44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 31, 2023 02:00PM
Madam Speaker, the member talked a lot about accessibility, and that is very important. I represent a very large rural riding, and there are folks there who require child care for their children as well. They have been creative and found solutions through family, friends and community members, but they are not licensed day cares and so they would get punished by this government with this policy by not getting $10-a-day child care. I am wondering if my colleague thinks that is fair.
85 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, families across Canada are in need of flexibility when it comes to child care. They will have different needs depending on their circumstances, particularly families, as he has pointed out, who have needs outside of standard hours of operation.
My suggestion is that this government go back and take a look at this legislation that it has introduced, review the testimony that its members have heard, and really seek to address the issues that families all across this country have highlighted to be inherent with this piece of legislation.
91 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, it is great to rise in this House to speak about Bill C-35. In fact, what we have been discussing today, with very lively debate, is an act representing early learning and child care in Canada. What we have heard in this debate has a lot to do with affordability, and the Liberals and New Democrats have been talking about this a lot. I find it interesting that, despite child care being promised since about the 1990s, the Liberals have finally made a move on it, driven in large part by the affordability crisis that is hitting Canada.
We have first-time homebuyers who are having a very difficult time getting into the housing market, buying a home and starting a family and starting that Canadian dream. We have those who maybe have a house who are struggling to eat. We see that food bank usage is up pretty much everywhere in this country. One alarming rate that was in the news not too long ago was that first-time food bank usage was up, and that is a very startling statistic, when we think about those going to the food bank for the very first time. That is the desperation that is being felt across Canada.
Now we are discussing a child care bill that really would not do anything with affordability. I will kind of explain why I believe that is and articulate, and maybe build on, some of the arguments that were made here tonight in our speeches.
We still have the issue of the labour shortage in the child care spaces, so that is the one part of this very important puzzle that really is not addressed in the bill, and we see that labour shortage is starting to affect many other sectors of our economy. It can be in health care, child care and pretty much anywhere. I think anywhere an employer is, they are probably looking for workers. We need to address that, and it is not being addressed.
We also are looking at the ability to just access spaces that are there. In the bill, priority would go to the public and not-for-profit spaces. There is no room for those private sector spaces that are being created to help alleviate the crises, both affordability and access to spaces. Of course, if we had more choice of public, not-for-profit and for-profit in a competitive marketplace, we would actually find more options. When we have more options we have better choices to make, because competition makes everything better. We would get a better product at a better price with a better service. Everyone tries to improve with that model.
We can even go a bit further with this, in that child care spaces in a competitive market could be flexible to the very unique situations Canadians find themselves living in. Work schedules are not always nine to five. We have shift workers, students and a myriad of challenges that parents have to juggle with, and when we really limit the choices for parents, they basically get what they are given. Whether they like it and whether it works for them, it does not matter, whereas if there are more options and more choice, maybe there would be a day care, and I am sure there are many, that would adjust to the needs of very flexible schedules.
When there is abundance, there is peace. When there is abundance there is choice. The more abundance there is in any society, the happier the population. The less choice there is, the grumpier the population.
When we have the contracting of the economy and we have a space where there are shortages, we always see conflict, and that is why I think we raise this quite often. In all our speeches that I have been listening to tonight, the same points get made. We are hearing from our constituents these exact concerns over and over again, and once the government gets involved in providing a service, other competitors find themselves at a disadvantage. They have to compete against a subsidized environment, and then we start to phase out those additional spaces that are provided by the private sector, leaving only the government option, which as I mentioned just a few moments ago, is rarely flexible and often does not properly service rural communities.
Do not get me wrong. There are lots of providers in my community, and many others across the country, who are absolutely doing the best they can. I have yet to meet a child care professional who does not give their all each and every day. They are some of the best people I have ever met, and they do so because they love their community, they love their job and they want to see young ones grow up and be the best they can be. However, if people cannot access the child care spaces, it is hard to get that learning going.
It has to also be flexible. When the government oversees this level of control where only a certain selected few are getting funded, then basically it is just a proxy of government.
Money will be spent. Results will not be achieved like they could be. When we have a competitive market, we get rapid innovation. Let us think about what has been achieved over our lifetimes and those before ours and the economic prosperity that has been achieved. Things that were once only accessible to the very rich have become very affordable to the vast majority of Canadians, and that is a good thing. That is a great thing. We look back to when people used to wash their clothes by hand. Now, I believe pretty much everyone has a washer and dryer. That is a good thing because entrepreneurs, inventors and creators started to make the things that, at one time, only the rich had and made them affordable for the vast majority of people.
