to meet the need. In fact, it has done less than what would have been done if it had left things alone. That is a sad commentary but an understandable one.
We know that it is the objective of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) to cut back on social spending. He has indicated that in so many ways in so many areas of social policy. So this day care initiative fits with the objectives of the Minister of Finance, but it does not fit with the children of Canada, with the families of Canada. It fails abysmally, because it does not provide for what is needed. Not only that, but it reduces the commitment of the federal Government in the area of child care.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Questions or comments.


Jean J. Charest: Mr. Speaker, I would like to make some very brief comments and put a question to my colleague. First of all, I would just like to comment slightly by saying that I think people listening tonight will find it a bit incredible that the Hon. Member would even indicate that what the Government is proposing today in terms of a day care policy is worse than the status quo when in fact it is investing $6.7 billion.
It does not require me to yell or to use great rhetoric to put that point across. Canadians listening to us tonight must know that any Government who spends $6.7 billion over a seven-year period, whether it is day care or anything else, is spending a lot of money-taxpayers' money.


An Hon. Member:: It could be less.


Jean J. Charest: To just discard the policy, whether it is on day care or anything else, on such an issue is a challenge to the mind. How anybody could get up in the House of Commons and so blatantly push away such a policy is just incredible, it is a challenge to the mind. But then again, I guess if you are from the NDP, such challenges once in a while creep up and occur.
The question I want to put to the Hon. Member is of great interest to provincial governments, and to the provincial Government of the Province of Quebec. I know it is of some concern and I know also that the Members and their Party as well as the official critic have been saying that this legislation lacks in specifics on national norms, and it is their position that the legislation should include something very precise on that very issue. I want to know from the New Democratic Party of

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Canada how far they are ready to go in implementing what they thing should be national norms. The provincial Governments would certainly like to know.


Cyril Keeper: Mr. Speaker, I must say I welcome my colleague's question. He makes the point that I made when I opened my speech. He said it is incredible that a Government that spends $6.4 billion is worse than the status quo. Well, on first blush, he makes sense in what he is saying. That is where the challenge comes in. The thing is, you just do not take a look at $6.4 billion in a vacuum. You have to compare it to what present government expenditures are and what are present government plans and programs for spending in the future. When you compare it on that level, what is revealed, once you pull away this curtain, is that in fact the new program will produce fewer day care spaces than the existing federal government programs. That is the interesting reality. People should get a chance to understand those facts.
I think that the Government's play for the headlines is not going to work as a political gambit. This is the first thing. The second thing was how far we would go with regard to national mores, which is what I think the Member said. Well, what we believe in this Party is that, when you establish a national social program such as day care, you must have national objectives. A responsible Government will say that this is the kind of program that we want, this is the kind of program that will provide for the day care needs and the child care needs of the nation. Then, of course, provinces can buy into the program and become involved.
First of all, you have to have the political leadership out of this Chamber and you have to have some accountability for those funds, accountability in terms of a national objective. The sad part of this program is that it is a program that gives no national direction. It turns over a pot of money to the provinces. It gives a global funding arrangement by which provinces can do whatever they want with the money, obviously in the day care field, but they can still do whatever they want. It is a hands-off approach, Mr. Speaker. It is the nightmare of Meech Lake. Rather than use the opportunity for political leadership and the opportunity to provide some direction, it takes a hands-off approach and says that the provinces can do whatever they want.
I disagree with our Liberal colleague who spoke earlier and who blamed this on the Meech Lake Accord. I would not blame it on the Meech Lake Accord. Given the Meech Lake Accord, you must have political leadership at the national level in order to provide direction so that you can have good national programs. If the federal Government had taken this approach when it came to the establishment of medicare, we would not have medicare in this country. I say to my colleague that we need to have national objectives. Then we will have set standards whereby the provincial Governments and the federal administration can be held accountable for the expenditures of those moneys according to the national objectives.


Jean J. Charest: I have a very short supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. I think Canadians from the Province of Quebec will find it of particular interest that the Hon. Member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Keeper) from the New Democratic Party would describe this piece of legislation-if I heard him correctly-as the nightmare of Meech Lake. I want to know from him whether he intends, along with the Leader of his Party, because we are approaching a federal election in the next few months to a year, to enter the Province of Quebec and campaign specifically on that issue with regard to this legislation.


Cyril Keeper: Mr. Speaker, all I would say is that you can have a Meech Lake nightmare and you can also have a Meech Lake dream. This Government has chosen the nightmare. It has chosen not to provide political leadership. If you want to have a dream, you have to provide leadership and direction. That is possible under our Constitution. The nightmare in this situation is that the Government has abdicated its responsibility to provide political leadership. The Government is abusing the Meech Lake Accord in that way. It is saying: "Okay, we will leave direction for day care to the provinces and we will provide no national leadership".


Abram Ernest Epp: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to comment. The Minister of State for Youth and for Fitness and Amateur Sport (Mr. Charest) works within the ambit of the Department of National Health and Welfare. We understand why he is putting in a good word for his boss, the Minister. I must say that my colleague labelled this the "Epp plan" and then later on called it a fraud and deception. Members will appreciate that I might have felt those observations rather keenly.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Abram Ernest Epp: If you allow me a moment or two, Mr. Speaker, to get precisely to the point, I would like to remind Canadians that the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Epp) in early 1985 published a paper on child benefits in which he promised that there would not be a reduction in child benefits and if there were in any part of that, the money would stay within the envelope, in the jargon of the federal Government, so it would not be lost to families. The same Minister was forced by September, 1985, to concede that there would be through deindexation of the family allowance, a reduction in child benefits which would be a loss to families because he would not, in fact, keep the money in his area of spending. He made no particular apology for having taken up the imperatives of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) and, in the process, broke his word to Canadian families.
Though I might at first be inclined to feeling a little piqued at this harsh description of the "Epp plan" on child care, those Canadians who are watching and wondering whether my friend is telling the truth about a plan that can represent over the next seven years less spending if it is put into effect than
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would occur if the existing arrangements under the Canada Assistance Plan, dating from the mid-1960s remain in effect, and if provinces take up the opportunity to provide child care under that joint funding arrangement between Ottawa and the provincial Governments of this country, it is possible.
My colleague says that this could be less spending, even if the Minister who has been commenting cannot believe that and finds it too much for his mind, but I must say that in working with youth he should be capable of understanding almost anything. The possibility that a Minister in the Conservative Government, as my friend has said very rightly, might be involved in just this kind of fraudulent game on the Canadian public seems to me quite possible, given the record of the Minister of National Health and Welfare. He has yielded to Tuxedo and River Heights before against the interest of Steinbach and Ste. Anne, and he has done it one more time.


Cyril Keeper: Mr. Speaker, when I spoke about the "Epp plan", obviously I was thinking more of Jake than of Ernie. When I said that it was a deception, I really was not trying to say that it was a "dis-Epp-tion". I was trying to say that it seemed to me to be misleading. I hope that I have not insulted my colleague. I certainly stand by my critique of the day care program of the Government.


Jean J. Charest: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate your customary generosity. The Hon. Member for Ottawa-Vanier (Mr. Gauthier) wants me to go easy on the compliments, Mr. Speaker, but I warn you I will ignore his advice. I intend to express my appreciation of your excellent work in the Chair and your immense patience as well. We all know it is not an easy job, Mr. Speaker, because every single day, and even at night, because we are working overtime ... This is not just the usual extended hours. We are working on extended hours during the summer, Mr. Speaker, and during all that time you have to listen to speeches by the New Democratic Party.


An Hon. Member:: It is not easy.


Jean J. Charest: I think we may have to review your income supplement because the job is worth more. It is worth ... I do not know if we could ever pay you enough ...


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Jean J. Charest: ... in return for what you have to endure in the course of a single evening.


An Hon. Member:: The father of multiculturalism.


Jean J. Charest: Mr. Speaker, earlier I said to my colleague from the New Democratic Party that we had trouble sitting here listening to one of their speeches that contained, substantially, the following statement. The New Democratic Party tells us that this program worth $6 ...


Mr. Della  Noce@: . . . $6.4 billion . . .


Jean J. Charest: . . . $6.4 billion which will be spent over a period of about seven years is peanuts. They would prefer to
Canada Child Care Act
keep the status quo. They would rather turn back the clock. They would rather not spend $6.4 billion in taxpayer's money.
If that is any indication of what we can expect during the next election campaign, there will not be much to fear. This is what is referred to in Quebec as the "Capitaine Bonhomme" technique. "Capitaine Bonhomme" used to say, and we even heard it said by the Hon. Member for Terrebonne (Mr. Toupin) when he was sitting with the NPD, when he shouted from the other side of the House that "les sceptiques seraient confondus"... Well, "Capitaine Bonhomme" seems to be in charge of the New Democratic Party's campaign committee.
Mr. Speaker, there are a number of reasons why the Government decided to introduce this Bill and this policy. Today, we are specifically considering the Bill, but there is also a general strategy of which this Bill is a part. In recent years, there were a number of developments in our society that made our Government decide to react. These are developments that in fact all political parties are able to recongnize. We agree on that. There is for instance the fact, and this has already been mentioned, that women are entering the labour market in increasing numbers. It is not for us to judge whether it is a good or a bad thing. It is a fact of life. I think it is a good thing. I think women have the right to do so just as men did before. People no longer question their right to enter the labour market, and if they make that choice, just as men make the same choice, they should be allowed to do so.
So this is one factor making child care services increasingly important. There are other factors besides, Mr. Speaker. Family structure in our society has changed, for all sorts of reasons, good or bad; again, we are not to judge that today, but, for example, there are more and more single-parent families. So there are more and more women who are single mothers with children and who have to take care of them and at the same time earn their living; they must work. The children must still be cared for. These women, like so many others, do not make much money and child care services are important-that is another important factor.


