44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 31, 2023 02:00PM
Madam Speaker, I just want to start out my speech tonight by talking about something that is related, although perhaps not directly on point, if I could have the indulgence of the House.
An incredibly sad story came out of my riding in recent days. Vienna Rose Irwin, age two, was discovered in an open well outside of a day care in my riding. She had obviously passed away. I just want to take this moment to pass on my greatest sympathies to the family and to all the people who knew her. To quote, “She was the most beautiful and sweetest little girl and in her short time here on Earth touched so many.” While not directly on point, I appreciate the indulgence to send that sympathy to her parents. She passed away just outside of a day care some days ago. I send my deepest sympathies and regards, and I am sure those of all members, to her parents and all those who knew and loved her.
We will start there. I am sorry for choking up a little. I think of my own kids. I have a seven-year-old and a nine-year-old. I heard the official opposition House leader talk about having five kids. I have only two; I am not as ambitious as the Conservative House leader. I can say that certainly even with two, some days it feels like we are drowning. I love this job. I love being here, and it is certainly my choice. However, the hardest days are always on Sunday nights or Monday mornings, when I have to leave them, knowing that I will not see them for four or five days. I am very pleased to serve the people of Northumberland—Peterborough South.
Child care is a challenge in our family, just as it is for millions across Canada. The Conservatives have raised some concerns and objections, and I think we have done it in quite a constructive way. Of course, Conservatives recognize the challenges of raising children in today's society. In fact, in a lot of ways, those concerns have been heightened over the past eight years, with the cost of inflation driving up the cost of housing and food. Food bank usage has doubled or even tripled. What is scary is that we are in fact seeing more and more employed parents having to use food banks. We recently heard testimony that it used to be that about 15% of folks using food banks would identify themselves as employed. That number is now 30%, and a lot of them are parents.
I just want to go through some numbers. In 2011, the average full-time day care cost for a child aged four or younger in Ontario was $677 a month. Even at $677 for child care, I am sure that that is not easy for many parents. Today, for parents living in Toronto, it costs more than $1,000 a month to have an infant in day care. This is an increase of 67%.
Child care costs in Ontario are among the highest in the country, and I would venture to say, some of the highest in the world. In Toronto, a full-time spot for a toddler costs around $1,600 a month, or $19,000 a year. This is just one of the costs that have risen for parents; no doubt, it is an extremely challenging one.
There are also many other issues with respect to the expenses for child care. I just want to talk a little bit about the marginal effective tax rate and participation rate for parents. I know that, in the past, when I have raised this and stated the numbers, Liberals have sighed or rolled their eyes in disbelief. However, these numbers are all cited. These numbers have all come from the C.D. Howe Institute, a respected think tank and institution, and all their math is here too. If anybody wishes to challenge it, I cannot raise the report, because then it would be a prop, but I am more than willing to table it.
One of the numbers they talk about is the participation tax rate. I will just read this to make sure that we have it correctly on the record:
[It] is the cumulative effect of all income taxes, other contributions, payroll deductions and loss of tax benefits on the entire prospective earnings from work.
For a stay-at-home parent, it represents a financial penalty that must be paid out of total derived income.
I just want to give a scenario in which we have a mom who earns $30,000 a year. The total family income is $30,000. The mother will pay federal income taxes and CPP and EI contributions, with no Alberta income tax, for a total of $1,985. The dad is now considering going back to work. He has been at home with the kids, and he is deciding to return to the workforce.
By the way, I have not heard anyone in this House say it, but I have heard it said from time to time in the community. I hate it when they say that “stay-at-home parents are going back to work.” Members can trust me: It is a vacation doing this job compared with taking care of my kids. I am first and foremost my kids' dad before I am the member of Parliament for Northumberland—Peterborough South.
We have this situation. We have a mom who is working and earning $30,000 a year. The dad wants to go back to paid work. We would think that $30,000 more in income should increase the family's disposable income by $30,000, especially as a low-income earner. Do members know how much their income would actually increase? The family's disposable income would increase by $13,350. That is all. Their participation tax rate for the dad's return to work is 56%. It is in here. I am happy to table the report.
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- May/31/23 9:51:46 p.m.
