44th Parl. 1st Sess.
January 30, 2023 11:00AM
Mr. Speaker, on the same point of order, I did not realize that this was in our procedural requirements, and that a tone would be considered something that could be taken offence to. I sincerely apologize if the tone I have is coming across as offensive, so—
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- Jan/30/23 5:52:05 p.m.
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I thank the member. I do not know what happened toward the end there, but everybody seemed to get a little off their game, so I am going to make sure the temperature goes down a bit and offer the opportunity for the hon. member for Battlefords—Lloydminster to answer the question.
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Mr. Speaker, I do not think my colleague across the way listened to anything I said. There is a portion of families who are being left out of this, and a lot of those families carried us through the pandemic: our doctors, our nurses, our frontline care workers. They work erratic hours. Our shift workers would not be able to access this.
It is typical of the government to put its fingers in the provincial jurisdiction and tell provinces what to do, and if they do not get in line, too bad so sad.
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- Jan/30/23 5:53:06 p.m.
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I am also going to remind everyone that I want to make sure everyone has opportunity to ask questions.
I also want to ensure that everyone gets a chance to answer.
Therefore, members should keep their questions and answers as short as they possibly can.
The hon. member for Repentigny.
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Mr. Speaker, the member began her speech by saying that early childhood educators are burnt out. We could say the same about teachers. She then said that there are staffing shortages. In Canada, there is a lot of competition for nurses because there are staffing shortages everywhere, so this is not just an issue affecting early childhood educators.
Here are some statistics. Between 1997 and 2016 in Quebec, the number of single-parent families receiving social assistance dropped by 64%. That did not happen right away in 1997. It takes time to build a system, but we have to start somewhere. No, the system is not perfect, far from it. We want the areas of jurisdiction to be very clear. I think that if we do not take the first step, then we will never get anywhere.
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Mr. Speaker, I did mention in my remarks that there are labour shortages across all industries in this country. We know our birth rate is declining. We do not have the population to replace the aging population. We know that immigration is backlogged by millions of cases. We know it takes, on average, 166 days for a temporary foreign worker to get a work permit.
I just think it is ridiculous that the government is throwing flowers and perfume at this, making it look all good, when we do not have the infrastructure. Provinces do not have the infrastructure. Provinces do not have the labour to do this, and it is unfair to give false hope to parents in this country.
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Mr. Speaker, the member for Battlefords—Lloydminster implied in her comments that these national child care agreements are not going to meet the needs of parents with certain work schedules. I believe that is indeed a good concern to have. However, I want to bring her attention to a great project in northwest B.C. in the District of Kitimat, where Tamitik Status of Women is working on 60 child care spaces that are going to be offered 24 hours a day. It is the first 24-hour child care available in British Columbia.
Could my colleague share with me and with this place whether the provincial government in her home province is working on similar partnerships?
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Mr. Speaker, it is very interesting to hear of that project going on. My question would be: Is that project public or not-for-profit? If it is entrepreneurial, it actually does not fall under this framework.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to advise that I am sharing my time with the member for Parkdale—High Park.
I am very pleased to have the opportunity to address this House on Bill C-35, what we hope will become the act respecting early learning and child care in Canada.
As the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development indicated in her remarks earlier, we now have in place a Canada-wide early learning and child care system that aims to ensure access to affordable, high-quality and inclusive child care for families across the country. The purpose of Bill C-35 is to strengthen and protect that system by enshrining its principles into law. This is a commitment from the Government of Canada to support access to affordable child care for families in Canada, no matter where in Canada they live. In fact, the new Canada-wide system is already benefiting tens of thousands of people from coast to coast to coast with fees for regulated child care having been reduced in all jurisdictions across Canada, outside of Quebec and Yukon, which already had affordable child care systems, and we are just getting started.
Bill C-35 is the result of engagement between the Government of Canada, provinces, territories, indigenous governments, and organizations and stakeholders. It builds on our collaborative work with provinces, territories and indigenous peoples. It also builds on the agreements negotiated with every province and territory to establish a Canada-wide system. The collaboration that delivered this remarkable system was detailed, and sometimes challenging, but held in an atmosphere of respect, commitment and a willingness to succeed. For sure there are similarities in the agreements, but we never expected a one-size-fits-all model that conveniently served all of our partners. We succeeded because we agreed on one fundamental principle, the thing all Canadians care about most deeply, giving children in Canada the best possible start in life.
This legislation respects provincial and territorial jurisdiction and upholds indigenous rights. All our partners in this Canada-wide effort can look forward to benefiting from the long-term federal financial commitment.