Mr. Champagne (Champlain):: The NDP does not understand that.


Jean J. Charest: My colleague from Champlain (Mr. Champagne) says that the New Democratic Party does not understand that. I would not have said that, Mr. Speaker, but I tend to agree with him. I did not say it.
So, Mr. Speaker, added to that, and I think that we have not talked much about the changes within the labour market itself... We tend to think these days that in this modern era, investment, modernization and all that will bring jobs. Whenever we announce subsidies, for example, we try to help companies in the regions through regional economic development. From time to time, we automatically think that this means jobs. That is not always true, Mr. Speaker. You know, investing and modernizing sometimes mean loss of employment and it is difficult to put that in context. But we modernize to be more competitive.

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Canada is an exporting country, and it is probably one of the few countries in the world that depends to such a great extent on exports as a percentage of its gross domestic product. There is also West Germany, and in fact we are both very close. Since Canada is an exporting country, we have to invest and we have to be competitive as a country, and sometimes that means losing jobs. All that to reach a simple conclusion! This means that changes in the labour market are important. For instance, the number of jobs in the service sector in Canada is increasing. In the forties, about 40 per cent of jobs were in the service industry in this country, while by 1986, it was 75 per cent. What this means? Well traditionally, women are more highly represented in the service sector than they are in any other industry. Ironically, and I say ironically in referring to the last two years, women have performed well on the labour market because of shifts in the kind of jobs available. Such shifts are not unique to Canada. They are a worldwide phenomenon. It means more and more part-time work, sometimes temporary work, which is another facet of the situation of women on the labour market and in fact of whole families.
Mr. Speaker, one aspect that has not been discussed today is the role played by men, because in recent years, the emphasis has been on discussing what the role of women should be in the family, on the labour market and so forth, but men are also changing the way they live. Men enter the labour market, their jobs change, they are displaced by new technology, and they are asked to play an increasingly important role in terms of society's values with respect to men. I noticed in the course of this debate that there have been very few references to the changing roles of men, and I know something about the subject. The Hon. Member for Champlain (Mr. Champagne) knows about this and the Hon. Member for Chambly (Mr. Grise) as well. We have young families, we have young children and all that, and our roles are changing as well. There is another person who is knowledgeable on the subject, Mr. Speaker, and I am proud to refer to our Prime Minister.


An Hon. Member:: He changes diapers.


Jean J. Charest: He is very close to his family, and Members on both sides of the House have seen for themselves that he is very much attached to his family and his wife. It is a marvelous sight. People think he is promoting certain values, but he is also keenly aware, and I have discussed the matter with him, of the fact that men have to change their attitudes within the family unit. It's all very well to put all the mechanisms in place, but men will have to do more. They will have to redefine and share to a greater extent the responsibilities within the family unit.
That being said, it is clear, Mr. Speaker, that we need more day care. We need more day care so that these people can live, can develop and participate fully in the labour market and in
Canadian society, because that is what we mean by participation in our society.
I see the Hon. Member for Outremont (Mrs. Pepin) who is joining us. Please sit down and join us! It's nice to see you again. So the Hon. Member for Outremont is with us again, and I am delighted to see her, because I have some comments and questions. However, we all agree that these needs exist and that these changes are taking place. We are probably more sensitive to the changing roles of men in our Party, since the other parties never even mentioned the subject. We decided to talk about it this evening. There is a problem, however, when we talk about the means for bringing about these changes.
Members of the New Democratic Party have already told us what they thought of our approach. We intend to spend $6.7 billion, and their answer was that it was peanuts, did not mean a thing and was regressive. I would like to know how many people are sitting in Sherbrooke this evening in that beautiful riding of mine who are going to believe that. These are people who already pay taxes every Thursday. Just imagine, their paycheck arrives, part of it is taken away, and the New Democratic Party tells them that $6.7 billion is peanuts! They want to take the rest of your paycheck as well! What really worries me is that they are going to deduct so much income tax from my constituents' paychecks in the riding of Sherbrooke that they will not be able to afford the day care the Government wants to give them. In any case, that is another problem.
As far as the practical side is concerned, the Government wanted to establish a policy that would respect the jurisdiction of the provinces, because after all we are in Canada and not in the United States or Great Britain. Policies are not developed in a vacuum. They evolve within the constitutional reality of this country which provides that the provinces have certain jurisdictions. And the Province of Quebec, and this should be of interest to the Hon. Member for Outremont, also has its own jurisdiction. If we discuss the matter with our counterparts in Quebec, I am sure they would be interested to talk to you about their jurisdiction.
In the Bill before the House today, Mr. Speaker, we appreciate that reality and we want to make certain adjustments. The New Democratic Party and the federal Liberal Party of Canada do not recognize that reality. I know that. I have already heard what they had to say in the House. They claim, for instance, that we are not setting national standards and are not showing any leadership.
Mr. Speaker, let's be honest. What they are saying is totally false.


An Hon. Member:: They did nothing for twenty years!


Jean J. Charest: We have to call a spade a spade. It's just not true.
August 11, 1988

The Bill contains some very clear indications in that respect. The standards that we ask the provinces to develop and implement include (1) the child:care-giver ratio; (2) the qualifications of the day care staff; (3) the size of the groups by age and type of care; (4) health and safety measures; and the nature of parental participation, Mr. Speaker. What we plan to enforce those standards, Mr. Speaker, is specific agreements with the provinces recognizing, for example, that Quebec may be more advanced than the other provinces. Are you going to deny that? You see, they almost agree with us. I am sure that the Hon. Member for Outremont will vote for the Bill at this rate.
Are Quebec and Ontario, for example, as advanced as other provinces like New Brunswick, for example? Are they as advanced in New Brunswick as in Ontario, Mr. Speaker? To ask the question is to answer it. Basically, what is wrong with a Bill that recognizes these realities? Do we always have to act as if that were not the case or must we, the federal Government, always impose our will on everything? It is not necessary, Mr. Speaker, when you want to do things that work, practical things out in the field. When the time comes to act, when choices have to be made, when you have to implement what was discussed, be it in 15 or 20 years when they were in power or in our case, in the space of one mandate, the reasonable time we took to put this together, when that time comes, these realities must be recognized. Something must be done for those people. That is exactly what this Bill does.
There are three main objectives. Our national policy can also be divided into three parts, more or less. First, what we are trying to do, looking at the objectives as a whole, is to develop a flexible strategy, one that respects the parents' right to choose. Imagine, Mr. Speaker, we as a party-this may surprise you because I know ... Not you, excuse me, it will not surprise you. We have great respect for your intelligence, Mr. Speaker, but it surprises the people on the other side, both in the federal Liberal Party and in the New Democratic Party. Imagine that-we want to let parents choose. What a sin! What a scandal to presume that Canadians can have the intelligence to choose what to do with their own tax money! We will have a choice soon, Mr. Speaker, you see, because another Government would take their money and tell them that is the way it is. Not only will they take your money, they will take twice as much. We will take twice as much, as the New Democratic Party would say, and we will give you no choice because we know what is good for you.
Mr. Speaker, we believe we are past that stage. Because people are intelligent. Earlier they referred to the fact I am Minister of State (Youth). True, I am the Minister of State (Youth), but I do not claim I know our young people very well, in the sense that I do not know each choice of each individual. But I know them well enough to know that they want to have a choice, they want to make their own choice. They want to be treated as full partners in our Canadian society.
The legislation recognizes that reality.
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We also want to ensure that child care is accessible, affordable, and of better quality. This is what we are aiming at.
So this Government uses three major approaches. There is increased tax assistance to families, Mr. Speaker-this is the first approach, an important approach that will put some money into their pockets through the tax system. The second approach is the new fund for child care project implementation, and there you will see a certain diversity in the approaches taken, recognizing the fact there is no magic solution, no uniform solution for everyone, and what we aim to do through that new fund, Mr. Speaker, is for instance to give an opportunity to those who want to offer specialized services, to submit project proposals.
As I am speaking, Mr. Speaker, this Government is accepting projects, examining them through National Health and Welfare, in order that a group wanting to have a project for handicapped children in a child care centre can do so. It is important to be able to recognize those differences. This is what we mean when we refer to the right of choice. Because not all people are alike. We cannot have a ready-made system that will fit everyone because there are for instance ethnic groups, and they can chose to submit a special project.
Groups with handicapped children for instance can make that choice. There are all kinds of reasons, all kinds of differences that make our society richer in all kinds of ways, and this we would like to recognize through that program.
Through the legislation indeed. Of course, the legislation now before us.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, let me offer a remark that goes a little beyond the subject at hand this evening, but that is directly linked to the legislation and the result expected from this legislation. The question we must ask now as we sit in this House, after the decision taken by the Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada (Mr. Turner) is this: Will he or will he not instruct the Senate to block this legislation?
Because as you see, Mr. Speaker, the votes of Canadian men and women is not good enough any more. Because if today you are a federal Liberal, Mr. Speaker, you can decide what is good or what is bad, no matter how the people voted. The vote of each Canadian man and woman has been reduced, diminished that very day the Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada (Mr. Turner) stooped himself to block Government legislation in the Senate, on free trade of course. That is what I am talking about. Even though he promised to tear up the deal as soon as he would be elected leader of this country, he changes his mind, he turns around, and claims that no, a non-elected Senate does have the right and will be asked to show its expertise in filibustering.
In other words, in order to protect, and it is a real challenge to understand the reasoning behind this whole thing, Mr. Speaker, in order to protect democracy, John Turner decides to deny democracy. That is the new philosophy of the federal Liberal Party. You've got to see it to believe it! A few months ago, this same man, Mr. Speaker, while being stabbed in the