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I want to remind the hon. member not to point to the report.
Mr. Philip Lawrence: I know.
The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes): If he knows, then he should not be doing it.
The hon. member.
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Can I have unanimous consent to table this after my speech?
An hon. member: Yes.
An hon. member: No.
Mr. Philip Lawrence: Exactly.
Madam Speaker, I just want to walk members through a couple of the actual numbers. Let us say that we have a parent who is earning $45,000 and a second parent who wants to go back and earn $20,000. Their participation tax rate, as I outlined it earlier, if they live in Newfoundland and have one kid, is 38%. I have a lot of these, but I am just going to go through and pick a couple of them. In Ontario, their participation tax rate, if they had two kids, would be 54%. If they had three kids, and they were in the beautiful province of Quebec, their participation tax rate would be 66%.
If the government wants to enable parents to return to the workforce, it just simply has to stop taking their money. It is tens of thousands of dollars through the participation tax rate. I can show members the numbers, and I am happy to walk them through the numbers. That money would do a lot more than the Liberals' child care program ever would, and the parents would have the ability to spend that money how they want to.
I heard laughter when one of our members talked about grandparents raising people's kids. I have great respect for grandparents, and if it is their decision to watch their grandchildren, then God bless them. I think that is a great decision. The government should not be getting away from grandparents spending time with their grandkids. The government should be supporting grandparents.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to join my voice to my colleague's in sending condolences to the Irwin family and to the member's entire community. I cannot imagine the pain they are going through right now.
The member ended by talking about grandparents taking care of grandkids. There is nothing in this legislation that would prevent a family from making their own child care choices. There is absolutely nothing that would change that. However, what I can say is that some of the people whom I have spoken to who are most excited about this legislation are grandparents. They love their grandchildren, but it is a lot to ask them in their golden hour to take care of little kids. When I travelled around this country, not only were parents excited, but grandparents were absolutely also excited about the affordable child care initiative.
I am still not sure. I have asked every Conservative member who has spoken tonight. We are just debating a spurious amendment right now. Will the Conservatives be supporting Bill C-35?
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Madam Speaker, I thank the member, first off, for extending her sympathies. I appreciate that, and I appreciate a lot of the member's response, but I just want to address a couple of points.
One is that we want to enable and empower grandparents, and there is nothing in the legislation, to be clear, that would stop them from looking after kids, but if we were able to reduce the cost of living; reduce the marginal effective tax rates, which for seniors collecting GIS is always over 50%; and reduce the participation tax rate, we would empower and enable seniors to make their own decisions. Certainly we do not want to be forcing anyone who does not want to extend child care, but we also want to empower and enable those who do.
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Uqaqtittiji, I would also like to send my condolences to the family in the member's riding.
I really appreciated the member's intervention, because he seems to be taking Bill C-35 seriously and not talking only about the motion about the short title.
The bill is especially important for Nunavummiut. I do not know if members have read the Auditor General's report published on May 30 about Inuit children's and youth's rights being infringed. There are many children and youth who are in care, but who also who do not need to be in care. Preferably, Bill C-35 would help make sure that families are able to get the supports they need to use day care, rather than having their children stolen by governments.
What I do appreciate about the bill as well, and I thank the member for Winnipeg Centre for her great work, is that it includes the importance of upholding indigenous rights, because of the inclusion of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the implementation of UNDRIP. I wonder if the member agrees that it is absolutely necessary that we pass Bill C-35 so indigenous children's rights can be upheld.
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Madam Speaker, I think that was a fantastic and fair question, and that is why we supported the amendment put forward by the NDP. We will continue to support that. Obviously, the residential schools and the stealing of indigenous children are absolutely beyond the pale, so inclusive of that or exclusive of that, Conservatives believe entirely that children should be raised as their parents and their culture want. I have had many discussions with the great chiefs of the Hiawatha First Nation and the Alderville First Nation, whose nations are located within the boundaries of the riding of Northumberland—Peterborough South, and every single indigenous child deserves to be raised with an indigenous upbringing and culture. Parents in general deserve the ability and the right to raise their children as they see fit, not how the government sees fit, through the residential schools or otherwise.
