44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 6, 2023 10:00AM
Uqaqtittiji, that is a great question. I think that is why this legislation discusses the importance of non-profit organizations in ensuring that public child care is also a priority.
All of the communities in Nunavut have schools. Some of them have spaces for Aboriginal Head Start programs. There are many communities as well with buildings that we need to ensure will provide access. I think that with more investments in ensuring that infrastructure exists, we could make sure that this bill could work for Nunavummiut.
Ultimately, we will also need to make sure that child care centres are being built in Nunavut.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague is always very thoughtful, and I appreciate learning from her.
She did make a comment that I would like to correct on the record. I think it says it best about the difference between prioritizing and eliminating. I am going to read her a comment that Ms. Maggie Moser, director of the board of directors of the Ontario Association of Independent Childcare Centres, made at committee. She said:
Lower-income families were excluded from obtaining access to the CWELCC child care spots. Families who could already afford the fees of their centre were the ones who benefited from the rebates and discounts, while the rest were left behind on a long wait-list.
Does she recognize that the way the bill is currently written is actually hurting lower-income families?
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Uqaqtittiji, I think that is a different type of program that she might be talking about, but it highlights the importance of Bill C-35 and why we need to nationalize child care. We need to ensure, as I have said, that those who have been excluded from accessing child care get the supports that they need.
I heard a Conservative member talking earlier about his family supporting each other in the area of child care. I question whether that member would have had that same level of support if all of their family members had been marginalized for decades, had been oppressed for decades and had been forced to experience genocide for decades. I question whether he would have had the same level of family supports that he needed to ensure child care for his family.
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Madam Speaker, by establishing an early childhood education system, we are helping women return to work and also to school. We are creating an ecosystem that supports the local economy and community support.
I would like to hear what my colleague has to say about that.
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Uqaqtittiji, I think there are absolutely different views about what women can choose to do or what they do not want to do. I think raising children is such a beautiful privilege and a wonderful honour to have. I was not ever really able to be a stay-at-home mom, so I always have tremendous respect for mothers or fathers, any parent, to choose to stay at home to invest in their children's early learning.
I think that what this bill does is really focus our efforts to ensure that we are investing in children so that we can have a better Canada.
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Madam Speaker, the Bloc Québécois supports the principle of Bill C-35 and will support the bill at third reading, even though it finds the bill to be ambiguous.
The bill does not comply with the distribution of powers set out in the Constitution, which clearly states that education and family policies are not under federal jurisdiction. Although the bill states that the provinces will be able to certify child care services and determine the applicable criteria, it also states that every government in Canada will have to comply with the principles set out in the multilateral early learning and child care framework.
This framework is full of good intentions and fine principles, but it is based on the federal government's supposed spending power, which Quebec does not consider legitimate or legal. One thing is clear: This bill was not tabled in the right Parliament.
I will first go into more detail about why we will nevertheless vote in favour of the bill. Then I will explain the Quebec exception and end my speech with an historical overview.
First, the bill excludes Quebec from this federalization of family policy for the next five years. In fact, the Government of Quebec will receive $6 billion in compensation for opting out of this centralist policy. In that sense, the bill respects the will of Quebec not to have the government interfere in its jurisdictions, especially since Quebec is a pioneer in child care services and a model of success, to boot.
Nevertheless, unlike Bill C‑303, the predecessor to this bill, the current version does not contain any wording on exempting Quebec. Indeed, Bill C‑303 stated the following:
4. Recognizing the unique nature of the jurisdiction of the Government of Quebec with regard to the education and development of children in Quebec society, and notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, the Government of Quebec may choose to be exempted from the application of this Act and, notwithstanding any such decision, shall receive the full transfer payment that would otherwise be paid under section 5.
The agreement concluded with the Quebec government spans a period of five years. Enshrining Quebec's full right to opt out of this program would help avoid another dispute between Quebec and Ottawa in case the federal government ever wants to interfere in Quebec's jurisdictions as it does so well.
Passing this bill would also enable Quebec to recover significant amounts that could be used to reinforce its network and improve working conditions for workers in the sector.
By allowing Quebec to withdraw with full compensation, Bill C-35 takes into account these two opposing trends in federal-provincial relations. That sort of consideration is rare at the federal level.