August 11, 1988
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back by half the members of his own caucus, was referring to the democratic process by which he was elected. In 1986, more than half the members of his caucus told him to quit and leave his Party and stabbed him in the back. And where was he during all this time? We know! He was going through a very difficult time, a very painful family ordeal, while half of his caucus, more than half of his caucus were democratically stabbing him in the back and telling him to quit. And what did John Turner say? Democracy, my friends! In November 1986, 76 per cent of our delegates elected me leader of the Party. I have the right to retain my position, based on the democratic fundamental principle of our country. Now, a few months later, he changes his mind and says: Let us forget about democracy! The non-elected Liberal Senate can now start filibustering.
Mr. Speaker, I only mention this because in a few months Canadians will have the opportunity to vote, and, in fact, to make a big decision. They will have to determine the value of their vote for all subsequent elections. If the strategy used by the Canadian Senate, and by the federal Liberal Party of Canada, ever succeeds, from that time on, the value of the voting right of each and every Canadian will be diminished, and a Bill like this one would be jeopardized by a leader as weak as John Turner, and a party as weak and as undemocratic as the federal Liberal Party of Canada.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Questions and comments. The Hon. Member for Outremont (Mrs. Pepin).


Lucie Pépin: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the Minister of State for Youth who seems to know everything about day care centres ... in fact, he seems to know a lot of things. He made a case for day care centres by referring to the Senate and the Liberal Party.
I wish he would give me more details because the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) has had a lot to say about the war his Governement is waging against drugs and cocaine. As it happens, one preventive program against juvenile delinquency would involve extracurricular day care centres for children aged 6 to 14. We also know that 57 per cent of these children are alone after school hours.
Since he mentioned the Province of Quebec I am telling him that it is one of the crucial problems facing Quebec-I mean extracurricular centres-because it is the only province which makes grants to support this kind of day care centres.
So what does his Government intend to do to promote day care centres, because there is no reference to them in the legislation? Clause 2 even excludes services relating to education.


Jean J. Charest: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that the Hon. Member for Outremont (Mrs. Pepin) should ask me that question, particularly as it relates to Quebec and fields of jurisdiction.
We on this side are somewhat taken aback by the statements made by the federal Liberal Party of Canada, especially by her colleague the Hon. Member for Hamilton East (Ms. Copps) and by herself, the Hon. Member for Outremont, to the effect that the legislation fails to give a clear definition of the standards, that the standards are not clear enough.
What I would like to know is just how far the federal Liberal Party of Canada is prepared to go to impose these standards and how far it is prepared to go to impose them within the Province of Quebec.
Can the Hon. Member for Outremont tell us whether she knows the answer to that question, because I would like to know. I would like to know what they will tell Quebecers about the standards.
Mr. Speaker, in response to her question, she knows full well that the legislation provides for agreements. I can tell you that our objective is to be as flexible as possible so that we will be able to acknowledge the legitimate options of the provinces while taking into consideration their needs and, if you will, how far they have progressed in the day care sector.
Still the Hon. Member for Outremont ought to be able to tell us whether or not the Liberal Party of Quebec is at one with the federal Liberal Party of Canada when it comes to the question of standards. Do they agree with them, yes or no?


Mr. Waddell:: Mr. Speaker, I have a comment and I want to direct a question to the Minister. My comment is that his speech was excellent in its rhetoric but a failure in its substance. He seemed afraid to answer questions. He was afraid to answer the question of the Hon. Member for Outremont (Mrs. Pepin). Therefore, I want to ask him a question.
As I understand it, the Meech Lake Accord permits establishment of national objectives for new social programs which the federal Government funds. Child care is a new social program which the federal Government is funding. Why did the Government not put in place standards for the provinces? The provinces are getting all this money and are essentially going to set up child care.
I have a further question for the Minister and I would ask him to answer it. Does he believe that the federal Government should set up standards when it gives money like this to the provinces?


Jean J. Charest: Mr. Speaker, we are witnessing at this time the old school of thought of the NDP, the New Democratic Party of the late 1980s versus the early 1980s New Democratic Party of Canada, the one that voted with the federal Liberal Party to repatriate the Constitution even though the Quebec National Assembly had voted unanimously against that. There are two schools of thought in the New Democratic Party. We heard one of them tonight and at this point in time are witnessing the other school of thought.
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The Hon. Member for Vancouver-Kingsway (Mr. Waddell) has expressed his opposition to the Meech Lake Accord with some conviction and has paid a price for that. He is asking us, in the context of his personal opposition, which is not consistent with the position of his own Party, for our answer on the question of national norms.
The first answer is obvious although it may not be obvious to the Hon. Member. I say that respectfully because the Hon. Member operates on a centralized premise. He sees Canada as having a centralized government. The fact is that there are different jurisdictions in Canada. This legislation recognizes those different jurisdictions. There should be nothing surprising about the fact that the provinces have jurisdiction in this.
Through this legislation we recognize the specific areas in which the federal Government, with the provinces, wants to establish some norms including the ratio between children and those who keep them; the qualifications of the personnel; the sizes of the groups, their ages and types; regulations on health and security; and the nature of parental participation. These are all things provided for in the legislation and they should be consistent with the way in which Canada operates.


Mr. Hamelin:: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to my colleague, of course. The Opposition speaks a lot about national standards... Here is my question: Would my colleague consider, as the Opposition no doubt does, that the government of Alberta and the parents in that province have lower standards concerning the security and safety of buildings? In Newfoundland or British Columbia, for example, are people less concerned about employee qualifications? Are we to consider, and this is the question I ask my colleague, that some Canadian parents and some provincial governments are less responsible than others towards the children of this country?


Jean J. Charest: Mr. Speaker, that is a very good question from my colleague from Charlevoix (Mr. Hamelin), whom I recognize . . .


An Hon. Member:: You have to make it easy for him!


Jean J. Charest: ... as a great advocate of the people and whom I commend for the excellent work he has done on Bill C-72, for example. He will no doubt go down in the history of our Party as someone who has made a substantial contribution.
Actually, what he is telling me a little ironically, I must say, is that the Opposition thinks that everybody should be the same, that everybody should be in the same boat. Their vision of the country is that everybody should be put on the same conveyor belt, should be stamped and approved from above .. .
Do you know to what extent, Mr. Speaker, this is true? Just yesterday, as Wayne Gretzky was being traded because he had decided to join his wife ... That's the way it is, Mr. Speaker, where the wife goes, the husband must follow! He decided to join his wife in Los Angeles. The New Democratic Party
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suggested that the transaction be stopped, that the marriage of Mrs. Wilson and Mr. Gretzky be cancelled immediately and that a warrant for the arrest of Wayne Gretzky be issued so that he can be put in jail when he returns to Canada. How scandalous! They will soon have the choice. Theirs would be kind of government where everybody and everything would be the same. One need only go out a bit in the world to realize that things are not the same everywhere.
Mr. Speaker, we must not be afraid to live in a world where people are different. It is not because they are different that we must be afraid. Differences make us richer. They make for a varied world. We must not be afraid to recognize differences among people.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Questions and comments are now over. On debate, the Hon. Member for Ottawa-Vanier (Mr. Gauthier) has the floor.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, I would suggest that the Minister is delighted to see that the question and comment period is over. He has nearly lost his voice from so much shouting. It is to be feared that if he should continue like this, he could choke again, Mr. Speaker.
I do not think there is a single Member in this House who is now fully aware of just how important this debate on Bill C-144 is. I am one of those who would like to emphasize the impact this Bill is likely to have on their ridings and, if I may, I should like to refer to a survey which was carried out not so long ago on this issue in my own riding and share with my colleagues its findings.
But before coming to the heart of the matter, I should like first of all to state unequivocally that the needs do exist. It is a well established fact. Several commissions of inquiry have already made a number of recommendations, the issue has been thorougly examined, so that the time now is for action and not for further studies.