The same can be said for child care. When we have different ideas and different people doing different things, going back to abundance, and abundance equals peace, we can start to have a myriad of differences in the child care space. Again, that is a very good thing.
However, when the government continues to pick winners or losers in the marketplace, we get slower innovation. We see that in the energy sector and we see that in growing sectors with the government picking winners and losers in industries and expecting a better result.
I do not think there is any Canadian who is very happy with the telecom industry. There is no competition in the telecom industry. We sometimes like to pretend there is, but there really is not. People basically get what they are given, whether they like it or not. How is that working out for Canadians? We have some of the highest rates anywhere in the world. Again, when we talk about child care, it needs to include everything.
We talk about our energy industry. The government is contracting that. It has been punishing our oil and gas sector for years, and our mining industry. Forestry is hurting. The government is contracting the energy market, leaving what is available to obviously go up in price. One way it could lower energy costs is to strip away the tax. The other is to add supply. When we add supply to anything, it lowers the price. That is including food and day care too.
Since I am from Ontario, I will read this statistic out here by Ontario's Financial Accountability Office. It projects that by 2026, which is not too far away, there will be 602,000 children under six whose families will want $10-a-day day care, and the province will only be able to accommodate 375,000 of them, leaving about 38% without access. This is a major issue. Going back to what I first mentioned at the beginning of my speech, the labour part of this conversation is left out of this bill.
1351 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, we seem to have delved into the energy sector when we are supposed to be talking about child care.
Nevertheless, I would like to remind the member that the bill reinforces the agreements. The Premier of Ontario signed their agreement. He was the last one to sign, and since signing that agreement, 33 new child care spaces have been created. It is one of the provinces that actively grandfathered in private child care operators and continues to work with them to ensure that there is growth, choice and flexibility within the province.
I do not seem to understand how we have gone from a bill that is aspirational to ensuring that we continue with this, considering the Conservatives ripped up the previous agreements from this time. Now that we are here, there are agreements and Bill C-35 is here, will the Conservatives support Bill C-35?
149 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, just to answer the member opposite's first part, I was talking about the energy sector. My point was that, when we have abundance, that equals peace. When we have excess in spaces, we are able to lower the price and provide a range of options. When one includes public and not-for-profit as well as, yes, for-profit day care centres, it gives Canadians choice. It gives them the opportunity to go with what works for them.
Of course, we have students with flexible schedules. We have shift workers. Unfortunately, the government plan does not address that.
There is also this report here that is talking about child care deserts in Canada. It is affecting nearly 50% of younger children. It is a very concerning report talking about the lack of spaces in this country.
There was a part of my speech during which I talked about the labour part of it. That is not addressed in this legislation. I would like to see the Liberals start to focus on the whole range and take into account what we have been saying here tonight.
188 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, I was just reading a report done by CCPA called The Harper Record. It says:
Giving financial incentives to businesses to create spaces has been tried before and failed. It was such bad policy that even members of the minister's hand-picked advisory group raised objections and was roundly criticized when the government's policy folks conducted cross-country consultations on how it could be made to work.
The report goes on to say, “The fallout from Harper's child care policy will be felt for years to come. Federal transfers specifically designated for early learning and child care were reduced by almost 37% in 2007-08...In 2006, only 19.3% of children five and under had access to...child care”.
The NDP and my colleague, the member for Winnipeg Centre, had pushed the government and drove the agenda to get $10-a-day child care nationally. This bill before us would address some elements of accountability with reporting, so we can have—
170 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/31/23 10:59:46 p.m.
- Watch
The hon. member for Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock.
10 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, unfortunately, I do not think the hon. member was listening to my speech. I was actually talking about how we add to the supply, and that adding is always better than subtracting.
If I heard correctly, I am pretty sure that the member from Vancouver said that she is against giving public money to companies. Does that mean she is against the billions given to Volkswagen? Do I understand that correctly, or is it just for those that the member from the NDP agrees with?
When we are talking about this child care issue, we want to see more spaces rather than fewer. That means more choice for parents because more selection and more choice equals a better product, service and price.
