44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 14, 2023 02:00PM
- Jun/14/23 9:35:30 p.m.
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I want to remind the member that she had an opportunity to ask a question. I am not sure if she was thinking out loud or if she was heckling the member, but I would say, if she is thinking out loud, she may want to jot things down for the next question and comment period.
The hon. member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford.
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Madam Speaker, it is nice that the member for Winnipeg North mentioned a variety of programs, including dental care.
Did anyone know that in two days it is going to be the two-year anniversary of when the Liberal Party voted against Jack Harris's Motion No. 62, which was first seeking to bring in dental care? I am glad that as New Democrats we have forced Liberals to see the value in such programs, and I am similarly glad that, through our confidence and supply agreement, a bill such as Bill C-35 is a part of that agreement. I would agree with the member that we are delivering programs that are going to be hugely important for Canadians.
I would like to know from the hon. member, when it comes to a bill such as Bill C-35, could he talk about why it is so important to put in a legislative commitment so that we do not suffer from any possible future policy lurch? This bill would really guarantee that the funding would be there for future families and their needs.
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Madam Speaker, I will provide a quick comment on the dental issue. I appreciate all the types of support and encouragement, whether it is received from New Democrats or many of my colleagues. I know I, for one, have been a very strong advocate for the pharmacare program. There is still work for us to focus attention on, such as dental and pharmacare. Let us not just sit back because we have already accomplished a great deal. We have many more things we would like to explore and work on, to see if we can improve them in some ways, as much as possible, and this is whether it is New Democrats or Liberals.
I have a friend who says that a New Democrat is a Liberal in a hurry. I would suggest that it is good if we can work together for the betterment of Canadians. I am game to do that, and I will try to answer the member's question in the next question.
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Madam Speaker, at the beginning, the member took us back in time when he talked about Ken Dryden and the work he did to create universal child care back then. When he was doing that, I worked for a little organization called the YMCA, and we had a huge child care program under our watch. I was very excited about that potential and really disappointed to see it collapse under the Conservatives.
I am wondering if the hon. member could maybe contemplate what it would have been like today if we had been able to get that universal child care in place.
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Madam Speaker, let me attempt to answer both questions with the same answer.
The member is right that Ken Dryden had a wonderful program. It was universal and all the provinces and territories were on side. That is why I say to please not trust the Conservatives on this because the first thing Stephen Harper did was he got rid of the program. It is unfortunate we were in a minority government at that time, but I will not comment on what happened with the NDP or the Bloc.
At the end of the day, this legislation would prevent a potential Conservative government 15 years from now from being able to decide in cabinet, without a thorough debate, to get rid of a fantastic program. Had it been put in place back when Ken Dryden brought it forward, we would be so much further ahead. One only needs to look at the province of Quebec and the impact it has had on its workforce. In particular, there are more women engaged, as a percentage, in the workforce.
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Madam Speaker, the YMCA was brought up. I have a letter here from Christine Pasmore, a day care provider, who talks about two YMCA after-school care locations that will be closing because of this bill. I thought I would tie that in.
The hon. member brought up trust. Tonight we have breaking news that the Prime Minister's Office also knew about Paul Bernardo's transfer three months ago and did not tell the families.
Housing prices have doubled. We have a cost of living crisis, and public safety is eroding rapidly, so how could we trust the Liberals with our children and child care?
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Madam Speaker, it is because, when it comes to child care, there is only one party that has been in government that has demonstrated a genuine interest and is taking the initiative to put child care in place. There is also only one political party in this chamber that tore apart a national child care program.
When the member talks about trust, I would suggest no one can trust the Conservative Party. If anything, Stephen Harper is more of a centrist compared to the current leader of the Conservative Party because the current leader of the Conservative Party is so far right wing that everything could potentially be on the table. No doubt, it has to be the genesis as to why this legislation is so important and why I am hoping members of the Conservative Party will talk about it glowingly on Facebook. After all, they say they are going to be voting in favour of it.
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Madam Speaker, I am very strongly in favour of Bill C-35, but I think we had better not ignore the concerns that we are “Not Done Yet”. That is the title of a report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, co-authored by economist David Macdonald and Canada's leading champion for early childhood education Martha Friendly.