Let us talk about funding. In budget 2021, the Government of Canada made a transformative investment of more than $27 billion over five years. If we include related investments, including in indigenous early learning and child care, we have committed nearly $30 billion over five years to make quality early learning and child care affordable and accessible. Combined with previous investments announced since 2015, a minimum of $9.2 billion a year ongoing will be invested in child care, including indigenous early learning and child care, starting in 2025 to 2026. These investments are already having an impact. To date, fees have been reduced in every jurisdiction across Canada. Further, Quebec, Yukon and Nunavut are providing regulated child care for $10 a day or less.
Let us take our agreement with Saskatchewan. The province has been one of the early leaders in fee reductions. Over a year ago, Saskatchewan announced a 50% reduction that it made retroactive to July 2021. That was a year and a half in advance of our December 2022 target. Saskatchewan followed with another fee reduction, effective September 1 of last year, where fees were lowered by a total of 70% compared to March 2021 levels. This is a huge saving for families across the province.
While the province is lowering fees, it is continuing to ensure that early childhood educators are kept at the heart of the system. Last September, Saskatchewan announced that federal funding from its Canada-wide agreement is being used to establish an ECE wage enhancement grant, which will result in increased wages for the workforce that is critical to the success of the Canada-wide system, and there is more.
In early 2022, Saskatchewan announced the creation of over 1,200 new licensed child care spaces on top of the over 600 spaces the province announced in December 2021. That is more than 1,800 new child care spaces providing more children with a better start in life.
This is the Canada-wide early learning and child care system in action: lowered fees, a supported ECE workforce, more child care spaces and real results for making life more affordable. For all these families across Saskatchewan, and the thousands of others like them across Canada, this system means hundreds of dollars more each month to put healthy food on the table and to sign up kids for music, sports or after-school activities.
The federal investment not only benefits families and young children, it also benefits the economy as a whole, which means it benefits all Canadians, and here is how: It will grow Canada’s economy. Economic studies show that, with each dollar invested in early childhood education, the broader economy receives between $1.50 and $2.80 in return. The federal government's estimates predict that the Canada-wide early learning and child care system could raise the GDP by as much as 1.2% over the next two decades. It will grow Canada’s labour force. As we have seen in Quebec, at the time the Quebec Educational Childcare Act was instituted in 1997, the women’s labour force participation rate in Quebec was four percentage points lower than the rest of Canada. In 2021, it is four points higher.
The figures are telling us that investing in increased access to high-quality, affordable and inclusive early learning and child care is not only the right thing to do for families, but it is also the smart thing to do for Canada and our economy. It is a win for all of us.
Our colleague, the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development, has many times said, “access to high-quality, affordable, flexible and inclusive [learning and] child care is not a luxury—it is a necessity.” As the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance put it, “child care...is as much a piece of critical infrastructure...as a bridge or a road”.
It boils down to this: All parents and caregivers have an opportunity to build both a family and a career, and all children should have the best possible start in life.
This legislation comes with the twin federal commitments of respect of jurisdiction and a reliable funding partner. We are creating a great system together, a system we can all be justifiably proud of, and I respectfully ask that my colleagues give rapid passage to Bill C-35 so we can put this last piece in place.
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Mr. Speaker, does the member opposite believe there should be preference given to low or middle-income Canadians over those who can afford it? The way the bill is currently written, it would subsidize wealthy families and push those most vulnerable to the back of these long wait-lists.
Where does he sit? Does he not think that we should be prioritizing child care for our most vulnerable Canadian families?
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Mr. Speaker, I can say with great confidence that our focus has always been on prioritizing the needs of people who need it the most. The process for this system is focused so that everybody can participate in it equally and fairly, and that we give children a great start on life. That is the focus of this exercise.
We will always be able to find something to criticize, but let us address the fact that we are moving forward in a very positive way. We are doing good things for kids in Canada, and that is what we should focus on.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the hon. member for not only his speech but, in fact, his support for early learning and child care. That is very important.
I remember when the first agreement was signed with British Columbia when the minister was out in B.C. It included not only organizations that believed in social justice. In fact, business organizations did support that $10-a-day day care initiative so that women could go back to work and further their career plans.
Why does the hon. member think it is so important to enshrine early learning and child care in legislation?
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Mr. Speaker, the principles of this House are that the values we hold high are inculcated into our legislation. An important program like this should be inculcated into the principles and fundamental values of our country and of this government.
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments.
As my colleague knows, there will be so many benefits from the passage of this legislation, but I would ask him to provide his thoughts in terms of the historical meaning of passing Bill C-35 and putting into place a truly nationwide program that is going to benefit children from coast to coast to coast.