Outside Quebec, Ottawa is seen as the guarantor of social progress, which results in a strong tendency towards centralization. Quebec rejects that type of interference. It would be interesting if Bill C-35 were consistent with the previous version in recognizing that the Quebec government's child care expertise is unique in North America. In fact, the international community acknowledged that in 2003.
The OECD, in its study of child care in Canada at the time, mentioned the following:
[It is] important to underline…The extraordinary advance made by Quebec, which has launched one of the most ambitious and interesting early education and care policies in North America....none of these provinces showed the same clarity of vision as Quebec in addressing the needs of young children and families....
In short, to come back to Bill C-35, public officials said that the bill was drafted with respect for the provincial and territorial jurisdictions and indigenous rights.
They also stated that the bill did not impose any conditions on other levels of government. That was the main concern of some provincial governments during the consultation process. Any provision seeking to ensure that the provinces shoulder their share of the agreement would be part of the individual bilateral agreements signed with each province and territory, agreements that must be renegotiated every five years, as I mentioned previously.
Here are some interesting figures to think about. Access to low-cost regulated child care could lead to the addition of 240,000 workers to the Canadian labour market and a 1.2% increase in the GDP over 20 years. In Quebec, the money would also serve to strengthen the existing network of early childhood education services, which is grappling with a shortage of teachers.
After the committee completed its work, it became clear that the demands of the Bloc Québécois and Quebec were not heard or respected.
Throughout the study, Quebec was cited as a model. It may not be perfect, but the Quebec model was cited on numerous occasions as being a model to emulate. However, at the amendment stage, when the time came to recognize Quebec's expertise in the bill, we saw the three other parties dismiss this reality out of hand. The same thing happened to our amendments giving Quebec the option of completely withdrawing from the federal program with full financial compensation. The only place the other members were even remotely willing to mention Quebec's expertise was the preamble, which is the only place where those words would ultimately have no concrete effect on the bill.
Although Quebec does not get the option of completely withdrawing from this program with full compensation, an agreement to that effect had already been concluded between Ottawa and Quebec. Senior officials who worked on the bill also repeatedly stated, when questioned on the subject, that while nothing would prevent the federal government from imposing conditions as part of a future agreement, the bill had always been designed with the asymmetry of Quebec's reality compared to Canada's provinces in mind. The members of the Liberal government who spoke to the bill also mentioned several times that the Liberals intended to keep working with Quebec on this file. The current agreement also pleased Quebec since it did not interfere with any jurisdiction and gave the Quebec government total freedom to spend the money in whatever sectors it wanted.
Third, let us rewind to 2022, when Quebec celebrated 25 years of the family policy. On January 23, 1997, Quebec's family policy was unveiled by education minister Pauline Marois on behalf of the Parti Québécois government. It was a visionary policy that reflected the changing face of Quebec, including the increase in the number of single-parent and blended families, the growing presence of women in the workforce and the troubling rise in job insecurity.
This forward-thinking policy has allowed Quebeckers to benefit from better work-life or school-life balance and more generous maternity leave and parental leave, and it has extended family assistance programs to self-employed workers or workers with atypical schedules.
This model is an asset. It is a source of pride for the entire Quebec nation, as studies show that every dollar invested in early childhood yields about $1.75 in tax revenues, and that every dollar invested in health and in early childhood saves up to $9 in social health and legal services. Early childhood education services have also been a giant step ahead for education in Quebec. They help improve children's chances of success and keep students from dropping out. They have a positive effect on early childhood development, help identify adaptive and learning difficulties early on, and ensure greater equality of opportunities for every young Quebecker, regardless of sex, ethnic origin or social class.
In conclusion, we also believe that a true family policy is the exclusive jurisdiction of the Quebec and provincial governments. Parental leave, income support and child care networks must be integrated into a coherent whole. In our opinion, to be efficient, this network and all these family policies must be the responsibility of the Government of Quebec alone. The Constitution clearly indicates that education and family policies are not under federal jurisdiction.
One last thing: As the Standing Committee on the Status of Women has noted in more than one report, including the report on intimate partner violence I spoke about earlier in connection with another bill, by providing quality day care that is affordable and accessible to all, we are providing women with an opportunity to fulfill their professional ambitions without compromising their family responsibilities.