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Madam Speaker, I rise today to address the amendments we brought forward on the Canada-wide early learning and child care system.
I addressed this many times going door to door in Calgary Centre. When we speak to people who are trying to access day care in Canada, we get an illustration of exactly what the myriad problems are that we encounter, as a society, in making sure we have this service available for Canadians. It is important that we have this service available for Canadians. I remember meeting somebody who had a three-year-old child, and she was also pregnant with her second child. She was looking at the options. She looked at how the various political parties were assessing what the solution would be. She also had friends who had day care operations in the neighbourhood, and they had different input than what she was getting from various political parties. Depending on where someone is, and the input they get on this subject, they have various degrees of understanding. They have various degrees of how they are going to access this system, how they are going to pay for the system and, effectively, how it is going to work.
One of the things in this bill that I was quite curious about was something the minister said when introducing it in December 2022. When introducing this bill, she said, and this struck me as odd, that the government must protect what we have built and make it harder for any future federal government to cancel or cut child care and undo all that we have achieved for children and families. That is interesting, because we live in a democracy, and every one of these policies we put forward in Parliament, which we hope to sustain, has to prove to be effective. At the end of the day, we are getting toward more effective policies. We try to get better with each iteration. To be stuck on something that might be difficult to amend, move forward with and progress in our society is not where we want to be. I was surprised by the minister's comments on that.
Going back to the woman I met who was assessing the child care, she also said that we need to make sure we adapt and continue to adapt, as a society, to the needs of the people who require child care.
I also looked at the issue of women's participation in society. This is the nub to me, because I belong to a generation of Canadians in which women traditionally took some seven years off, or sometimes it was nine years, as it was with my wife, to raise a family before going back into the workforce. This held them back in their career. These people are in the prime earning years of their lives and advancing their careers, and we can think about the choices they have to make because of the child care choices they have. Effectively, we see more executives at senior levels who are males because of the limitation on the years of experience women get when they choose to take that time off because of the limited options they have for child care. An effective child care system is going to advance a lot of social progress by making sure we have a balance of men and women at senior levels in both our private sector and our public sector organizations going forward. I think it is laudable goal. I think we need to achieve it.
One of the things I have always noticed about the government's bills is that they are long on narrative. We can put a big stamp in the window that says “free $10 day care”, yet, at the end of the day, we have to execute that plan. That means boots on the ground. That means understanding where the bottlenecks are and where the hurdles are that we have to get over in order to get that done. One of the big bottlenecks in the child care system, of course, is the access to labour. That continues to be one of the main problems we have in terms of accessing day care in Canada. Where is the labour going to come from? Right now, that labour does not exist. CUPE, the Canadian Union of Public Employees, actually came up with a stat that said there is one space for every three children who need it. That is not because of physical space, like the rooms and buildings, but that is because of the access to workers. The workers are the bottleneck. We must make sure we have enough workers in place and a sustainable system that allows those workers to deliver the services that society requires of them at an optimal level.
Those are not there, because, frankly, the financial incentives are not there to make that system work better and draw more people, more entrepreneurs, into a system that provides a great service for Canadians, one that is going to achieve these laudable goals I spoke about earlier in my speech: access to child care for everybody and access for women to re-enter the workforce and participate fully in executive ranks as they progress their careers, as their husbands have done for the last generation. This needs to be fixed. Making sure that bottleneck of the labour shortage gets addressed is key in addressing this. That is what I talk about when I say that execution is different from narrative.
Accessibility is, of course, number one. I have met many people through my career who were not as advantaged, financially, as many people in society. I recall the accessibility of day care. They would actually take public transit from one end of the city to the other in order to drop off their kids. They would take public transit back downtown, and this is in Calgary, where there is a good public transit system. That, in effect, is an hour at the beginning of their day and an hour at the end of their day, in order for them to take their kid somewhere safe and then get them at the end of the day and take them home. That is a big chunk of time out of one's day. That is because of what, I have learned in this process, are called day care deserts. There is no accessibility in certain areas where these people actually need this service, close to their work or close to their home. They have to go a long way out of their way in order to get the service they require.
We have to revisit this and think about who is most affected by this. It is not people of means; it is people without means. The people who are looking for those spaces are in the more marginalized sectors of society, the more marginalized economic sectors.
