Human Resources Committee on April 24th, 2007

[Denise Savoie, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Thank you for the question.

It is my understanding, from speaking to the former deputy minister in British Columbia, that these framework agreements had just been finalized. I believe that was in 2005, at the time of the last election, so I don't think there has been any real accountability, because shortly after that the election occurred, and based on the Conservative promise to eliminate the existing program, I think provinces were left somewhat in disarray. So it has been very difficult to obtain that information, if it's at all possible.

In fact, that is the problem. There is no accountability at the moment, and that is why parents are scrambling. That is why even with the access to information that we have, it's been very difficult to get any clear understanding from any of the provinces I've spoken to.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

The recent report that came from the advisory committee that was set up by the federal government said that the child care workers' salaries are low and there is a high turnover rate and high burnout, because it's just very difficult, especially outside of Quebec, and as a result of the turnover it's very difficult to establish a really good, firm foundation for our children's early learning and child care.

Do you find that to be a problem also in British Columbia, for example? Is the child care worker's salary a concern?

[Denise Savoie, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Absolutely. And not only has the issue of salary been a question, but people leaving jobs in child care because they can earn much better wages in other sectors, even call centres. So that's been a real problem.

There has been an additional problem. I'll speak from my province, where the cuts that we've just seen in the last year by the Conservative government have been passed on by the province to child care centres. So it has not only affected the morale and the atmosphere in the workplace, but it has increased the cost for child care that parents have to pay. A parent, just last weekend, told me that their fees are going up from $925 in our province per month to $1,025, so that's exactly the $100 that was given. That's because the province has passed on the cut in subsidies. As a result, child care provider salaries are abysmal, and costs for child care without the subsidies have increased significantly. That is just like a complete other rent payment per month.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much, Ms. Chow and Madame Savoie.

We're now going to move to the last questioner of the first round. We'll turn to Ms. Yelich. You have five minutes.

[Lynne Yelich, Conservative, Blackstrap, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chong will be asking questions. I just want at the outset to mention that this government does support child care, and we've shown it by tripling the resources that are budgeted for child care—$5.6 billion per year.

We do not support a bill that does not provide the choice in child care but instead provides a one-size-fits-all model that will not address the child care needs of our diverse family of Canadians.

We do not support a bill whose only clear purpose is to hold the parents to ransom with threats of taking funding for child care away from the provinces, because if the provinces don't meet the federal standards, the bill blocks it.

[Denise Savoie, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Chairman, I can't hear very well.

[Lynne Yelich, Conservative, Blackstrap, SK]

I just want to get on record that this government believes in a balanced approach that provides choice in child care to Canadian families. We understand that not all parents have the same child care needs. That's why we're investing in children and providing choice in child care to Canadian families.

I will defer to Mr. Chong.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Lynne, for that.

I think you have the best of intentions here, Madame Savoie, and I commend you for the effort you've put into this bill. But I think it is misguided. I'll make a few comments and I'd like you to respond.

We believe in federal leadership in certain provincial areas of jurisdiction—health care through the Canada Health Act and the Canada Health Transfer; post-secondary education and training, another area of provincial jurisdiction, through such federal programs as Canada research chairs and investments into universities and colleges and the like; federal investments and leadership on national infrastructure programs. And there may be other areas where the federal government will use its constitutional spending power to affect national priorities in provincial areas of jurisdiction.

However, we also, as a government, believe in the need for child care. We understand that Canadian working families need access to child care, but we also believe that provinces are best positioned to deliver this child care and early childhood learning. In some ways, early childhood learning is really an extension of the public education system, and no federal government of any stripe would dare to tell a province or suggest telling a province what they should do in their public education systems. Similarly, we believe that child care is best delivered by the provinces.

What works in rural Saskatchewan, what works in rural Manitoba, may not work in downtown Toronto or downtown Vancouver, or in Quebec. Every province has a different approach. Quebec has a $7-a-day program; Ontario has the Early Years Centres; every province has a different approach.

We acknowledge the need for child care, and that's why the government has invested a lot of new money into the transfers to provinces. We're investing a record $39 billion over the next seven years or so to enhance the transfers to the provinces, so that they have the resources to deliver the programs they have responsibility for.

The provinces are running surpluses now. The aggregate surpluses of the provinces equal if not exceed that of the federal government, so they have the fiscal capacity to do these things.

If you look at what was done previously, under the previous Liberal government, and at what we're doing now, I think the contrast is stark. The previous plan was $1 billion a year. What are we doing? We are providing, through the universal child care benefit, $2.5 billion a year directly to parents, and on top of that, $39 billion over the next seven years to enhance transfers to the provinces, so that they can deliver the services they're responsible for. I think we've done a lot to assist provinces in the delivery of this responsibility that they have.

The final point, which I'll conclude on, is that the reason I believe this bill is misguided is that the provinces won't agree to it. In the previous Liberal arrangement, there was a two-step process. There was an agreement in principle, which all the provinces signed on to. Because it had no conditions, all ten signed on, but when it got to the second stage of actually getting to the shared cost arrangements, many provinces refused to sign. When we took power, we found out that, as a matter of fact, a number of provinces had refused to sign on to these shared cost arrangements.