What is more, this bill seeks to enhance day care services by providing a safe and protective environment for young children and especially for mothers who are seeking to escape intimate partner violence. What we in the Bloc Québécois are saying is, let us do this with respect for the expertise, but above all, for Quebec's jurisdiction. We will be voting in favour of the principle of Bill C‑35.
I will end with an interesting economic fact. According to the work of Pierre Fortin, Luc Godbout and Suzie St‑Cerny, between 1998 and 2015, with Quebec's child care services taking care of all these young children, mothers' labour force participation rate increased from 66% to 79%. We implemented this feminist measure. Yes, early childhood education is a feminist policy that made it possible for women to return to the labour market, to become emancipated and to provide equal opportunities for young children.
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Madam Speaker, this is not a feminist policy. It would increase taxes on women as well as on men, and it would subsidize particular choices and not others. It would create a fiscal pressure by subsidizing people who use particular kinds of child care arrangements, and it would offer no support to shift workers, those who choose to stay at home for periods of time with their children, those who are relying on grandparents or those who are making other kinds of choices. I think a genuinely feminist policy would not say there is one way to do child care; it would say that we should be giving more money and more resources back to parents and back to families, and supporting them in making their own choices, especially in this time when we are seeing more demand for flexible work, more work from home, more web-based work and more alternatives.
Why does the Bloc not support choice in child care that would give the broadest range of options to all families and that would let women, without the fiscal pressure to make one kind of choice or another, have the resources to make the kinds of choices they want with their own families?
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Madam Speaker, with all due respect to my colleague, this whole issue of early childhood education services is a choice made by Quebec and the provinces. Quebec has chosen this model. Furthermore, this model offers more and more spaces to accommodate non-standard schedules. I am seeing more and more early childhood education centres all around me that are taking women's non-standard schedules into account. It needs to be developed further, but it is happening.
I was talking about a feminist policy. I remember very well that, during the pandemic, when women were suffering at home and I was urgently studying the pandemic's disproportionate effects on women at the Standing Committee on the Status of Women, we sometimes heard that women were faring better in Quebec. Why was that? It was because we had set up this service, which is designed not only to enable women to return to the workforce, but also to give very young children equal opportunities. This means greater social justice. I believe in these principles. In that sense, yes, this policy is—
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- Jun/6/23 9:57:21 p.m.
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The hon. parliamentary secretary to the leader of the government.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to follow up with the member on that aspect. It is hard to imagine that the Conservative Party does not see the real and tangible benefits of this program, given that the Province of Quebec has had it for many years and we have seen a great deal of benefit, like more women getting engaged into the workforce. There is a wide spectrum of benefits from having this program.
I am wondering if the member could expand on why she believes the Quebec program has been as successful as it has and why it is, in fact, in Canada's best interest to try to duplicate that model nationwide.
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Madam Speaker, Canada can only gain from drawing inspiration from a model implemented in Quebec.
Earlier, I ended my speech by talking about a study done by economists who found that, in only a few years, this model helped increase women's participation in the workforce from 66% to 79%. I think those numbers are striking.
Furthermore, I would say that sadly, Conservative governments have questioned bills where the federal government was drawing inspiration from what was being done in Quebec. It was Stephen Harper's government, and it is Mr. Poilièvre himself who said that, once elected to government, he would dismantle this bill—
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- Jun/6/23 9:58:51 p.m.
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I remind the member that we are not supposed to refer to other members by name.
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Madam Speaker, I apologize. It is late. I meant the member for Carleton.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for another inspiring and enlightening speech. I think she is absolutely right. As I was saying, the Quebec model of early childhood education centres, the CPEs, has helped people enormously. It is a great social benefit for families in Quebec.
What does my colleague think about the fact that an agreement has been reached between the federal and Quebec governments? It improves funding to perhaps add more child care spaces.
In terms of long-term federal funding, what does she think about the fact that priority has been given to public and non-profit child care facilities, and that we are trying to ensure that families across the country have access to child care?