124 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, it is wonderful to join my voice to the debate tonight in speaking to this important bill, but first I want to take a moment to thank all the first responders and firefighters who are working so hard to keep people safe. I especially want to give a big thanks to all the volunteers who have opened up their hearts and homes, and all of the people who are sharing their time, talent and treasure to make all of those who have been displaced by fire feel welcome.
To get to the matter at hand, as people have probably realized, families look different across our country and across so many different spaces and places. This is such a challenging spot because there is not enough child care. While this bill has some very lofty goals in it, it has not necessarily created the child care spaces, which has created some unique challenges.
Coming from Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, I have had the opportunity to speak to a number of families that have a different type of work environment than many. I have had the opportunity to meet a lot of shift workers, a lot of moms who are nurses while the dad is a firefighter, or they both work up in the oil sands in a variety of spaces and have shifts that cross every so often.
One of the biggest pieces I heard from that was that the standard Monday to Friday, nine-to-five child care just does not fit their families. They need child care three overnights a week, or they need child care six days a month because, between their shifts and their spouse's shifts, they can mostly be home with the kids, but the rigidity of the Monday to Friday, nine-to-five, Ottawa-knows-best child care, which works well in some locations, does not work well in all locations.
This is part of the problem. In the community of Cold Lake, I get to chat with so many amazing Armed Forces members who serve our country so diligently, going on deployments all around Canada and the world, not only protecting us but also standing up as part of our NATO allies and protecting peace in the world. That Monday to Friday, nine-to-five child care especially does not work for them. It makes it that much more difficult. I was chatting with one woman just last week, and she was explaining to me how they had delayed having a family, not because they could not afford it but because they were not sure how they would physically make it work, as both she and her husband serve. They were asking how they would piece this together to do something when the availability is not there.
In the past, many parents and families would have relied on perhaps a nanny or a live-in caregiver of some sort, but because of the extensive delays in immigration, that path is not as available or accessible as it had been in the past.
That is one of the overwhelming pieces I have heard in my role as the member of Parliament for Fort McMurray—Cold Lake. For a lot of parents who I chat with, a lot of my friends and people in my communities, their number one ask is for flexible child care. They want to see some innovation. They want to see something that serves their family unit, understanding that it looks a lot different than perhaps the average or what used to be.
This does not seem to be addressed in this bill. I think this is part of the problem because the Liberals are solving a problem for what the average family might have looked like 30 years ago. That is not what today's families necessarily look like. That is something that I think we can and should do better on.
I am participating virtually, and I am addressing this chamber for the first time in over a month because I had a baby. The fact that we have flexibility in our Parliament to allow people to participate and still be full members, giving speeches, asking question, giving member's statements and participating in committees virtually, allows more women to be able to participate.
If we are going to continue allowing child care to just fit into this box and say that it has to be a certain way, that having a grandma look after her grandkids or having a trusted neighbour fill that role cannot be part of someone's solution, then I do not think that necessarily gets to the space.
While I was trying to prepare for this speech, I decided to call some child care operators I know. One of the child care operators I called is a friend of mine. Her name is Kyla Penner, and she owns KPSquared here in Fort McMurray. KPSquared is an amazing child care facility that has innovative child care, and it is actually expanding to have 24-hour child care. One of the coolest pieces about its child care model is that it really focuses on the family unit. It has the availability for parents to select when they need the child care. If they only need six days a month, they can pick those six days a month. If they need overnight care, very soon, they will be able to pick overnight care. This gives flexibility to a lot of families, and it is something that works for a lot of families.
Before the child care deal came into place, KPSquared was very sought after in our community, and it had a wait-list of approximately 300 people. Today, I asked Kyla how many people were on the wait-list. She said over 625, but she would need to look to get a more precise number than that. It is not access to child care if the length of the wait-list is 625 people. I talk to so many parents, and I see so many Facebook and Internet forums that talk about the fact that the reality is this: Parents are going and putting their kids on every single wait-list they can possibly find because they just need child care, and they have been promised it.
They have been told that, somehow, there is $10 child care, but we have not actually put the infrastructure into place to make this work. We have not spent the time talking to parents or child care providers to hear where some of those bottlenecks are. The bottlenecks that I have heard about are the fact that we do not have enough early childhood educators to be able to meet the demands so that we can have the staffing. We do not have enough people in those positions, and we do not have a system or a plan in place on how to educate people enough to be able to meet those needs. We also have not figured out that not all parents pick child care based on price. A lot of them pick child care based on flexibility, the proximity to work, how convenient it is for the family unit, or religious or linguistic requirements.