We have child care deserts in this country. We have areas where children are not yet in kindergarten and parents have no hope of getting their child into a child care space because there is only 20% coverage for children in those communities. The worst in Canada is Saskatoon, then Kitchener, then Regina, then Vancouver. There is 24% space availability for the 100% of children who need a place.
Is the government open to reading this report, accepting its recommendations and working hard to provide the incentives and decent wages for early childhood educators to create the spaces for the children whose parents are going to benefit from $10-a-day child care?
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate that the Green Party is supporting the legislation, which is a good thing, but the leader of the Green Party needs to recognize that there is jurisdictional responsibility. We have a national government that says it wants to ensure there is a child care program that is affordable and accessible across Canada, from coast to coast to coast, but we need to work with the provinces. The provinces, in many ways, are the ones who have to play the lead at the level the member is referencing.
We can all individually encourage our respective provincial governments to go even further in supporting the children of our country.
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Madam Speaker, I just want to note I will be splitting my time this evening with the member for Elgin—Middlesex—London.
We know, and there is no doubt, that child care is an important conversation to be had. We know it is a conversation that parents are also having on a regular basis across this country. Child care needs can look different, not just from one region to another, but also from family to family.
Public policy and the development of a national program should respect and take into consideration those differences. It has been very disappointing that, throughout the deliberations of this bill, whether in the chamber or in committee, the approach of the NDP-Liberal coalition has been narrow and exclusionary. The Liberal government has sought to divide and disparage child care solutions outside of their own prescribed form. This is even more disappointing given many reports would suggest in some regions, such as Saskatchewan, most families do not have access to child care.
The demand for child care remains far greater than the available spaces. Child care providers, in all streams right across the country, have long wait-lists. Access remains a main concern when it comes to child care, but it is not solved by the existing agreements, nor is it resolved in Bill C-35.
We have heard accusations from members opposite that Conservatives have tried to obstruct this legislation. In reality, Conservatives have been working to elevate the voices of parents who are raising serious concerns with the government's child care program.
We have articulated those concerns from child care providers. It is completely disingenuous to suggest that this, in any way, is hindering the delivery of the Liberals' program. The facts are that the child care agreements are already signed with the provinces, and the National Advisory Council on Early Learning and Child Care is already formed.
If anything, this should be an opportune time to examine the delivery of the program so that we can understand its shortcomings and take stock of its limitations and its potential reach. However, that was never the goal for the Liberal government. It put forward this legislation to pat itself on the back.
However, the bill, like many of the policies put forward by the Liberal-NDP government, creates winners and losers. The Liberals' self praise is an insult. It is an insult to the moms and the dads who are left out. They are left out in the cold and find themselves on the outside looking in with no spaces for their children in child care facilities.
Let me highlight some of the testimony and voices the government seems very eager to ignore. This includes voices of child care providers who find themselves excluded from the program and the Liberal government's vision for child care in Canada.
Amélie Lainé, representing indigenous friendship centres in Quebec, told the HUMA committee, “funding is only administered through indigenous political institutions, and it does not give service organizations like the indigenous friendship centres in Canada access to funds to develop early childhood and family services.”
Krystal Churcher from the Association of Alberta Childcare Entrepreneurs told the committee, “Bill C-35 does not sufficiently recognize that Canada's current child care system still very much depends upon thousands of private operators despite directional preference for the non-profit business model.”
With wait-lists surging across the country, it is only logical that we use every tool at our disposal to meet the needs across this country from coast to coast to coast, and that we not purposely shut out child care providers who are providing quality care currently. In fact, in the study of this bill, the HUMA committee heard about how the exclusionary structure of the program could actually be to the detriment of the quality of care. We heard about a parent who felt that she now had to choose between the quality of care for her daughter and more affordable costs. It is a decision that she was faced with because her preferred care provider falls outside of the current agreements and would not be captured by the vision laid out in this bill.
The rollout of this program has not even provided much of a choice for many families and more often even less of a choice for lower-income families. We heard in committee that more often lower-income families that cannot afford child care costs are wait-listed because they do not have children enrolled. Excluding child care providers is in the exact opposite spirit of achieving accessible, affordable, inclusive and high-quality child care for all children.