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Madam Speaker, as I mentioned in my speech, I would have preferred that it be written into the bill in black and white, as it was in the previous bill. I wanted the bill to say that it took into consideration the fact that Quebec pioneered this model and that it has every right to make the choice of not running the risk, in the long term, of being subject to interference in its areas of jurisdiction and having another quarrel with the federal government.
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Madam Speaker, it is a great honour to speak in support of Bill C-35 at this time. I could not agree more with some of the members who spoke before me, such as the member for Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill and the Bloc Québécois member for Shefford, who gave a great speech. I always appreciate my colleagues' efforts.
Despite the fact that it is late, I would like to give my opinion on this bill. This bill does more than set up child care services. It is important to highlight the principles of this bill: It aims to provide a system of early learning and child care to promote the development of young children.
It is really important to stress the way that Bill C-35 embraces things that many of us have been working on for years, early learning and child care. This is about improving the life chances of children, because the evidence is very clear that children learn with qualified educators who are doing more than making sure the children are watched through a morning or during the day while their parents are at work.
The principles of Bill C-35 underscore that child care must be accessible, affordable, inclusive and of high quality. These are things that we desperately need to see.
In the debate over the bill, I heard legitimate concerns from colleagues, particularly among the Conservative benches. These are fair points. We cannot find enough early childhood educators for all the spaces that are being created. Child care workers should be paid appropriately, and I am saddened by the reality that the existing agreement between the Government of Canada and the Province of Ontario puts in place a payment schedule for child care workers that is embarrassingly insufficient for the work that we are entrusting these workers with.
They should really be paid more than CEOs. They should be paid more, with all due respect to colleagues across the way. I know at least one of our colleagues in the Conservative Party was a very famous hockey coach. We should pay our child care workers more than we pay our hockey players.
What is more important in our society than ensuring our children have the best start in life? Our teachers, at all levels, are underpaid. Early learning and child care educators are professionals whose work needs to be recognized and properly compensated.
However, it is not an unfair point to say we cannot find enough child care workers for all the $10-a-day child care spaces that are being opened up. The point is, we will. This has just come in. The agreements with provinces are very fresh. I am very encouraged that we are going to have it in law, in this piece of legislation, that one hopes any future government could not tamper with this. We have agreements with each of the provinces and territories, and that is a huge accomplishment.
Of course, we had accomplished it back in 2005, when, speaking of hockey players, a famous former minister responsible for the file, Ken Dryden managed to accomplish inked, signed deals with every province. Then we had the election of 2005-06, and the whole program, even though funded, with signed agreements, was scrapped by the incoming Conservative government of Stephen Harper. I wish I did not have such a good memory because thinking about that transition, where we lost Kyoto and Kelowna and child care in a relatively short period of time, is painful to recall.
The advantages of ensuring that every Canadian child, whether from families, as the hon. member for Nunavut was explaining so eloquently, that have not had the same advantages and privilege, or from families from equity-seeking groups, would be able to ensure that the child care program that allows the parents to go to work is of high quality.
I want to stress that part because early learning and child care is a different prospect than child care on its own. I have heard horror stories over the years, as a single mother myself, of child care arrangements that just were not adequate. They were actually unsafe. It is critical we elevate the professionalism, recognition and respect we give to the workers who do this work in early learning and child care.
I also want to mention, because it came up when the hon. member for Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill was speaking, why it is I continue to proselytize the virtues of the rules of Westminster parliamentary democracy that are ignored in this place. In the Palace of Westminster in the U.K. or any of the other Commonwealth countries that use the Westminster parliamentary system, reading a speech is not allowed. It is still a rule here, but it is not only ignored, it is ignored and encouraged with handing out podiums to people so they can put the speeches they are not supposed to be reading on a podium so they can read them.
In any case, I want to spend a moment on the advantage of not allowing a written speech. In the situation we are in right now on Bill C-35, we had a complete failure of House leaders to determine what kind of time was needed to deal with this bill in this place. This happens over and over again. The hon. members across the way will know this is the game that it is played.
In the old days, and I remember the old days because I am old, a minister or a House leader would say to another House leader that a certain legislation was coming up and ask how many speakers they thought would want to speak on it and ask how much time should be allocated for it. There would be an honest and fair-minded decision made based on knowing that so and so was deeply invested in the issue and would want to speak on it and that so and so would also want to speak on it so that probably there would be x number of speakers.