The ability to access this, of course, if one is of means, is going to be better than if one is not of means. We continue to have deserts of day care. We continue to have an accessibility problem all the way through. The sister of a very good friend of mine was in the same boat. She was a day care provider and she took public transit from south Edmonton to north Edmonton every day in order to deliver the service, again, because of the day care desert. There was no day care available in the very south end of Edmonton where she lived. She was one of the day care providers, and her skills were supportable only in the north part of Edmonton at that point in time. That, again, is a one-hour commute, half an hour at each end of the day. That is a long time to add on to what one is putting in every day.
There is an issue about inclusivity. We have to make sure that this inclusivity is not just for the public and non-profit sector but also includes those people who are putting together day care spaces in our communities and getting rid of the so-called day care deserts so that we can actually have publicly funded $10-a-day day care available in the communities where it is needed, set up by the entrepreneurs who are actually willing to train the people, get the funding and get the system up and running so they can serve the clientele that lives close to where they want to provide the services. These are all types of child care we are talking about here. This is backed up, of course, through the testimony at committee, by the Association of Day Care Operators of Ontario.
I think most Canadians are trying to access this day care, which is a benefit. This is going to be a low cost. We want to make sure we get this into people's hands but it is not going to be available. This is an accessibility problem. It has to be addressed first and foremost in this bill. We have to get the boots in the ground and make sure we have the ability to get people into positions before we start pretending we are delivering a service, or say we are delivering service, and not being able to execute.
Having something in the store window and being able to deliver to people are two entirely different things. That is the issue here. We have to make sure we have a system that works for the people we intend to serve via that new system.
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Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague from Alberta and I have many great conversations here in the House. I was thrilled to hear that he understands how child care is really a great contributor to social growth and the advancement of women. It is certainly something I value.
He talks about spaces, and even in his province of Alberta, 1,800 new child care spaces were created under the program, through the non-profit system. He also leaned into the issue of private care. That is why the Province of Alberta, determining where it had desert spaces, committed to another 5,500 spaces, going forward.
There is a system that needs to be built. The system is being built, and I would like to know if my hon. colleague will support Bill C-35 rather than debate the title of the bill itself.
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Madam Speaker, there was a lot packed in there, and I think we addressed that a bit.
We talked about my home province of Alberta. It is a growing province. If we think about 1,800 day care spaces in a province that has had a migration influx of 50,000 people over the last year, we are talking about a need that is largely unmet. I referred in my speech to day care deserts. At the end of the day, 61% of those accessing day care in Alberta are in a day care desert.
We have problems and hurdles to overcome in order to deliver this to people. That is one of the reasons we want to make sure the bill we are talking about today addresses the concern of how it is going to meet the needs of Canadians.
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Madam Speaker, for me, in Vancouver East, the issue with access to day care centres around three things. One, it is about affordability, so $10-a-day day care will make a difference for families. The other issue, of course, is about access to spaces and the creation of spaces, which is also critical, because there is a long wait-list of people trying to access day care for their children.
Last but not least is a point the member raised. It is the issue around the attraction and retention of child care workers. The key to doing that centres around wages and working conditions. My colleague, the member for Winnipeg Centre, worked really hard to bring forward amendments to the bill to address this critical issue.
My question for the member is this. Would he agree that, in order to attract and retain quality child care workers, we must ensure fair, livable wages as well as good working conditions for them?
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Madam Speaker, that is an excellent question. Indeed, my colleagues on the committee informed me that they put forward these amendments to make sure there were caveats built into the system for the adjustments to labour that we talked about.
Colleagues should think about it from a supply and demand perspective. If there is no incentive to get into this business, for example through the provision of a service that is going to make sense for people, we are not going to have people entering it as a career or setting up a day care. That is why we are trying to expand access. It is to make sure it is available to all people and that the impetus is there, that motivation, to provide the labour and allow people to make a choice about what labour they are going to have so they see themselves fulfilling this career for the rest of their lives. That has to be part of this, because otherwise we are just putting words on paper one more time. Let us get something executable.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his remarks. I appreciated his economic, financial and, frankly, social analyses.