I have heard from many families who picked one child care space over another because they valued being able to have their children in a francophone day care, because that was very important to their family. This is all important. It is something we should value. We should be trying to see how we can expand to let a grandmother assist.
I heard the minister say earlier that it is a lot of work and that grandparents should not be expected to do that. I am not saying that grandparents should be expected to do it. That is not an option in my family. Both my parents are gone. My dad passed away this last year and my mom a dozen years ago, so that is not even an option. However, I have friends whose parents get their joy from being the primary provider of care for their grandchildren. They retired early specifically to be able to make that work for their family. For those families who have that as an option, I do not understand why we would not be supporting that.
That is going to be part of how we get enough spaces, so that the families who do not have that as an option, or do not want to use that for a variety of very good reasons, have the space available to them. What I am saying is that families look different. I am going to continue stressing this, because I think it is so important.
We need flexibility in our child care. We need innovation. We need more people like Kyla and KPSquared, because that is how we are going to solve this problem, not by creating an Ottawa-knows-best, one-size-fits-all solution.
1502 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, I have to say what a joy it is to see our colleague again. I congratulate her on the birth of her son. I know it was earlier than expected. It is a lovely thing to be joined this evening by one of the newest babies in this Parliament family.
I want to say, with all respect, that Bill C-35 does not require that anybody give up on such options as having family members look after their babies. It just makes an opportunity available across Canada to have affordable child care. It does not demand that people accept it.
Does she have any thoughts on that?
109 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, it is wonderful to participate and see this innovation in this place.
No, it does not actually explicitly say that we cannot have that as an option. Some of the families I have talked to are paying their parents because they retired early. If they could have some funds to offset that cost and have the same amount of resourcing available to them, it would make a big difference when it comes to the feasibility of this. However, this is the part where the bill does not allow for enough innovation to allow families to have the space to make the choices that are best for them.
109 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, I congratulate my hon. colleague on her new family addition.
I have been talking a lot about workers. We are talking about a crisis, a child care desert, which came from the CCPA. It was very clear about what this was about. It did not say to privatize day care and put more money into private spaces. It said that we have a worker shortage, and the way to deal with it is to pay fair wages and benefits and ensure that workers have retirement savings. We know that low wages in the child care sector are gendered. We know that 98% of employees are women.
I am wondering if my hon. colleague would agree that in order to ensure more spaces, we have to develop a very clear workforce strategy that puts the rights of workers at the centre.
142 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, one of the interesting and amazing things I found when I was chatting with Kyla from KPSquared was that it has a really high retention rate when it comes to child care workers. Part of that is because it pays better than average. However, that is a decision KPSquared made for business reasons, and it is seeing a lot of success from that.
Something we see when we empower people to make choices is that good decisions can be made. We absolutely have to support this industry, and we have to find ways of making sure that we are not leaving people behind. However, I do not think an Ottawa-knows-best strategy for this is necessarily going to get us that solution. I think we need to empower women so that we can see more women in these positions of power making these decisions.
147 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, I congratulate my colleague on her new arrival. We corresponded a bit by email, but I am happy to see her on the screen and joining us in the House.
I would like to ask my colleague about the Alberta agreement, since she is from Alberta. It provided for an additional grant for operating flexible overnight child care, which is exactly what the member alluded to in terms of flexibility. In light of her comment about Ottawa knowing best, this was a case where the province decided what was best and worked with Ottawa to make that happen.
Is it really an Ottawa-knows-best priority? It seems to be driven by the agreements themselves, and the bill would simply be a framework to reinforce our commitment to child care going forward.
134 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/31/23 11:14:55 p.m.
- Watch
The hon. member for Fort McMurray—Cold Lake can give a brief answer.
14 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, that is a very complicated question to give a brief answer to.
Effectively, this was something the Government of Alberta had to fight very hard with the federal government in order to get done, even though it was absolutely in the best interests of Alberta families. However, I do not think it is unique to Alberta families. It could probably help families to have innovative, overnight child care available from coast to coast to coast. Frankly, the fact that it is restricted and only allowed in Alberta is a problem, and I want to see that fixed.
Why are we pitting provinces against each other? That is exactly what the federal government chose to do, because it decided that it knew best and it was going to do this. Frankly, I do not think that is going to serve all the families across the country well.