I do not think there is any argument on the need for an increase in adequate child care spaces in Canada. That has been fully explained and documented over the years, as far back as the Royal Commission on the Status of Women in 1970.
I want to put on the record a statement made by my leader on October 26, 1986. At that time he stated on The Nation's Business'.
"We in the Liberal Party believe that any child care system must be based on two principles: 1) sharing the burden and 2) providing choices.
Our proposal is that parents, the private sector, and provincial and federal governments will share the costs. It will be a mixed program, with more facilities and help for those who do not have access to the facilities- particularly in rural areas."

Mr. Speaker, several Members of this House have clearly demonstrated today that child care has become a social issue. Canadian families have experienced dramatic changes over the

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past twenty years as a result of an increasing shift in population towards urban areas in an effort to adapt to a more modern way of life. Things have changed gradually so that now traditional families with only one bread winner are now a minority and we see more and more the advent of new families structures. Take, for instance, the case of single parent families. They represent 20 per cent of all the families in my riding; in other words, one in every five families is a single parent family and 90 per cent of them with children. Nowadays, there are childless couples, families with two bread winners, families which are entirely different from those which existed 25 or 30 years ago, and we must create the social structures to meet the important challenge we are faced with in 1988, namely, how to deal with the children, and especially those who need day care because both their parents are part of the labour force.
Thanks to a questionnaire which I circulated in my riding a few months ago, I came to the realization that a great many of my constituents are very much interested in this issue.
According to Statistics Canada's most recent report, there are 19,265 families in my constituency. Of that number, 8,180 do not have children at home and 3,635 are single-parent families, including 3,075 headed by women. There is a total of 18,520 children at home, including 4,325 aged six years or less. They are the ones needing day care services.
Besides the changes I was talking about earlier, there is a large increase in the number of women in the workforce, particularly those with children under six. In 1967, 16 per cent of those women were in the workforce whereas now, 20 years later, that number is 56 per cent among women with children aged three years or less and 63 per cent among those with children between three and five. It is a radical change.
Therefore, we see right away that something must be done to help those women and families take care of their children because it is the next generation of Canadians that is at stake.
Mr. Speaker, it is essentially the economic conditions which caused the changes I was talking about. Since 1960, the purchasing power of single-income families has not stopped decreasing. That has put more and more pressure on those families and forced many of their members to work outside the home. The reality is that 44 per cent of Canadian families now rely on both spouses to bring home the money required to support the household. It is a reality that we, as responsible lawmakers, must take into account.
For millions of children currently needing day care services because both their parents are in the workforce, there are only
250,000	spaces in public child care centres, which barely meet 15 per cent of the demand. It is not enough, we know it, something must be done.
Because there are not enough spaces in day care centres children must put up with day care services of lesser quality, constantly change sitters or, worse, be kept under the care of persons whose qualifications are doubtful if not inexistent.
That, Mr. Speaker, is not what we consider as adequate in many cases.
Parents who have been able to find acceptable day care services still have a problem: professional services cost a great deal. One must be ready to pay between $4,000 and $6,000 a year per child.
As an example, I was discussing this problem some time ago with my parliamentary assistant whose wife works outside the home. They have two children. They are among those in my riding who have been able to find a quality day care centre. They are satisfied with the quality of service provided at the centres their two children go to.
However, that couple must pay $500 a month for the four-year old child and more than $800 a month for the one-year-old. That amounts to more than $1,300 a month for the two children, or $15,600 a year for the assistant of a Member of Parliament who is not paid a high salary. Unfortunately, we cannot pay our assistants as much as we would like to, we are on a tight budget, but I know that in order to pay $15,600 a year of family income for day care this individual is making sacrifices. Mr. Speaker, those parents tried for a while to answer their need for day care but economic conditions are getting too much for them. Considering the amounts I have just cited, we can see how much more difficult to solve my assistant's problem can be for other low or middle income Canadian families.
Day care services will therefore be restricted more and more to an elite who can afford to pay what they cost. That is not what we mean when we talk about reforming the system, giving Canadians the day care services they need.
We can see it is urgent to solve the problem. But the need to act does not mean forsaking the opportunity to review the problems to be solved and the ways to solve them.
Mr. Speaker, I think that there are two ways that the Government tries to help families with children and we know that for many years, billions of dollars have been spent to help Canadian families meet their needs.
Mr. Speaker, we now spend $5 billion a year through the tax system to help Canadian families with children. First, there are government benefits for families with children. These families enjoy several programs collectively known as the Child Benefits Plan. They are family allowances, the child tax credit and the tax exemption for dependent children.
In 1984-85, net expenditures for the Child Benefits Plan were $4.09 billion and it is estimated that in 1986, $4.82 billion was spent on this budget item.
The other aspect is child care services. In addition to government financial support for child care, this service takes four forms: (1) the income tax deduction for child care expenses; (2) sharing the cost of subsidized child care services for low-income families with the provinces under the Canada Assistance Plan, which has existed for many years, as we know.
August 11, 1988

When I hear my colleagues from the Government side say that the previous Government never did anything . . . They cannot be serious, because for many years, there have been both tax programs and direct assistance programs to help Canadian families meet their needs to raise children.
Third are the training allowances for parents taking courses sponsored by Employment and Immigration Canada.
It is well known today that training programs are available to Canadian men and women and that if they need child care services, the federal Government provides financial contributions to that end.
Fourth, there are contributions by the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development for child care services and Day care services in Indian reserves. Those four measures have cost about 224 millions dollars in 1984, according to the last figures available.
Those amounts seem high at first, but one must not forget that the deduction for child care expenses benefits primarily high revenue families and only if they can provide receipts. That as is very important!
As we have seen earlier, those who can afford to pay more than 1,000 $ a month in child care expenses are entitled to a tax break, but not those who have inadequate or almost nonexistent revenues.
Assistance is provided to low revenue families through the Cost Sharing Program of the Public Assistance Program of Canada, but less than 20 per cent of eligible children six years old or less have benefited from this program up to now.
Furthermore, some measures allow families to raise their children. There are the family allowances which have been in existence for many years, as well as the child tax credit, the tax deduction for children. Unfortunately, all those have been reduced, Mr. Speaker. They have been reduced by the Mulroney Government through desindexation.
This has had a serious impact on poor and low income families. According to figures available to us, every family will lose ground in 1990 with the deindexation of those tax measures.
The situation is therefore urgent. It has to be dealt with. We, in the Liberal party, believe in the major principles which must underlie this reform of assistance to child care services. So, before dealing with the Government Bill, that is C-144, I want to recall the principles stated in several reports, but more recently in the minority report presented to the committee by my colleague, the Hon. Member for Outremont (Mrs. Pepin), entitled Choices for Child Care: Now and in the Future, dated March 1987. Mr. Speaker, this document has to be read, for it represents a serious approach and gives an alternative which could in my opinion provide us with a good solution.
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First of all, we believe in the value of the parents' role. In order for them to be able to care for their children, we have to create programs of parental leave, flexible working hours, work sharing, etc. It is difficult, I grant you that, but it is not impossible. We will have to use our imagination, innovate a little, but that is the challenge we are facing in the workplace today. As we know, more and more businesses and industries provide and must continue to provide day care services, because that may be the solution to some of the problems.
Second, we need quality services which will guarantee the full development of the children. Child care is not a mere physical surveillance. These children are the next generation of citizens and the services we provide must prepare them to achieve their full development. In that respect, the school system is the most elaborate and valued child care system we have. The youngest should not, because of their age, be neglected. Young children are young human beings and they have the right to be treated as such. To that end, we will have to set and enforce basic standards dealing with accommodation, programs and staff training to ensure a good emotional, intellectual and social development of our children.
The third main principle is the development of institutions to implement over the years a comprehensive child care system of good quality, everywhere in Canada.
Fourth, there is the important principle of justice and equity. What does it mean? It means that assistance must go to the families most in need and that all families in the same situation must share the same opportunities.
The fifth objective is social justice, which means that the cost of child care must be shared equally among beneficiaries, namely governments, parents and employers.
The sixth objective is the harmonization of programs between provinces. I touched on a similar aspect a few minutes ago when I talked about the principle of equity between families. We think that all Canadians must have access to the same or a comparable level of service throughout the country, regardless of their province of residence. We will always object to a double or triple standard within Canada. There must be national standards for child care services as there are for health services. It is absolutely essential.
Lastly, there is the question of fiscal accountability. We saw that the amounts involved are very substantial. We are talking several billion dollars. Therefore, it is essential that there be some kind of accountability to ensure that the funds provided to provinces are used according to the objectives set by the federal government. I believe in the sharing of powers between the various jurisdictions. However, since child care services is a federal initiative funded by the federal Government, it seems to me that it is just common sense that there be some kind of accountability for those programs.