Both he and I represent urban ridings. One of the things I think we both face is—
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- May/31/23 10:12:31 p.m.
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I just want to stop the member there for a second. There seems to be a sound coming through. I am not sure if the hon. member has something on a screen or a phone. Maybe we could try again.
The hon. member for Spadina—Fort York.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his remarks. I appreciated his economic and social analyses.
Both he and I represent urban ridings, and, like him, I have heard the challenges around the labour shortage. There is no point in affordable, high-quality child care if there are no spots available. I would appreciate if you could expand on the labour workforce strategy, or perhaps the lack thereof.
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- May/31/23 10:13:11 p.m.
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The sound is still there whenever we open mikes, so maybe we will have somebody check that out, because it will be problematic for the interpreters.
Also, I want to remind the hon. member that he is to address all questions and comments through the Chair, not directly to members.
The hon. member for Calgary Centre can give a brief answer.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for that question. I have always been impressed with his economic analysis of these matters. He and I share a view on this about how we motivate people in society to get into where the gaps are. There has to be an incentive, which we talked about, from both a labour perspective and a space perspective. In the day care deserts, we have to make sure there is a motivation to provide that. That is why it is not only the not-for-profits and the public that are going to work here. It will have to be available for all the people who want to provide these spaces in the established day care deserts. There is a reason they are being served by other people right now, and they are jammed, so let us get those impetuses out of the way, those hurdles cleared and those bottlenecks broken. Let us get on with it.
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Madam Speaker, I am happy to rise in this late evening to once again speak about some incredibly important work to ensure that all families in Canada have access to affordable child care.
First, I want to acknowledge the work of so many in our communities who have tirelessly worked to ensure the successes and movement that we are seeing today in the right direction to provide child care.
The NDP has been carrying this torch for generations, fighting alongside families, local organizations, unions and members of our communities to bring forward legislation that finally ensures families have access to the care they need. As a matter of fact, in the 40th Parliament, prior to me having the honour of being an elected member of Parliament, NDP member of Parliament Olivia Chow introduced a child care bill. Following her, my current NDP colleague, the member for London—Fanshawe, put forward another bill on child care.
Now, in this 44th Parliament, my NDP colleague, the member for Winnipeg Centre, has been working tirelessly to apply the pressure needed to see movement by the government. After years and years of consecutive Liberal and Conservative government inaction, the NDP was able to push the Liberals to commit. Now we need to see the delivery for all across Canada.
In order to move forward for families that have been waiting for too long, we need to see the bill before us move forward and not continue to see delays. I fail to understand, which I was asking about earlier in questions, how hours of debate tonight about the short title of the bill, and not continuing on the debate at third reading, will help us move in the necessary direction. It is disheartening to say the least.
Regardless, I take delays like this quite personally. I am a single parent of two, one now an adult and the other a teenager. I am not quite sure how that happened so quickly. I worked multiple jobs and returned to school as a mature student to build a better future for my family.
One ongoing barrier I experienced was a lack of affordable, accessible child care. Even with the provincial subsidies at the time, many of the options remaining for my children were still unaffordable. To make matters worse, there were multiple examples where I had to choose subpar child care, which is often less reliable, and in more than one instance had outright horrendous child care options. The stresses surrounding child care meant that my children and I struggled. My hard-earned but low income directly impacted the quality of child care made available to my children.
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All children need access to quality child care. Children living in low-income families should not be the exception to this rule. All I wanted, which is what everyone wants for their children, was to have the peace of mind that my children would be cared for. I could not afford to stay home with my children and I could not afford for them to go to child care. What an impossible situation this is for anyone to be in.
Unfortunately, these struggles continue to be felt by those raising children today. Constituents in my riding of Nanaimo—Ladysmith continue to reach out, struggling to find quality child care and affordable child care. I am disheartened to have to share with these constituents that we are seeing delays in moving this bill forward to ensure that $10-a-day child care is made a reality.