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Mr. Speaker, we can be part of a substantial change in the values of Canada, how we stand for the values of education of children and the values of enabling women to become more active in our economy. It is an opportunity that many of us will look back on with a tremendous amount of pride.
This is a pivotal change in very important values and it is reinforcing things that are important.
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Mr. Speaker, it seems to me that a number of the Conservative members have made good points about the need to adapt to people who have shift work or do not work nine to five. Mostly, it is moms who look after kids but it could be either parent.
I wonder if, as this legislation proceeds, we have any sense whether the government will be prepared to accept amendments at committee.
I strongly support this legislation, just to be clear, but we do have to make sure that the $10-a-day day care reaches the people who need it most, who are often those in insecure jobs in the gig economy.
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Mr. Speaker, it is important that we allow programs like this to mature and as opportunities or challenges face us, let us not underestimate the ability of the Canadian people to find solutions. Let us allow the program to mature. There will be solutions. We just heard about a previous program in 24-7. Let us not underestimate the ability and innovation that people present.
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Mr. Speaker, as I rise today, one day after the sixth anniversary of the terrorist attack at the Quebec City mosque, I just want to acknowledge the loss that occurred on that day six years ago, the other five lives that have been taken by Islamophobic attacks in this country and the work that we all need to do as parliamentarians and as Canadians to fight against hatred and intolerance, in particular Islamophobia.
I rise today to participate in today's debate, not just because it is the first day of the session, not just because I am glad to be back in the chamber and glad to be back surrounded by parliamentarians seeking to advance the interests of our country and of our individual ridings, but because it actually reminded me of a conversation I had in 2019. That conversation was on a street in my riding in Roncesvalles Village and I remember encountering a family.
It was election time. It was the 2019 election. I was going door to door, as so many of us do every election period. I was confronted with a family. I had a very blunt conversation with the female lead of that family, the mother of that family.
She said to me that we have done so much work and that we continue to do so much work putting women at the forefront of things like international development assistance, women's reproductive rights and so many different initiatives, including a gender-equal cabinet. She said to me, quite candidly, that if we were really sincere about women and women's empowerment, we need to resolve child care.
I said to her that this was fair. I appreciated that criticism.
She elaborated. She said that we cannot really empower women's full participation in the workforce, whether as an entrepreneur, as a salaried employee in a public or private sector setting, unless we alleviate the disproportionate burden on women that relates to raising children.
My riding has a lot of families, a lot of young families and a lot of young kids, and there is a lot of financial burden that goes along with raising those kids. When I was raising my kids, who are now eight-and-a-half and 12, the fees ranged, per child, between $1,500 and $1,800. It is quite common in Toronto to hear of fees that are $2,000 a month.
What I am pleased about today's debate and the subject of what we are discussing is that, yes, after many decades of discussions, thoughts about it, and hearing about agreements that were scuttled at the last minute, etc., finally, this nation and this Parliament are moving past the obstacles in implementing positive change. I think that is critical.
I also want to acknowledge that it was not just individual constituents like mine who had spoken to me in 2019 that provided an impetus, but there was another impetus, an impetus that has become all too familiar to all of us and that is the COVID-19 pandemic. Let me remind us, there were literally families around the country who were dealing with the difficulties of, all of a sudden, shifting their workplace and their educational place for their children and, effectively, substitute day care, all within the confines of their own home, in a matter of weeks, in March and April of 2020.
That is what faced Canadians. I am being very candid here. I think, all of a sudden, it penetrated the brains, particularly, of men in the country, in terms of what a challenge it is to try to have any sort of career or profession, in a virtual setting or otherwise, and have kids running around at all hours of the day, asking about their math homework, where their history homework was, a geography lesson, name it. It was a struggle. That struggle became manifest, I think, for men like me in this country. All of sudden, the level of people's awareness, including my gender's awareness, about the pressing need for a national child care program became that much more acute.
What I like about what we are doing is that we are creating a system where one does not have to choose between building a career and raising a family. That is a false choice. No one should ever be confronted with that. Thankfully, we are now moving toward a stage where one is not. I think that is really important.
It comes with a large price tag. A massive social change and a massive social program are not inexpensive. We readily acknowledge that. When we prioritize families, children and the women who disproportionately share the burden of raising those children, we need to invest. I think that is exactly what we did when we announced this program in our 2021 budget and the $30-billion price tag that would go along with it over the course of the next five years.
What it is going to achieve is to basically take child care that used to cost hundreds of dollars a day and project it to cost $10 a day, on average, across the country by 2026.
Some provinces were very early adopters of this program. It is staggering in terms of its magnitude, in terms of what it could achieve. Some were a bit late to the game and maybe manipulated the electoral cycle for their own purposes, but I do not want to wade into that. We are now at a stage where, of 13 provinces and territories in this country, literally every square kilometre of this country is covered by a child care agreement.