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Mr. Speaker, those were the objectives that we, Liberals, want to have included in any legislation on child care. And not only the Liberals favour them, Mr. Speaker, but Canadian people do too. As I said earlier, I polled the constituents in my riding of Ottawa-Vanier on this issue. The responses I got confirm what I just said. Out of 1,404 people who answered, 1,192 or 85 per cent think that the parents should pay all or part of the child care expenses, which brings forward the matter of social responsibility that I mentioned earlier.
As well, 33 per cent believe that the system should be universal and 56 per cent stated that such a program should only be offered to families in need. Moreover 59 per cent of the people in my riding of Ottawa-Vanier favor a system of funding based on revenues supplemented by some form of government assistance. This is what I was talking about when speaking of new trends in the workplace. Fifty per cent of the respondents favour child care services at the workplace.
In my riding, people agree with the establishment of child care services, but they remain realistic and believe in family responsibility, in a fair funding of child care and in helping families in need. As for us, we endorse those objectives and believe furthermore that any family in need should have access to the best child care services which should be offered according to the paying capacity of theses families.
Mr. Speaker, when looking at the Government proposal to solve this problem, we realize that the Tories have once again missed the boat. As I have said, the main problem is the lack of spaces since only 15 per cent of the needs are presently fulfilled. Some two millions additionnal places ought to be created. However, the government wishes to respond to the problem mainly with tax credits.
With a $6.4 billion budget over seven years, they intend to allocate a little less than $4 billion in cost-sharing programs with the provinces towards the creation of additional spaces.
Mr. Speaker, a refundable tax credit is contrary to the principle of a fair family treatment since every family will be getting $200 more over two years, going from $500 to $700, no matter what their needs are and whether they in fact spend that sum on child care. Tax credit will in no way contribute to the creation of new spaces, while funds targetted for the creation of new spaces will be too scarce to allow for a universal access to child care services.
The number of profitable child care services will increase as a result of Bill C-144 which will provide families with more money for day care while not contributing the necessary funds to create additional spaces in public or non profit organizations.
Mr. Speaker, this is the kind of approach the Governement has chosen to take. I doubt it is the right one, but it is its choice having been elected to govern. The Government has failed to show leadership in that area. I blame it for that. But is not the first time it surrenders its national responsibilities.
The issue of national standards which was mentionned earlier and discussed on many occasions before, is a fondamen-tal issue since the federal Government must maintain some kind of parity between various programs under different jurisdictions as a result of its constitutionnal or financial involvment.
Canadians are entitled to the same services wherever they live in Canada. That is a fundamental point, a matter of justice and fairness, and the Government is to be blamed for not having established national standards in this legislation. He is introducing a bill on child care . . .


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Are there questions or comments for the Hon. Member? The Hon. Member for York South-Weston on a question or comment.


John V. Nunziata: Mr. Speaker, I was very interested in my colleague's speech, and I noted you cut him off in midsentence. I would like to ask my colleague what he was about to say before his time expired.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Well, Mr. Speaker, I was just about to terminate my speech by saying that we of the Liberal Party would like to see Bill C-144 contain some substantive and national standards so that Canadians could have pure, unobstructed access to quality day care on a universal basis. I would like to tell Hon. Members in closing that in my view, the Government, once again, has missed the boat. It has not taken up the challenge before us, that is, to cope with the demand for spaces in day care centres, and I regret that very much.


Mr. Robinson:: Mr. Speaker, I would like to direct a couple of questions, if I may, to the Hon. Member for Ottawa Vanier (Mr. Gauthier) who has just spoken. I have been a Member of this House since 1979 and I recall that it was his Party which was in Government from 1980 to 1984. I recall there were many groups from my constituency of Burnaby and, indeed, from British Columbia and across Canada, who urged the then Liberal Government to move forward and deal with the very serious concerns in the area of child care. There was a desperate need for more spaces, a desperate need for quality child care.
I also remember that those pleas for assistance in the area of child care fell on deaf ears because for that four year period the Liberals were in power, they did nothing whatsoever to expand the quality of child care in this country. Why is it and how is it that the Liberal Member can now stand in his place and suggest that this is an inadequate program-which, of course, it is-when in fact his Party was in Government from 1980 to 1984 and did absolutely nothing to expand the quality of child care in Canada?
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I would like to ask a broader question about credibility. Why should we believe Liberals when they speak about the types of programs that they would implement. I remember hearing from the Leader of the Official Opposition, the Hon. Member for Vancouver Quadra (Mr. Turner), talking about democratizing the Liberal Party. Credibility! Is this the same Party that said to a potential Liberal candidate in the riding of St. Laurent in Montreal, who had signed up 1,400 members, that he could not run. "We will not let you run", Mr. Speaker-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: On a point of order the Hon. Member for York South-Weston (Mr. Nunziata).


John V. Nunziata: I would simply request, Mr. Speaker, that you enforce the rule of relevance with respect to the Member for Burnaby (Mr. Robinson).


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: In my 20 years here I have never seen anything that was relevant. The Hon. Minister of State on a point of order.


Jean J. Charest: I was just going to point out that if we were to listen to the Hon. Member for York South-Weston (Mr. Nunziata) apply the rule of relevancy, neither he nor the Hon. Member for Hamilton East (Ms. Copps) could ever talk.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I believe the Hon. Member for Burnaby (Mr. Robinson) has finished. I will give him another 30 seconds.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: I rise on the same point of order, Mr. Speaker. I hope that it is not taken off my time.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I would not dare.


Svend Johannes Robinson: I will conclude my remarks, but I would ask the Hon. Member to explain how it is that there are certain ridings in Quebec that are reserved for the special stars. Why is it that we should believe for one minute this Party when it talks about child care, but when it talks about democracy it is obviously misleading the people of Canada?


Carlo Rossi: Quebecers don't want the NDP.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The Hon. Member for Hamilton East (Ms. Copps) has a point of order.


Sheila Maureen Copps: I could be totally irrelevant and point out how the NDP Members must be licking their wounds after the provincial leader in Quebec garnered a total of 2 per cent of the popular vote in a recent by-election, but I will not. First, I would only like to point out that the NDP Members do not even have nominating conventions in Quebec; they appoint their so-called representatives. Second, we are supposed to be discussing child care.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I will defer the Hon. Member's question and comment and let the Hon. Member for Ottawa-Vanier (Mr. Gauthier) answer, and then I will come back.
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Jean-Robert Gauthier: I can well understand members of the NDP not wanting to talk about child care and talking about everything else. When it comes to credibility, they are the experts in non-credibility. They have lost absolutely any confidence that any Canadian may have had in them, and I could go back to NATO, to the banks and the nationalizing of banks, or I could talk about serious problems that they have. However, since the debate is on Bill C-144 and day care, I would like to take the occasion to tell the Member, who has been here since 1979, that he has certainly heard of the CAP program which was brought in by a good Liberal Government. It gave 50 per cent contributions to Canadians in helping them to have day care. I remember the then Minister of Health bringing in a tax credit for children, which was a Liberal initiative. There were many good fiscal measures put forward which probably the Member missed because, being an NDP Member, he never sees the realities. He lives somewhere in the beyond, in the dream world of the arm chair socialists, as we call them in my riding.
To answer the question of the Hon. Member, I would recommend that he read the report on child care, that he read the minority report of the Liberal Member of that committee, the Hon. Member for Outremont (Mrs. Pepin). It is entitled: Choices for Children Now and in the Future. It is a very good minority report. If the Hon. Member reads the report he will have the answers to all of his questions.


James Kenneth (Jim) Jepson: I have a point of clarification. Did I hear the Hon. Member for Ottawa-Vanier (Mr. Gauthier) state that he and his Party were for universal day care? If he said that, I would like to know what he anticipates the cost per annum would be for universal day care, and what that would relate to on an individual taxpayer basis.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: I would like to point out to the Member that it is a good question. What I am talking about is universal accessibility. That means that Canadians wherever they live in this country should have universal access to day care. I did not talk about a universal program, I said universality of access.


Margaret Anne Mitchell: First, I think I should point out to my Liberal friend that my understanding is that the Canada Assistance Plan was in force since 1966.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Who brought it in?


Margaret Anne Mitchell: The Hon. Member should learn about the inadequacy of some of the child care programs, at least in my experience, under that program. However, this Bill is worse than what we would have under the Canada Assistance Plan. The growth rate for new spaces would be higher under the Canada Assistance Plan than under this new Bill.
In his remarks the Hon. Member referred to standards. We preferred the term "objectives" from a national point of view. I

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would like the Hon. Member to outline what a Liberal Government would see as national standards in its terminology. Would it include commercial day care as one of the goals that it would seek and, if so, why?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The Hon. Member has one minute to complete his questions or comments.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: I did say that the CAP program was available and accessible to all Canadians, but it did have its faults.