However, none of this will be made possible without a workforce strategy. Child care workers are specialized professionals in our communities. Many undertake four-year bachelor's degrees, for example, in child and youth care. In order to earn this bachelor's degree, students pay for unaffordable tuition fees, as well as the high cost of books and supplies. Despite taking four years away from the workforce to invest in a quality education and to develop the skills required to contribute endlessly to our communities and the future of our children, these qualified workers are offered positions that pay meagre wages. I am perplexed how those who provide the care for our children, those who shape future generations, would be so undervalued and disrespected in their field.
This is another example where we see a vital field of work overrepresented by women being severely underpaid. As a matter of fact, of those who work in the child care profession, 98% are women and one-third are immigrants or non-permanent residents. Also, those working in the field are more likely than workers in all other occupations to be racialized.
As my colleague from Winnipeg Centre so eloquently said, “This is not...a worker shortage; it is a wage shortage. It is a respect shortage.” Those who choose the honourable profession of caring for our children need to be paid fairly to do so, to have access to a safe working environment and to know they will have access to a retirement income and medical benefits. Where is the incentive for individuals who enter the field of child care if they cannot be assured, at the very least, that a livable income will be provided? We will never see any increases to the workforce under these conditions. We need to see the government follow through with a clear strategy to ensure an increase of those working in child care. Without them, we will never see improvements for generations to come.
Prior to the pandemic, child care was already the second-biggest expense for families after housing, and many people caring for children were forced to delay their return to work because they could not find or afford child care. Before COVID, there were only enough licensed child care spaces for one in four children under six. With COVID-19, women's participation in the workforce dropped to its lowest point in 30 years. This staggering, unacceptable fact demonstrated the dire need for child care. Businesses, child care experts and economists agree that people caring for children cannot go back to work without safe, reliable and affordable child care.
Accessible and affordable child care is also an issue of gender equity. Women are more likely to be caring for children and are therefore more impacted when quality care is not made available. Everyone should have the right to decide what is best for their families, and child care is an essential piece in providing those options.
This bill is not only about the care of children today. It is setting children up for success moving forward. We know that when children receive quality care, they are better set up for success once they enter school. These early years are vital to the future of children and child care, and for many, they are key in early learning and child care.
Child care needs to not end once a child enters school, as we all know. There are endless examples where child care remains necessary once a child enters school, like before and after school and during school breaks. In my prior role as a school board trustee for Nanaimo—Ladysmith, my fellow trustees and I worked to incorporate and embed child care opportunities, in partnership with the Province of B.C., directly into the existing public school system, and we have seen successes of exactly this in Nanaimo—Ladysmith public schools as a result.
I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the incredible work and advocacy of the Canadian Union of Public Employees to make possible affordable public child care, such as what we are seeing in Nanaimo Ladysmith. It makes so much sense to provide child care where the children already are, operated in-house by already qualified staff, with fewer transitions and improved care for children.
Quality care must uphold human rights, including the rights of indigenous people. This is why it was essential that this bill include the amendment to uphold the right of indigenous people to free, prior and informed consent on matters that pertain to their children. We all know the disgraceful history of residential schools, where children were kidnapped from their parents, without consent, as well as the continued abuses against indigenous families in the sixties scoop. Now we see more indigenous children in care than there were at the height of the residential school history. If we are to reconcile in this country, we must acknowledge this truth while respecting the rights of indigenous people, including the rights of indigenous families and children.
I have said this before in this House, and I will continue to say it: We need to see public money going into public services. We need to listen to experts in the field, who reiterate that public child care is the best way forward, with affordable, high-quality and accessible child care for families who need it. We also know that public child care provides better wages and working conditions for staff.
My hope is that we can stop the delays on getting this bill to move forward, so that we can see affordable child care made accessible for everyone across Canada.
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Madam Speaker, I just want to reiterate that there is no holdup. These agreements are already signed with provinces and territories.
What is important now is a lot of what the member has brought up. There is no labour strategy, something that we put forward in committee. It was actually voted down by the NDP and the Liberals. We know how important this is.
The other issue that I know the NDP cares deeply about, and I support, is those who are less fortunate, those who are living in poverty. This bill has been criticized by many people for having a Matthew effect. The Matthew effect is basically when the government intervenes by increasing public provision, but this ends up advantaging higher-income rather than lower-income groups.
Does the member feel that the bill needs to be strengthened to ensure that those living below poverty also have access to child care?
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