148 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, I am speaking today about Bill C-35. The bill is called “an act respecting early learning and child care in Canada”. I will spend most of my time speaking about children, but I want to start with a few words about this bill.
This bill would do absolutely nothing for early learning and child care. The government has, in fact, already implemented its child care policies. Bill C-35 comes after the fact. The bill contains statements of principles and a declaration, but nothing would be changed legally or in terms of funding by putting these generic statements of opinion into legislation. Bill C-35 is a bill that simply states the government's views with respect to its own approach to child care. The bill itself would have no material impact on families and no material impact on the operations of the federal government, save for one thing. The one material change that would be brought about by this act is the establishment of a child care advisory council. This council would be paid and would consist of 10 to 18 members, with all members appointed by the government. Although the legislation says the council should reflect the diversity of Canada, it does not define what that means, and it certainly says anything about this council reflecting a diversity of opinion or experience. This council would not be elected and would thus have no democratic legitimacy. It would simply be a tool for the minister to appoint her friends, who would receive government largesse and give her advice, which would no doubt be consistent with her pre-existing opinions.
Instead of hiring and paying a council of the minister's good friends to reaffirm the things the government already believes, perhaps it should send these 10 to 18 people out to offer child care services to the many, many parents who still do not have access under its plan. That would be a much better use of resources than yet another Liberal advisory council.
On the substance of the child care issue itself, this is a subject that is deeply personal for me. I have five children, who range in age from 14 months to 10 years. Ten years ago, when Gianna was born, when I first met my daughter, I remember three overwhelming impressions. First, I have never felt the complete onset of love for another person so quickly. In most situations in life, love grows incrementally over time, but when one becomes a parent, a wall of love hits one in the face and overwhelms one completely. Second, I felt an overwhelming sense of responsibility. Bringing my daughter home, I was struck by the realization that this child had no other parents with whom we simply could drop her off when we got tired or did not know what to do. She was fully our responsibility, and for good. Third, as the weeks went on, I began to wonder what in the world I had done with all my free time before this child was born. Before having kids, I thought I was busy, but when she born, I realized I had had no understanding of what busy meant. Parenthood for me began with an overwhelming sense of love, responsibility and loss of time.
Children are expensive in terms of time and in terms of money. In a, sadly, too busy and too materialistic civilization, we count everything in terms of time and money, but these are not the things that really matter. It goes without saying that every minute and every dollar we have spent on our five beautiful children has been worth it. What, after all, could I possibly rather be doing? Children are amazing, and the measure of a good society is most fundamentally the degree to which it values and respects children, so, recognizing the immutable dignity and value of young children, the important question tonight is how a good society ought to provide for the care and education of children.
Parenthetically, it seems a lot of the government's discourse on child care starts from a different premise. When its members talk about child care, they start from what they think will be good for the economy or what they think would lead to increased workforce participation. These are fine things to talk about, but it seems to me to be starting at the wrong end. They always start by talking about what they think is good for adults instead of by asking what is good for children.
As I described, and as I think any parent will identify with, one naturally feels a deep and fierce unconditional love for one's children, which leads parents to want to sacrifice for whatever they think is best for their children. As such, I believe we should build systems of early learning and child care, and of education more generally, that always err on the side of deferring to parents and that leverage the deep, natural love parents have for their children. Do parents make mistakes? Absolutely. Parents get things wrong; I do especially, but in virtually all cases, we can count on parents to have a rectitude of intentions and a willingness to sacrifice for the sake of their children.
Many parents, myself included, choose to involve other people in the process of caring for their children. We involve grandparents, trusted friends and public and private institutions. There are very good reasons for parents to involve other people in the care of their children. Such care allows parents time to earn family income and to have necessary periods of rest, but it also exposes children to other people, experiences, ideas and role models.
I am not here to say what kind of child care or mix of approaches is best, but I would say that parents should be the ones making these decisions with sincere reference to their own consciences and with a love-driven evaluation of what is best for their children and their family. I trust parents to make these decisions. Therefore, I want to build a society and a child care model that allows parents to action the choices that they see are best for their children. If parents cannot access any external child care then we have limited the range of parental choice. If parents cannot afford to have one parent opt out of the workforce then we have also limited the range of parental choice. Right now we actually have both of these problems. We have parents feeling they need two incomes and not able to find desirable child care services.