To really tackle child care in Canada, our approach should be comprehensive. The passage of my private member's bill, Bill C-318, would support that goal. Allowing adoptive and intended parents equal access to EI leave to care for their new child would give those parents more time to bond with their child and more time to find a child care solution. It could also help to alleviate some pressure on the child care system. I would hope that, if not the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion, the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development would herself see the merits of her government's keeping its promise to these parents and offering the royal recommendation that is needed for Bill C-318.
It is also clear that any hopes of making real progress toward accessible, affordable, inclusive and high-quality child care for all will require a labour force strategy. There is a clear crisis in the childhood educator workforce. There needs to be a plan to recruit and retain labour. The success of a national child care program will depend on this. We cannot flick a switch to create more spaces if there is not a workforce to handle it.
That is why it is particularly frustrating that the NDP-Liberal coalition rejected amendments put forward by Conservatives in committee to address these particular shortcomings. They rejected an amendment that would have explicitly directed the national advisory council to support the recruitment but also the retention of a well-qualified workforce. It would have given the council the mandate to track availability, wait-lists and the progress made in improving access, which is one of the pillars of this bill. It is not clear why the NDP-Liberal coalition would oppose this being a core function of the council. Similarly, the NDP-Liberal coalition rejected an amendment that would have explicitly required the minister to report annually on a national labour strategy.
The rejection of these amendments tells parents and those in the child care sector that the Liberals are not taking this workforce crisis seriously. It certainly does not give them confidence that the recruitment, education and retention of early childhood educators are a priority for them. Just as the recommitment to their exclusionary vision for child care does not give parents on wait-lists hope that universal access is within reach, the rejection of these amendments to include all types of child care providers in the program and to have a more fulsome representation at the table ensures that there will continue to be winners and losers. The reality is that there will be parents who receive no support and there will be qualified and quality child care providers who will continue to be vilified because of their business model by the NDP-Liberal government.
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Madam Speaker, if someone were to come into this House, sit in the gallery and listen to the speeches on this debate, they would leave with no conclusion other than the fact that Conservatives are against this bill. However, when it comes time to vote for it, they will vote in favour of it, all of them. I personally think that is because they have done the political calculation on it and know there is absolutely no way they can afford to vote against it because it would be so detrimental to them politically.
Can the member explain to the House why Conservative after Conservative gets up to speak, including the member, to talk negatively about the bill but then they will ultimately vote in favour of it?
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleagues for respecting me on this side.
This whole process has been very frustrating for me. I am the mother of four children. I have a 10-year-old, a seven-year-old, a three-year-old and a one-year-old. I have had two of those children while elected to office. I know the real struggles of trying to find child care. My husband and I have really had to balance, and we know that it literally takes a village.
It is so frustrating to me that when we have parents and child care providers coming to committee explaining and pouring their heart out about the real struggles that parents are dealing with, we have partisan games.
Mr. Mark Gerretsen: Then vote against it.
Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Madam Speaker, honestly, we should just listen to the parents whom this model does not work for. It does not work for them, and it is unfortunate that the Liberals just want to play partisan games instead of actually making it inclusive for everyone.
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- Jun/14/23 9:56:10 p.m.
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I do not know if the parliamentary secretary was thinking out loud, but he had the opportunity to ask a question. I do not think he wanted to heckle, but if he did, he knows that he should not be doing that.
Questions and comments, the hon. member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford.
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Madam Speaker, I respect everyone's views in this place. We all bring stories. I am the father of three daughters. My eldest twins were born in 2012, before I was elected, so my wife and I are also familiar with the struggles of raising children and trying to find care.
The situation the member described is one that has existed for many of my constituents before we had child care agreements, before Bill C-35 even came into being. I do not see how those particular issues could not be helped by the bill. It is trying to enshrine a payment system, a funding system, that is trying to address the very issues that she raised as concerns in her speech and that are affecting constituents right across this country.
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Madam Speaker, there is a five-year limit with the agreements, so this is not forever. That is one thing to make note of.
Bill C-35 does not create new spaces. Sure, there are parents who already have their kids in a child care centre or use whatever model is accepted by their province and works for them. However, if they are not already in there, too bad, so sad; they are still on a wait-list.