Of course, if one is not allowed to read a speech, which is the case in the Palace of Westminster in London, one would basically know who was prepared to speak to it because they were among the handful of people who know the legislation and the issue well enough to stand up and speak about it without a note in front of them.
I read a very interesting article some time ago now where Conrad Black reflected on his time in the House of Lords and how he contrasted it with the Canadian Parliament. In that comparison, we do not fare well my friends. He said it was wonderful that no one could speak with notes or a written speech and had to be able to stand up and talk about the legislation at hand because out of their own knowledge they could speak to the bill. He said that was far better; I agree.
One of the other advantages of that is one cannot play the game of “we can't tell you now how many of our members want to speak to that.” A House leader of either side of the big parties can say inscrutably that they are not sure and that it is maybe five, maybe 10 or maybe 80 speakers. That is how we find ourselves here tonight.
The government side, quite wrongly I believe, uses time allocation because it throws up its hands at the impasse it finds itself in with the official opposition. This is not about the politics. One can change the colours and the same problem persists. One just plays a game of silliness and says that maybe everybody wants to speak to it. We know what happens in the lobby. Someone says, “Hey, Joe, here's your speech. You're up next.”
I know some members of Parliament for the bigger parties, individual members, have told me over the years that they have refused to do that and are just not going to do it. One can kind of tell when someone is reading a speech they have not written themselves.
My only point here is to take the time to say we could do better. This bill deserves widespread support, and I hope it has it. It will pass. It will be a law.
Thanks to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance for believing in early childhood learning and education and thanks to the Minister of Families. Let us get this passed, but let us stop the nonsense of debating until midnight when no one here is really speaking to the bill but playing a partisan game of delay.
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Madam Speaker, I was really paying close attention to what the leader of the Green Party said, especially when she was focusing on what could have been, had Ken Dryden's child care plan been accepted and ultimately passed through. Unfortunately, it was not. It heartens a lot of people to reflect on what impact that would have had today in terms of the number and the quality of child care spaces, the rates of pay for child care providers, and so forth.
I wonder if the member can reaffirm the support and the need for the legislation, given that if we do not have this legislation passed, there is no guarantee that the program will be there into the future. Could the member just emphasize why it is important that this legislation, in essence, be passed to protect the program, going forward?
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Madam Speaker, I wish I could believe that passing the bill means that a future government will not repeal it. I recall spring 2012 and an omnibus budget bill, Bill C-38, which repealed the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act, repealed the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy Act and gutted the Fisheries Act. There were 70 separate pieces of legislation destroyed in that.
I will also say that if we had not lost Kyoto, Kelowna and child care in the 2006 election, we would not be on fire now. Canada would have reached our Kyoto targets. They were on the books and fully funded. Therefore, there are tragedies in losing that government of 2005.
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Madam Speaker, with all due respect, these are not partisan games. As critic to this file, I have received thousands of messages from parents, who are screaming for help, and from operators, who are ringing alarm bells. All anybody at home has to do is google “child care” right now, and they will get article after article. These are health care workers and shift workers. They do not have access to child care. Erin Cullen is an engineer out of Newfoundland, and she is going to have to leave her province because she cannot access child care.
This is not about partisanship. These agreements are in place. It is our job in this House to ensure that things are done properly and fairly. Twenty-nine per cent of children are accessing child care, so 70% do not have access. Fifty per cent live in a child care desert. Does the member not think this warrants further investigation? Our amendments put forth in committee were turned down by the Liberals and the New Democrats.
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Madam Speaker, when I referred to partisan games, I was merely referring to the public statements that have been made by the leader of the official opposition on the intent to gum up this place with as many obstructive tactics as possible. If he did not intend for those comments to apply to this debate on Bill C-35, I apologize to the hon. member.
I agree with her. There are many things, as I mentioned in my speech, including legitimate concerns about access and the shortage of qualified early learning and child care educators. I hope we can work together in a non-partisan spirit to ensure that the vision of the legislation is actually implemented. I agree with 90% of what the member said. It needs to be worked on, and it needs to be delivered.
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