We should be trying to build a society in which parents can freely make child care choices across the broadest range of options that reflect their own sincere evaluations without any kind of direct or subtle economic coercion to choose one option or another. Let us remove the child care gatekeepers and make it easier for parents to make the choices that they believe are right. A choice is not an end in and of itself but, given the diversity of children in families and the love that parents have for their children, letting parents make unfettered and uncoerced decisions is the best way to provide for the optimal outcomes for children.
While Conservatives have always championed choice in child care and have advocated different kinds of policies towards that end, Liberals have long preferred the one-size-fits-all model of state-subsidized and controlled traditional day care. Their approach has been to fund out-of-home day care centres, while regulating the fees that they can charge but, importantly, the Liberals have actually underfunded their own preferred model. The money cannot keep up with the big promises, even as out-of-control deficit spending already drives up inflation. Since the money cannot keep up with the big promises, we now have a situation in which some families have seen a short-term reduction in child care costs, but many families cannot access funded spaces and also, as a result of the regulated rates, many child care operators cannot afford to do the upkeep or expansion that is required.
Effectively, the government's approach has been to promise an increase in child care as a result of public funding, but instead they have pushed existing providers to lower prices without sufficient replacement funding and are thus, in the long term, undermining the operations of child care providers and threatening even the existing child care supply. The cost pressures that private child care operators are now facing will create a ticking time bomb in terms of actual child care availability as over time they will not be able to grow to keep up with demand and some will have to close.
Notably, there is no means testing associated with this Liberal program. While some parents are better off for now because they have access and some are worse off for now because they do not have access, we do not have any way of knowing if those who have the current access are the ones who needed the access the most.
This program is very poorly designed and even families who see themselves as benefiting in the short term should know that their child care access is at risk in the long term if operators are not able to access the capital that they need. A better alternative to this system would be to empower families and emphasize choice and flexibility without economic coercion, without funding some things and without using tax dollars from other families making different choices to fund families opting for traditional day care.
I just have one additional point I want to make before I wrap up.
Canada's child care policy should reflect the emerging technological reality. When my parents were raising us, my mother faced a sharp and essentially binary choice. Given the nature of her work, she could either continue to work at or near full time, or she could become a full-time stay-at-home parent. The binary of that choice was very harsh but, fortunately, today a smaller and smaller proportion of families face that kind of sharp binary. Technology has allowed an explosion in work-from-home and flexible work arrangements. It has also allowed the dramatic growth of so-called “momtrepreneurs”. My wife runs a web-based family medicine practice, offering appointments at the same odd hours that are most likely to be convenient for the women she serves. This would obviously have been unheard of a generation ago.
Workers and employers naturally have to assess the effectiveness of these kinds of flexible arrangements, but such arrangements do provide many obvious advantages, especially from the perspective of family life. People today still need child care, but they are more likely to want it in different places, at different times and in different ways, in accordance with evolving work relationships and their own considerations of the best interests of their children.
Work and work-life balance will continue to change, I believe, as technological developments continue and are deployed in different ways. The nine to five out-of-home child care model still serves some families, but an ever-declining proportion of the whole. That is why, more than ever, we need choice and flexibility today. Instead of a one-size-fits-all approach, built for a different technological reality, let us focus on empowering parents in 2023 to make choices that are best for their children and their families.
1931 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, I was most impressed by my colleague's presentation this evening and the number of choice areas that he spoke of.
Could he elaborate on the accountability and accessibility of the types of day care that we have today and how they could be improved?
47 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, the most important relationship of accountability for day care providers is to parents, in terms of whether they are meeting the needs of the families they are serving. If we are able to strengthen choice and flexibility and make sure parents have the resources they need, then we will have strong mechanisms of accountability in place.
As I said in my speech, we are seeing increasing diversity of the work-family balance that people are pursuing and that they are able to pursue because of all the technology. Let us put families in the driver's seat, recognizing that parents have love for their children and that they will make choices that fit with their situation and their kids.
121 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, the member mentioned the national advisory council, and the way he spoke about it, it was almost as though he was belittling it. The people who will be part of this advisory council are going to be the leading advocates for child care. To have them at the table is absolutely critical to make sure that we stay on the right path in ensuring that accessible, affordable, quality child care is made available to all Canadians.
My question for the member is this: If the experts should not be at the table, then who should? Should it be the Conservatives themselves?
103 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- menumenu
- notificationsnotifications
- home
- mailmail
- searchsearch