In my own province of Ontario, which I am proud to call home, fees have been reduced, on average, by 50%. Something that might have cost people, doing simple math, if they had their child in child care for 10 months of the year, $17,000 to $20,000 has been cut in half. Thousands of dollars are being saved by Ontarian families in my own riding of Parkdale—High Park. That is staggering, given the number one issue that we all hear when we go door to door now, which is about the cost of living and the crisis of affordability.
If we could return thousands of dollars to families in this country in one single fell swoop, that is reason enough on its own to get behind this kind of legislative initiative. What we are doing is reducing fees in every province and territory. British Columbia, Alberta, Newfoundland and Labrador, P.E.I., New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and NWT have all reduced their fees by an average of 50%.
Saskatchewan, and there were some speakers from Saskatchewan earlier in today's debate, has gone beyond that target, and it has already reached, on average, a 70% reduction of the fees. I was chatting earlier with the member from Winnipeg, the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader. In his province of Manitoba, the fees are currently reduced by 30%, and they are on track to achieve a $10-a-day child care early in the new year. This year, Manitobans will reach $10 a day on average for their child care.
In Yukon and in the province of Quebec, which is really at the forefront of all this in terms of an initiative, regionally, many decades ago, they have had $10-a-day child care. Nunavut joined them in November 2022, three years ahead of schedule.
These are truly incredible results, and they point to what we are doing. I will give one statistic that I am perhaps most proud of. In the speech by the member for Newmarket—Aurora, he talked about labour force participation. He talked about what Quebec had done, where they were about three decades ago, about 4% below the national average for women's participation in the workforce, and that now they are 4% above the Canadian average.
What we know as of right now, in the nascent days of this fledgling program, for women aged 25 to 54, is that 85% of those women are in the workforce right now, and that is 9% ahead of our southern counterparts in the United States of America. That number is only going to grow, which puts proof to the point that was made by my constituent in Parkdale—High Park, when she said to me that if we want to fully believe and allow for women's participation and their economic potential to be increased, we need to implement this kind of program. That is what we are working towards.
It is not just about the women. It is about the children who are going to benefit from earlier formative education. Again, when I struggled with that grade 4 math class, such as it was, I realized my own limitations as an instructor. As great as parents are in this country, we do not have that formalized training and certification that early childhood educators have.
What are we doing to remedy this? As part of that funding that I articulated, nearly half a billion dollars is dedicated to the training of early childhood educators, to their certification so they are providing more, better, higher-qualified training to our young people. That is a win-win. It is great for the children's development, and it is great for the early childhood instructors, who have a better certification and higher wages as a result. Most importantly, it is better for the women, who can now make not a false choice but a real choice. Some may choose to stay at home, and that is their choice. Some may choose to start that business. Some may choose to return to work. Some may choose to stay at work.
What we are doing in this one fell swoop is empowering and unlocking incredible economic potential on the part of literally half of our country. That is to the benefit of this country. That is to the benefit of our economic output. That is to the benefit of Canadians. That is why I hope that, by legislating this initiative, we concretize it, we solidify it and, I dare say, we make it permanent in this country on a go-forward basis.
That is what Bill C-35 is about. That is why I am happy to stand in support of it.
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Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of the people of Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo.
Before I begin asking my question, I want to recognize Kendra Woodland and the whole women's hockey team that won the winter FISU World University Games. We are obviously very proud of what our women's team accomplished. I congratulate Kendra and the team.
The question for my hon. colleague is this. My father worked shift work, and my mom was largely a homemaker and then did some night courses later to go back to work. My understanding of this bill is that it would not help people who work shift work or people who work in the evenings.
While the Liberals says this would be the cure-all, the panacea, what about people who work shift work? What is going to be done for them? Should we not be crafting a bill that benefits all, rather than just benefiting some?
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Mr. Speaker, I welcome the member opposite back to the House and wish him a happy new year.
In response to his question, I would say the details with respect to the bilateral agreements are actually quite critical in this conversation. This point was made earlier by one of his colleagues. In each province, the provincial government has the ability to dictate the terms of how the money will be spent in that given province. In my province of Ontario, it can make a determination that a certain portion of the billions of dollars we have put on the table should be made available for off hours or irregular hours for the child care that might be made available.
What we want is for people to be joining the workforce or rejoining the workforce. If that work takes them to different hours, including night shifts, day care and child care should be made available to them. The response to that type of question really rests with the particular nature of the arrangement between the B.C. provincial government and Canada in terms of signing its bilateral agreement.
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