The Conservatives moved a motion at committee to recognize labour, as we need a labour strategy. The NDP voted against it, so I would ask the member why his party voted against the labour force strategy for child care educators.
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Madam Speaker, I really admire my colleague from Lloydminster, who sits beside me. I am a father of four. We brought in the universal child care benefit back in the Harper days.
I was listening across the way to the disinformation that we do not care about child care on this side. We absolutely do. We ran on it.
It was obvious from the member's speech that the Conservatives care about child care, but I think for the audience watching out there, can my colleague from Saskatchewan explain why the Conservatives do care about child care?
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Madam Speaker, it is funny that the member asked me that question. I got involved in politics because the current Prime Minister's 2015 platform negatively harmed my family in how we wanted to raise our children.
Absolutely the Conservatives care about families. We care about children and we care about parental choice.
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Madam Speaker, it is wonderful to have the opportunity to once again speak to this bill.
I think I can sum it up with a question I was asked following the last time we spoke about this bill, at report stage. It was a question that came from a Liberal member. His question was very simple. He asked, “Why do Conservatives hate child care so much?” I was dumbfounded, because I really thought perhaps he missed my speech, although he was sitting in the chamber for it. I thought, “Oh my gosh, somehow there is an entire void here.”
I want to continue with all of the great work that my colleague from Battlefords—Lloydminster talked about, because she is on the front lines of this, not only being a member of the HUMA committee, but also being a mother, just like so many other individuals here who have young children and who need care for their children.
Yesterday I was reading the Oxfam report, which looks at care in Canada. I wanted to look at both unpaid care and paid care. One of the biggest things it talked about was that, yes, we have this new child care program and all of the benefits, but the problem is that at the end of the day, we are losing people in this sector. I remember this is exactly what the member for Peterborough—Kawartha talked about. The fact is that we cannot retain people in this sector for a good length of time.
I talked about seeing $22 an hour in Langley, B.C., just five years ago. That is not keeping people in this sector. Let us be honest. The cost of living is making it so that the people who have chosen to do these jobs, which at one time may have seemed lower income, are not being respected for their great work, and now they cannot afford to do something that they are passionate about and love to do.
What I want to do today is read some articles into the record, because the member for Peterborough—Kawartha said that every single day, we are seeing a brand new article on this from the media. What I did when I was thinking about this speech is I popped “child care in Canada” into a search, and it populated all of these stories. It does not matter what part of the country we are from, whether it is Nunavut, for which I will have a media mention, or other parts of the country. They are all talking about the same things: child care spots and labour. Sometimes the labour issues create the spot issues and vice versa.
When the government came forward with the bill, I recall the minister saying that they wanted to enshrine this in legislation because of the Conservatives. We know it was all about political intentions; it really was not to do with children. It is because of those political intentions that they wanted to enshrine it into law, but they did not take the time to do the work.
A lot of the time when we are playing political games, we do not look at the consequences of our mistakes, so when we try to move amendments in committee, we are too busy trying to play partisan games. Then simple things like a labour force strategy are denied because of the individual who has put it forward. It is really common in the House that if we do not like the individual who sponsors something, we are not going to support it. That is what we see in the House of Commons.
As I indicated, I have a number of articles that I would like to read, because this is exactly what we talked about. These articles were not written by Conservatives. They were written by journalists, people who are going around and reporting on what is happening in Canada. Looking at where some of the articles are coming from, these are not Conservative journalists but people who are looking on the ground and addressing these issues.
The first article I want to bring forward was published on May 8 and written by Natasha O'Neill, a writer with CTV. I will read it into the record:
A new report details a lack of child-care spaces is at a crisis level in Canada and why it has worsened.
The report, published in April 2023 by the non-profit Childcare Resources and Research Unit, shows just one spot in a child-care setting was available for 29 per cent of children who need it.
Holy schnikes, that is just horrific. That is one spot for 29% of children.
“I think one of the things that's driving the shortage of licensed spaces is that child care has been in the news a lot.” Morna Ballantyne, who is an advocate, said that. Anyone who has been working on this can talk to her. She has talked about the fact that, yes, there is a huge demand, but what we see is that the demand is not keeping up with what the government has put in place.
Why are the Conservatives supporting this bill? As we said, we are supporting it because it is about child care. However, we have seen this being used as a political wedge each and every time.