Margaret Anne Mitchell: Only low-income Canadians.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: It was a program basically directed to those of low income and those who were in need. What we are talking about here is a two earner family which is in need of child care. In my speech I made it clear that, in my riding, I was talking about those people who, because of a changing society, have to cope with a two-earner family but with children who are in need of child care. That is indeed a problem we will have to answer. I did not say that CAP was the solution and the end-all to all of the problems. I know it was a solution at the time, but now we have to go beyond the CAP program. As a general response at that time I think that it was a good response.
As far as the other question is concerned as to where I stand, the Hon. Member can read my speech tomorrow. I am sure that she will have in there all the answers to her questions.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Questions and comments are now terminated. On debate the Hon. Parliamentary Secretary for Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mrs. Bourgault).
[ Translation]


Lise Bourgault: Mr. Speaker, 1 also am pleased to take part in this debate this evening and to speak on child care on behalf of my constituents of Argen-teuil-Papineau. I would like to remind certain Hon. Members that the national child care strategy must meet the needs both of urban and rural families, and of course native ones. As far as I am concerned, Mr. Speaker, I represent a constituency that meets those three criteria because, as you know, my constituency includes the municipality of Oka, Kenesatake. There is a crying child care problem in Kenesatake.
Mr. Speaker, when I listen to the New Democratic Party and certain Liberals, including their critics, I am inclined to wonder if they understand the nature of rural Canada? I wonder, because if we were to rely on what we heard since the legislation was tabled, the need would be almost exclusively in urban centres. Do not worry about public, non-profit child care centres 100 per cent funded by the state, governments, without any financial accountability towards parents or users because the Government has money, we will pay for everything!
Mr. Speaker, in Argenteuil-Papineau this evening, I am sure that when we tell them: We will inject $6,4 billion, I am
certain that to people in Argenteuil-Papineau this is a substantial, an exceptional amount. People in a rural constituency do not refer every day to billions of dollars. This is not a frequent occurance.
But on the other hand, Mr. Speaker, I hear some dreamers opposite speak of nationalizing child care services. Not to worry about money, Canadians have a lot of it, even if we are only a small number to pay for that-not to worry. We will find the money somewhere, and anyway we will get more taxes from Canadians. I wonder where they would get that money, but at any rate they are referring to nationalizing child care just as they are referring to nationalizing health care. As if those two were comparable!
I will speak in practical terms about what happened in Argenteuil-Papineau since we referred to the national strategy, since my citizens feel that from now on they will get increased help, of course with a contribution from Quebec. One example: There is a citizen in Morin Heights, Mrs. Berverley Mehlamed, an extraordinary woman who created a private child care service in an area that is not exactly a fringe area because it is near Saint-Sauveur, in our beautiful Laurentians, but anyway she developed an exceptional child care centre that draws on the parents as well as brothers and sisters of the children who finish school at 4 p.m., as mentioned earlier by the Hon. Member for Outremont (Mrs. Pepin). This woman wishes to expand. She has already told me of a very remarkable project, and we were eagerly awaiting the introduction of this Bill as well as the accord signed with Quebec to see how she would be able to get the financial aid she needs to double the spaces in her day care centre. So, you see, in my riding, we already have projects in place.
Let me tell you about another project dear to me. Since we, the Conservative Government, have been in office, it is a well-known fact, recognized by all, that the economy is doing so well that the population of the Saint-Janvier area in Mirabel, a municipality known for its dramatic development, has become aware of the serious problem of day care. So, nowadays, Mr. Speaker, companies such as, to name a few, Bell Helicoptere, Nationair, Transat, Canpak, the Mirabel town council, and so on, have been meeting with concerned citizens and day care directors to discuss the issue of day care centres in the workplace, an issue which concerns companies, parents, and governments alike, and not exclusively governments.
From now on, private firms will have to get involved financially in the creation of day care centres.
For the time being, we are waiting for the result of an application we have made to the Department of National Health and Welfare concerning a new Project Assistance Fund which is part of the national day care strategy to create in Saint-Janvier a unique day care centre in a working area which, I hope, will become a reality, in view of the interest shown so far by my constituents and the women working in these plans.
August 11, 1988

Mr. Speaker, I dare say that this is the result of the national day care strategy because we are aware again of the fact that the federal Government is determined to get involved in it.
Like a great many of my colleagues both on the Government and the Opposition sides, Mr. Speaker, 1 have met many mothers in my riding and most of them are definitely in favour of family type day care centres.
It is quite a chore for the mother of one, two or several children to dress them in the morning and take them to one of the public day care centres which have set such strict conditions as to the time of arrival, time of departure, etc. I can tell you that people in increasing number prefer family type day care centres because families are smaller.
Mr. Speaker, the Government has met the needs of these parents who wanted to choose their own type of care through the national strategy, and it has done so within the framework of the tax reform.
Let me remind you for instance that the maximum day care deduction for children six years of age or under will double from $2,000 to $4,000. Parents with children six years of age or under who have no child care receipts-and Heaven knows that there are many in our ridings who don't-will be entitled to a refundable child tax credit supplement of $100 for 1988 and $200 for every year there-after. That is a need we have met, Mr. Speaker!
When we hear NPD Members, Mr. Speaker, we get the impression that we are in Russia or some other socialist dictatorship, because they want to nationalize child care services.
Opposition critics say that the federal Government has to make sure that the provinces will indeed use the money we will give them under the national strategy.
Mr. Speaker, I suggest it is an expression of lack of confidence in the legitimately elected provincial governments. I am convinced that, with respect to the Government of Quebec and the governments of the other provinces, day care centres are a basic need and I fail to see how a provincial administration would dare expend these funds for purposes other than those specified in the legislation.
As well, Mr. Speaker, it seems unrealistic to me to claim that the federal Government ought to know what Nova Scotia, the Northwest Territories-the reserves, for instance-require in terms of day care centres.
I think that the social services of the provinces are much better suited and much better structured to define just what kind of day care services each province needs. It seems to me that the federal Government is showing leadership today. It has been said on many occasions but still not often enough, Mr. Speaker, if anyone is showing leadership when it comes to day care it has to be our Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney). There is a reason why we are here today, August 11, when we
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should be on holidays: the Prime Minister has been insisting that day care legislation being so important it must be passed before we can go! It goes to show that we have a Prime Minister who knows where he is going, Mr. Speaker.
Let us be realistic about day care. 1 read the report of the committee so ably chaired by our colleague from Lincoln (Mr. Martin) and during the proceedings I saw for myself to what extent opinions differed in the positions expressed by women from rural or urban environment and by the various groups which appeared before the committee. I suggest that the committee was realistic in its approach when it tabled its report, an approach which should represent a consensus concerning day care services.
Mr. Speaker, it was very difficult for me to hear all day long, both in my office and here in the House, the comments of my opposition colleagues. I suggest that to oppose for the sake of it is wrong. Come on. Although the Government is spending $6.4 billion on this program, they are against it because they feel it is regressive and do not meet the needs of Canadians. Mr. Speaker, 1 suggest it would be commendable on the part of the opposition to recognize for once that the Government has made a great step in the right direction and to work with us and the provinces in the future to improve this program.
We should emphasize the fact that the purpose of Bill C-144 is to improve the quantity, quality and accessibility of day care services as well as to make them more affordable.
I understood the Hon. Member for Outremont (Mrs. Pepin), as official critic of the opposition, when she mentioned all these children who do not know where to go when they leave school with keys around their necks. I want to tell her this: In several areas of my Argenteuil-Papineau riding, parent committees in various school addressed this problem and, with the national strategy and the Novative Project Assistant Fund, it is possible to get money which was not available before to help schools set up day care centres to meet the needs of young teenagers after school. We are very fortunate indeed in our ridings to have block parent committees to look after these children. It is our responsibility and also the responsibility of the provinces to look into it.
I met recently my Quebec counterpart, Mr. Claude Ryan, a man whom I hold in high estime and who is well known to the House; as Minister of Education, he is quite willing to work with his colleague, Mrs. Lavoie-Roux, the Quebec Minister Responsible for Women's Issues, to find within the framework of the national strategy which will be signed-I do not know if it has been signed already... He will do everything in his power to keep schools open after hours to offer these children shelter between the time classes ends and the time their parents get home.