Presently, concerning this existing bill, Nova Scotia, P.E.I., and the Northwest Territories have expressed opposition. The bill already admits failure, because in clause 4 it actually exempts Quebec from the provisions of the bill. I think that, combined with the cost—Quebec's system costs well over $1 billion a year, with a quarter of the population of the country, and that's at a 50% inclusion rate.... If you extrapolate that to the rest of the country, you are looking at something that could cost upwards of $5 billion and has all these cross-jurisdictional difficulties.

I think there are a lot of problems with this bill.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Mr. Chong. That's all your time.

We're going to move to Mr. Savage.

In order to get as many people in as we can, I'm going to—

[Denise Savoie, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Do I get a chance to respond?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Was there a question there, Mr. Chong?

[Denise Savoie, NDP, Victoria, BC]

There were many questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

We'll let you catch.... He's out of time, so we're going to move to the next round.

I'm going to ask that for this round we go to three minutes. We are going to be over time, but we have to keep pushing through.

So Mr. Savage, you have three minutes, sir.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Madame Savoie, one of the many things about the early learning and child care agreements that people in Nova Scotia liked, specifically parents of children who were in special circumstances and with special needs in Nova Scotia, and francophone children—la Fédération acadienne de la Nouvelle-Écosse were very excited.... It's not an issue of having $100 a month; it's an issue of having spaces. Some of the money that was dedicated in Nova Scotia was going to create spaces for children who are, let's say, under-serviced from an early child care point of view.

I wonder whether you could address how this bill might assist in that area, if it does at all.

[Denise Savoie, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Thank you.

According to the bill, to qualify for the federal funding provinces must also ensure that child care services are accessible, as I said earlier, to all children, including those with special needs. So I think it would address the issue you're raising, Mr. Savage.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

I want to ask you a question about the not-for-profit. Like many parents, we have had our children in both not-for-profit child care and for-profit child care—and for-meagre-profit child care. It seems to me that the end result needs to be that these principles are in place, whether in private day care or a not-for-profit.

I understand, to some extent, the reason we have to invest in the not-for-profit. But what do you say to a really well run, highly qualified teaching environment, serious—and there are a lot of them—private child care facilities that really match all the qualifications you're looking for but happen to be privately owned?

[Denise Savoie, NDP, Victoria, BC]

That's a fair question.

As a parent of three children, I have also had my kids in a variety of child care facilities at different times, so I'm aware that there are some that are of a very high quality. That's one of the reasons we grandfathered the existing ones.

I guess there would be two answers to that. The first one is, it's questionable whether public money should go into for-profit businesses. It seems to me to be a kind of unfair subsidy. That's the first answer.

The other is that it was an attempt to prevent public money from going to for-profit businesses where, for example, there would be shareholders—the large, corporate kind of child care that's occurred in some jurisdictions where there's been a policy gap or the absence of criteria such as these. That would be the main concern.

But the existing ones, the high-quality ones that you mentioned, have been grandfathered in.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Mr. Savage. That's all the time we have.

We may be able to sneak in one more quick round.

We're going to have Madame Barbot, for three minutes, please.

[Vivian Barbot, Bloc, Papineau, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Ms. Savoie.

I applaud the tabling of this bill which points out, exceptionally, that Quebec is doing something good within Confederation. I think this is truly worth noting. The process of setting up a daycare system in Quebec took 30 years. It didn't happen overnight. As you said, it addresses a need, particularly for women. We don't want just any kind of daycare system. We want an excellent one that reflects the fact that we invest collectively in our children. In my estimation, we need to acknowledge this fact.

People say that parents should have a choice, but in order to have a choice, they need to have some options. That's not the case right now in Canada because no public daycare system is in place. We can't give parents a choice by depriving them of the right to choose a daycare that meets their needs. By doing that, we deprive everyone of a choice. The funding issue is, in my opinion, a red herring. People question whether parents should receive money to take care of their children. That's a valid question, but it's not the issue here. We shouldn't mix apples and oranges. What we want is child care services. That's the real issue here.

The proposed daycare system would address a real need, a need that will continue to grow. The question we must ask ourselves is this: do we want to give our children the very best opportunities to prepare them for school. Above all, low-income families must have equal access to child care services.

I am, however, concerned about one thing. You mentioned accountability. Since Quebec will be fully entitled to opt out of this system, I'm wondering if it might be required to meet certain standards and to account for its use of any money allocated in future for its day care program.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

You have 35 seconds, okay?

[Denise Savoie, NDP, Victoria, BC]

No.

[Vivian Barbot, Bloc, Papineau, QC]

So it's clear then.

That being the case, we fully support the bill's objectives. It's truly important that all children have access to this system. As for funding or daycare programs, you've seen for yourself that parents can be actively involved in the system and can influence the type of programs offered.

[Denise Savoie, NDP, Victoria, BC]

We do indeed need to set goals and identify common actions. That's precisely what this bill purports to do. However, as you said, we're not going to accomplish everything overnight. It will be more of a gradual progress.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Madame Barbot.

We're going to now move to Ms. Chow for three minutes, please.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

There have been studies that said non-profit-based child care and the home-based ones that are run by regulated home care are of higher quality than the for-profit counterparts. That has been the experience, if you look at various studies. One study, for example, rated 325 child care centres across the country and found that non-profit centres offer better quality care than for-profit centres.

Is that one of the reasons—because of the quality of the services delivered to children—why the bill talks about non-profit organizations?