That is why all I have ever heard is that Conservatives are voting against this. I am not voting against children. I am voting for families. I am voting for women so that they can go to work, members of the families can go to work and men can go to work. Everybody in that family unit can ensure that their child has a place. Many times, I speak as a women's advocate. I think it is because, at 8:59 a.m., when a person is trying to get off the road to go into work and their child is sick and they need to find that last minute child care, because they are trying to balance getting to work and having that job and keeping their children safe and cared for, who are they going to call? I say thanks to my mom, by the way, for all those times. She is always available for those 8:59 phone call moments.
As I indicated, Ballantyne had said that the crisis is not new. She said, “Particularly getting access to licensed child care [is a problem].... Governments for decades now have essentially relied on individuals, organizations, whether they be for profit or not for profit, to set up child-care centres.”
That is the reality of it. I think we have to ask why they do that. That is because we are in Canada. We cannot look at this incredible nation we have from coast to coast and not look at the diversity, the diversity of communities and population.
I spoke to my friend from Saskatoon. To get from one edge of his riding to the other is 20 minutes. I can say that, for some people who are in Toronto, that might be five minutes, maybe walking, definitely not by car. That would be 20.
In some of our ridings, it is eight hours from door to door, to get from one end to the other. To put that into perspective, we can think about what that looks like when it comes to populations in child care and how one can find something that is going to be successful.
That is why families, businesses and many women have come up with business plans and business models, so that they can support their community. It does not have to look like this or that, but they are filling in that gap. That is why we are cautiously supporting this. We know that there are still gaps, and these gaps have to be filled by other things.
I want to turn to another piece, because I found this one to be really interesting. This was written by Mike Crawley on CBC. It was posted on March 14, 2023, and it gives the following subheading: “Average ECE leaves sector after 3 years [indicates the] regulator”. According to this article: “Becoming a registered ECE,” which is an early childhood educator, “requires at least two years of post-secondary education, with training in child development. However, compensation has lagged behind that of other sectors that also require a post-secondary diploma because the work of child care is not valued, according to advocates. ‘We are not babysitters,’ said Maxine Chodorowicz, a registered ECE and supervisor of child care at the West End YMCA in Toronto.”
I worked on a child care board back in the nineties and early 2000s. I think this goes back to the fact that, at one time, we saw people who were ECEs making rates that, at $15 and $16, although low, could still pay the bills. Now, we are talking about the costs of mortgages, interest rates and everything else, as well as the cost of living and carbon tax. When we add all these things together, that $16 an hour may have been okay at one time; now, it is so far from it. That $22 an hour in Langley, B.C., does not cut it anymore.
After eight years under the government, life has gotten so unfriendly to Canadian families, because the cost of living just continues to explode. It does not matter if we are buying something at the grocery store or anything that we touch. There has been a huge increase in cost because of the Liberal government and its horrific policies, which continue to affect Canadians.
I want to say one last thing; this was also something that I found in the newspaper. It is a headline that says, “Ontario could be short 8,500 ECEs [by 2026]”.
We have a problem here. If we do not have a labour strategy, if we are not going to figure out how we are going to do this together, we are not going to impact the children's lives that the government is trying to impact. We are not going to make it easier for families.
I want to say we can do better. Let us start listening and working together.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague from across the way and I always have very meaningful conversations when it comes to women's issues, families and children. I always value what she has to add to the discussion, including tonight. However, let us be realistic. The demand for child care spaces existed far before. It was already there. Frankly, tax credits do not build spaces, and they do not build a workforce. The former Conservative government ripped up agreements. That happened previously under the Stephen Harper government from when Minister Dryden did them.
We have to build the system. This legislation is about enshrining those values to make sure that there are federal dollars and a federal commitment to continuing to build that system. Does she not value that?
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Madam Speaker, first of all, I would like to say happy 20th birthday to my son, Christian Vecchio. He is out there today. The reason I say this is that his older brother is probably still on that wait-list I put him on in 1994.
That is the concern that we have here. During previous Liberal governments under Chrétien and under Martin, all these different things were promised continually, time and time again. Dakota never got into that child care, and now he is 29 years old. It just continued to exist.
The government has been here for multiple years, eight years, and it is getting worse.
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