August 11, 1988
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What a great day it will be, Mr. Speaker, when every school in Canada will be able to help children and their parents who face these special problems.
As well, our Government recognizes that child care is the key to women's economic equality and represents a need and an essential welfare program. Nevertheless, we are once again committing substantial amounts in order to offer and contribute to the creation of new and good quality spaces. I am convinced, Mr. Speaker, that a unique child care centre will soon be opened in Saint-Janvier de Mirabel, since a few businesses have already confirmed their readiness to make the move and partly fund it for the enjoyment of their employees. I met the previous Bell Helicopter human ressources manager who told me a number of times about this serious problem. As you know, more and more businesses have these work shifts where men unfortunately come to realize that their fellow women workers have to leave work at a quarter to five because they must pick up their children at the day care centre before it closes at six o'clock.
There is thus a growing need to establish child care services at the workplace and I think that it is towards that objective that we should direct our initiatives and energies.
Mr. Speaker, day care services are no longer the exclusive concern of women. More and more men are responsible for looking after their children and since they have this added responsibility it seems that all of a sudden the issue has become more urgent. For years now women have been asking for better day care services but now the issue seems to have a higher priority, and I am very pleased to acknowledge this new development.
Of course I am glad for women and I think that in the future, when families take part in the collective effort concerning the equality of women, why would the father not drive his two children to the day care centre and take them out to lunch and promote better family understanding, better family unity! I think day care services at work are the answer to the problem.
Mr. Speaker, need I remind you that over the last 20 years the Canadian traditional family-the wage-earning father, the mother at home with one or more children-has become the exception rather than the rule. It has become obvious. Nowadays 54 per cent of all Canadian women are on the labour market, and the figure is higher still in the case of women in the 24-to-64 age bracket. Sixty-five per cent of them work outside the home. Sixty-two per cent of Canadian mothers with children under 16 belong to the labour force.
Mr. Speaker, speaking personally as Member for Argen-teuil-Papineau, I think there is another measure which the Government is interested in looking into, and I am referring the need to extend maternity leave in a significant manner. Women want to keep their children longer, Mr. Speaker, and I really think that three months is not enough for a very young baby.
Again I suggest that if we want to promote the family status and urge families and women to have more children, one way to achieve this is to give them more assistance and extend maternity leave.
Also, Mr. Speaker, we must say there is an increasing number of Canadian mothers who are raising their children alone. At the present time, 83 per cent of single-parent families are headed by women. In the riding of Argenteuil- Papineau, that is mostly rural, I can tell you that has become a problem. First, there is the distance from urban centres. Transportation services are almost non-existent. Those women at the poverty level who are bringing up their children alone need to go out from time to time, even only for shopping, they need some leisure time, to belong to some social organization, except they have a problem. In remote rural communities no day care services are available to them and, of course, we have to face facts. It would be financially impossible to open day care centres everywhere, for instance, in all 53 municipalities in my riding.
Here again, I think we must reflect on that particular problem of women, of families, I should say, who live in remote rural communities, to be able to give them the more satisfactory day care service to which they are entitled as first-class citizens and which we have an obligation to make available to them.
Mr. Speaker, we have often talked about the famous problem of women who hire babysitters but do not get receipts for income tax purposes. Listen, we must see things as they are. Some have no other income but welfare. Those women help each other out. You know, there is no better social network than that of women. They help each other. They take turns staying with one another's children in the evening. But they sometimes need sitters who unfortunately are below the poverty line and cannot afford to report the money they earn this way. It is almost that ridiculous. Do you think that a woman ... It seems as if the income tax services are preying on those poor women who make a little extra money every week by baby-sitting a few hours at one or several neighbours' houses, and I think we should stop harassing those people.
With the increased tax deduction and the possibility for families taking their children to child care services to deduct day care costs without necessarily having official receipts, this will still be a measure that will be of assistance to these women.
Mr. Speaker, 200,000 new subsidized spaces in child care services may not ne enough, there might still be other things to be done, but between 200,000 new spaces and nothing, I think a major progress has been made. Why always criticize? Women have always shown moderation, they told me several times they were aware of the fact that the Government had nevertheless limited resources, but they generally welcome this effort, they have hope, and in the future they will see to it that
August 11, 1988

this program be improved. In the years to come, Mr. Speaker,
I think we will be able to build on this basis and increase once again the number of day care spaces available.


Lucie Pépin: I would like to ask the following question to the Hon. Member for Argenteuil-Papineau (Mrs. Bourgault). She mentionned earlier the problem relating to the latch-key kid. Being a Member from Quebec, she said that Quebec Education Minister, Mr. Ryan has indicated his willingness to do everything in his power to solve this problem. Consequently,
I only want to remind my colleague that schools in her province now have 30,000 spaces, which is unique to Quebec. I also want to draw to her attention the fact that the present Bill, introduced by the Government, contains a clause where it is said that none of this money will in fact go to education ... funds will not be cut? So, I want to know how she will be able, with her Government and this Bill, to help, or let us say bypass ... I don't know if we would have to amend the Bill, to continue to offer help to those children. We heard the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) tell us how important it is to fight the drug problem. But we know too well that the teenagers mainly facing this problem are the same children who are alone at home after school, and actually, one of the problems with this Bill is that it does not do anything for the latch-key kid. Secondly, it says in the Bill that the funds allocated for education will be cut. I do not see then how the Hon. Member will be able to solve this problem.


Lise Bourgault: Mr. Speaker, that is quite obvious. The provinces will first establish their standards with respect to this program. When I referred to Mr. Ryan a while ago, I was saying that there are 30 000 day care spaces, but that that is not enough in the schools. And we must not forget that parent and community groups are involved in this. There is a lot of volunteer work in this field. But I think that the Member from Outremont is stuck with her party's decision. She cannot state she agrees with the bill. But I understand her very well. If I were in her place . . .


An Hon. Member:: In her heart, she is.


Lise Bourgault: In her heart, she must be and I thank my colleague for informing me of that. But I am sure that, being an Opposition Member, her job is to oppose. However, she has participated in the committee's work and she has heard the testimony of families, parents and day care workers. She is, I think, satisfied with the effort the Government is making in the field of day care. Once again, I thank her for her support.


Cyril Keeper: I would like my colleague to tell me if she is aware that the existing program, the Canada Assistance Program, does not put a limit on day care expenses. And because of that, the rate of increase was 15 per cent this year. The amounts spent on day care have increased by 15 per cent a year under the Canada Assistance Program. But, with her government's new program, the rate of increase will be brought down to 10 per cent a year. Why has this government decided to postpone the day where we will have an adequate
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day care program for the children of this country? Has it put a limit on day care expenses because it also wants to spend 8 billion dollars on submarines? Is that the reason why the government has come up with a program which limits day care expenses?


Lise Bourgault: Mr. Speaker, once again, the New Democratic Member is obviously mixing apples and oranges. He talked about the Canada Assistance Plan. I just want to point out to him that, under the basic calculation, the federal Government will pay to the provinces 50 per cent of operating costs of commercial or not-for-profit child care agencies as well as 75 per cent of their capital costs during the seven-year period ending on March 31, 1995.
Mr. Speaker, I know why the New Democratic Party is against this initiative. It's because it wants to nationalize child care services like we did for medical care. But you cannot compare the two. Come on!


Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Member for Argenteuil-Papineau (Mrs. Bourgault) if she thinks it fair that, under the Conservative policy, the Government offers less tax rebates to low- and middle-income families. Why has the Government not introduced a system giving tax credits instead of deductions to help, for example, a woman working as a baby sitter in her constituency and earning the minimum wage who will get a lot less in terms of income deductions than a female Member of Parliament?


Lise Bourgault: Mr. Speaker, here is a question I am tremendously pleased to answer. In the first place, I suggest Liberals have become masters at distorting figures. This is quite clear. It must be remembered, Mr. Speaker, that Paris was not built in one day. What we were left with was a financial mess. And when a country finds itself in such a financial mess as the one we inherited from the Liberals, we cannot remedy overnight all the calamities left by the Liberals. For that reason I feel that our record over those four years is still exceptional, and I for one will quite confidently defend that performance before my constituents, with the conviction that the next four years of Conservative Government will build on the first four ones. And then Canadian men and women will realize the Conservative Party is the Party that should be governing the country, for the benefit of everyone.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Mr. Speaker-


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Ian Gardiner Waddell: I thank my colleagues very much for that round of applause. As a matter of fact, I just heard them telling the story of one of their distinguished colleagues-no doubt not from our Party-who spoke on the abortion debate and said that he was not intending to speak on the abortion debate but he had missed his bus so he thought he would take the opportunity to speak.

August 11, 1988
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Sheila Maureen Copps: That is one of your colleagues there, he's sitting right beside you.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: I find that extraordinary. I am rising tonight because I really want to speak in this debate. It is a real privilege to speak in this debate. I did not miss my plane to British Columbia nor did I miss the boat or the bus.
I will have the privilege, I hope, after the next election, of representing a new riding-


Some Hon. Members:: Which riding?


Ian Gardiner Waddell: A few people have asked which riding it is. It is the riding of Port Moody-Coquitlam.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Just in case anyone missed it, that was Port Moody-Coquitlam. In that riding, if I might be somewhat more serious for the moment, the constituents are vitally interested in the issue of child care. The reason is that Port Moody-Coquitlam is like many new and growing areas in Canada, a suburban area with young families. Indeed, I think only 8 per cent of the people are senior citizens, a very low figure. A large percentage of the population is made up of young families with children and they have been hit hard by the Conservative Government. For example, they are paying high interest rates on their mortgages for the new houses they have bought. That is partly a result of government policy which is trying to squeeze down the boom in the Toronto area by keeping interest rates high.
These people are also paying higher taxes than they did in 1984, about $1,000 more per family. They are also being hit in other ways. For example, they drive from the city to the suburbs and they get hit at the pump by higher gasoline prices, again enacted by the Government. As a result, this group of people really want the Government to deliver something good for a change. They have looked at child care as one thing they really need.
There is another reason I am vitally interested in child care and that has to do with equality. I fervently believe, as do my colleagues in the NDP, in the principle of equality. I think full equality of women hinges to a large extent on meeting day care needs. In our society it is still the woman who is left for the most part to look after the children. At the same time, as many Members on all sides have pointed out, women are continually moving into the work force. They have, as I see it, a double job. They are part of the work force, and then in the morning before going to work or in the evening when they come home from work they have to provide the best care they can for their children. During the day they often have inadequate child care and they worry about their children, or they cannot afford to be sick and they have to go to work sick, or they have problems when they are at work and their child is at home sick.
We do not have adequate child care in this country and I think all Parties agree with that.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Order, please. There is a great debate going on and I would like to hear it.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thought I heard you say earlier tonight that you had been in the House for 20 years and you have not heard anything relevant. I am glad we established a precedent tonight.


Alan Redway: He is hoping.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: The next time you will not intervene? I know, I will be careful.
I see the Minister of State for Youth (Mr. Charest) is in the House. Earlier tonight he accused me of being a centralist, an old guard socialist, I think he said. I do not apologize for that.


Sheila Maureen Copps: You used to be a Liberal.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: My colleagues say, coming from British Columbia, that I am practically a separatist.


Sheila Maureen Copps: That is not what Bob Nixon said.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: The reason he called me that was with reference to my question on Meech Lake and the question of setting objectives for social programs. That is a crucial question.
To be honest, I think the jury is still out on Meech Lake. It may be that national objectives can be set under the new Meech Lake provisions, but this Bill is the first example since Meech Lake of a major national social program and it does not attempt in any way to set out national objectives. That is the great weakness. Whether or not another government of a different political stripe, more committed to national objectives, can set them out we will have to wait and see.
I was going to quote Marjorie Nichols who wrote in The Ottawa Citizen today some very perceptive remarks. She said:
"The bottom line is that this bill will provide the money to build fewer childcare spaces in Canada over the next seven years than would have been built without it, based on current construction performance under existing legislation."
I think she is referring to the fact that the Bill will create fewer child care spaces than would have been created under CAP. She went on to say:
"The terrible shame of this legislation is, however, that it represents an abandonment by the federal government of its responsibility to be accountable for the collection and expenditure of other people's money."
The Minister stood up a few minutes ago and asked how the NDP can object because the Government is spending $6.4 billion. It is tough to object to the expenditure of $6.4 billion. You do not easily stand up and oppose a child care Bill, it has to be pretty bad, but indeed we are doing that because we believe it is irresponsible to just give $6.4 billion to the provinces without national objectives and accountability. We in British Columbia, with Premier Bill Vander Zalm, do not know where the money is liable to go if you give it to him. It might go to Fantasy Gardens, who knows.
August 11, 1988

My colleague, the Hon. Member for Vancouver East (Ms. Mitchell), our distinguished critic in this area, received a number of telegrams on this issue and I want to read a couple of them to show that it is not just the NDP who feels this way. Other people with a particular interest in this field feel the same. There is a telegram from Sharon Hope Irwin, a child care consultant:
"Child care Bill very dangerous. Respectfully request your efforts to block Bill on second reading. It lacks national objectives, encourages commercialization to the detriment of child care, and does not deliver the promised spaces. Please promote quality child care-accessible, affordable, with high standards."
That is what my future constituents in Port Moody- Coquitlam want. That is what my present constituents in Vancouver-Kingsway want. They want child care which is accessible, affordable, and with high standards. I have another telegram from Carol Christian, President of the White Horse Day Care Association, and Joanne Oberg, Secretary of the Yukon Day Care Association. It says:
"We urge you and your colleagues to speak against the Childcare Act in the House. It is devoid of national objectives, limits spending on child care, funds the commercial sector and does not satisfy the need for spaces, it does not create a day care system but is a government spending program, this waste of public funds will set back day care to the dark ages."
Those telegrams are worth paying attention to.
We in the NDP believe child care in Canada is in a crisis. We have been waiting for four years for the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) to deliver on his campaign promise. You will recall what that was: an effective national system of child care. We think Canadian families have been let down again. In other words, another broken promise by the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister thinks you can just throw money at the problem-build a road to James Bay, buy a constituency, build a prison or whatever. That is not the way to tackle child care.
Neither before, during or after the passage of the Conservatives' inadequate, flawed strategy will our families and our children's needs be met. In fact, this fundamentally flawed legislation moves us backwards. There will be fewer child care spaces for our children after the seven years of the Government's program than under the existing system, even after the expenditure of the money.
Furthermore, this Conservative legislation fails to establish the principles on which to build an effective national system of child care. We should be building the first major national social program since medicare was established, but the Government has failed to provide leadership and set out the principles for quality child care in Canada.
We in the NDP believe that Canadian families and their children need greater access to quality child care at lower cost. This Bill does not deliver that. We have said and will continue to say that the Prime Minister should go back to the drawing board and bring forward a child care program to meet the needs of average Canadian parents and their children for child care services now.
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It is not only the members of the NDP who have said this. There is an editorial in The Globe and Mail today which criticizes this particular Bill. That is not exactly a New Democratic policy paper. This position comes from all angles of the political spectrum. I have here a letter from the National Anti-Poverty Organization, part of which I will read into the record. It is addressed to the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Epp) and says:
"Dear Mr. Minister:
I am writing to express, briefly, the concerns of the National Anti-Poverty Organization with Bill C-144, and to urge you to schedule public hearings on the Bill prior to its passage in the House of Commons.
As we told you in past meetings, we were concerned with the expected absence of targeting of funded spaces to low-income Canadians, and with the expected failure of the legislation to require public accountability by public or community-based management of funded centres. In addition, NAPO has historically opposed the use of public dollars to subsidize for-profit operations, particularly in areas of basic social need like child care.
Bill C-144 fails to establish national objectives, much less the federal standards we would have liked to see contained in the legislation. Even the Meech Lake Constitutional Accord permits the establishment of national objectives for new social programs, yet your government has chosen not to include them in the Bill. We believe this Bill permits the expenditure of very large sums of public money without establishing what the government hopes to accomplish through this expenditure. Canadians have a right to know what your objectives are with child care, and we would urge you to include these in amendments to the legislation.
We have been concerned about the targetting of spaces since your announcement that a good portion of the funding for this "new" program would be transferred from the Canada Assistance Plan.
Under CAP, at least spaces could be subsidized only if they were provided to those in need or likely to be in need without the space. While this permitted subsidization of middle-income Canadians, it did not allow for subsidies to the wealthy. Under this legislation, there is no such assurance or guarantee. Both you and your officials have assured us that operating subsidies will go only to targetted spaces. This is not clearly stated in the Bill, and should appear as an amendment to the legislation.
In addition, removing this funding from CAP will allow dollars previously used only for operating and capital costs for not-for-profit child care centres, or for operating costs only in for-profit centres, to be applied to both operating and capital costs of for-profit centres, if so wished by provincial Governments.
There is evidence that has been submitted by specialists in the field that for-profit centres, in the aggregate, offer lower quality service, minimum required staff/child ratios, lower wages to staff, and lower educational requirements for staff. In addition, we believe that public dollars should not subsidize private profits, and should not subsidize operations that are not accountable to the public paying the subsidy, however indirectly. This Bill does not meet these concerns."
That is what I meant by an inadequate system of child care as set out in this Bill.
I heard the Prime Minister speak in the House today about child care. Some of us thought he might use the occasion to announce the election, but he did not. He was really speaking about women's issues. He was addressing women's issues because he is weak, according to the polls, on women's issues. He has a gender gap like George Bush. Women do not trust our Prime Minister and do not agree with his policies. In his speech he never asked why that is, and I would like to take a minute now to suggest to the Prime Minister why that is and I will return to child care after that.

August 11, 1988
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There are a number of reasons why women distrust the Prime Minister. The Government is spending $8 billion on nuclear submarines when there is poverty, there are food banks, and there is a housing crisis in the country. Young families cannot afford to buy a home and the Government is spending $8 billion on nuclear submarines. In the new neighbourhoods of Port Moody, Coquitlam, and Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, you cannot get door to door postal service, yet the Government is spending $8 billion on nuclear submarines. In this country farmers and rural people are suffering, but the Government is spending $8 billion on submarines. The Government is militarizing our economy and women instinctively know this, object to it, and will not stand for it.
The second thing the Prime Minister should consider is his free trade deal with the Americans. That affects the service sector for the first time in any trade deal in the world. Not even in the Israeli-American trade deal is the service sector included. The service sector is the fastest growing job creation sector around, and who works in that sector but women? When you consider how vulnerable to American competition our growing young service sector will be, including data processing, insurance, and computers, you will see that the Americans will take jobs from our service sector in the free trade deal. That will affect women.
Returning to day care, the same families and women who want quality day care want the Government to do something about drugs and impaired driving rather than only making political speeches about them as the present Prime Minister does.
Where was the Prime Minister on abortion? He was not even in the House. The Government's policy on abortion was a mess. It did not even have the guts to introduce a proper Bill on abortion, and Canadians have noticed that. When the Prime Minister wonders why he is not getting the votes of women he should consider what a big phoney he is on these issues and he should tackle them.
To summarize our position on this Bill, it is a flawed Bill on one of the most important subjects. It does not set out national objectives and will not increase the number of day care spaces. It will not benefit the average Canadian family which continues to be overtaxed and underserviced by the Government.
I challenge the Prime Minister and his Party to call an election. We will deal with these issues in the election. We will deal with child care on the hustings. We will deal with the notion of selling out this country to the United States. We will deal with the average family paying $1,000 a month more in taxes as a result of the Government's initiatives. We will deal with the fact that motorists have once again been hosed by the Government. We will deal with all the broken promises of the Prime Minister. We will deal with the fact that the average Canadian family loses under this Government.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Order, please! It being 10 p.m., pursuant to order adopted on Monday, June 20, 1988, this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 10 a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 3(1).
At 10 p.m. the House adjourned.

Friday, August 12, 1988


RESEARCH, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
[Stage Direction]
Prayers