Human Resources Committee on April 26th, 2007

[Judy Streatch]

In Nova Scotia we have 248 child care spaces that are on reserve. They are not regulated through the provincial government, so we do not interfere with or regulate those.

[Jeanette MacAulay]

P.E.I. is the same. We do not regulate the on-reserve child care centres.

[Gary Merasty, Liberal, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

I'll leave it at that for now.

[Janet Davis]

Madam Chair, I wonder if you could indulge me, in answer to the previous member's question.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Ruby Dhalla]

They're going to get an opportunity in the next round, so at that point, yes.

[Janet Davis]

Okay.

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

Mr. Savage, three minutes left.

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

I'm going let Ms. Davis have some time, but I want to make a statement after Mr. Brown's diatribe. It reminded me a little bit of John Baird and Kyoto. You'd think if Canada passed Kyoto and Bill C-303, it would be terrible, the end of the world, Apocalypse Now, instead of just having a cleaner, healthier country where children were able to reach their potential regardless of income.

It's amazing, some of the language you hear, but amusing; it is amusing.

With the rest of my time, I would like to give Ms. Davis a chance to answer her question. And if there's any time left, I'll donate it to the Bloc Québécois for future considerations.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Ruby Dhalla]

On that note, Ms. Davis, you have about two minutes.

[Janet Davis]

The question was about the various options, and one option was pillaging the provincial treasuries.

I don't think this bill is about pillaging any treasuries. This bill is about accountability. This bill is about ensuring that, for example, the $250 million you are putting into child care will go into child care. The problem right now is that there are no conditions that will ensure the funding you spend will go into the programs and services they were intended to be spent on. It's about making sure that provincial governments who receive the money account for that money, so the public understands, when the federal government transfers money, how the provinces are spending it.

This bill is also about ensuring the money is spent on programs and services that are demonstrated to contribute to the healthy development of young children, not to be spent on roads or other kinds of priorities that provincial governments may decide they want to spend their money on.

Really, it's about accountability. That's what this bill is. It doesn't set out any requirement for spending dollars. It simply ensures that any dollars that are spent by the federal government are transferred to the provinces and are spent on those things they're intended to be spent on.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Ruby Dhalla]

Thank you.

On that note, we'll go to Mr. Chong.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Actually, accountability is a big issue. Each order of government in Canada is actually sovereign to its own area of responsibility. There's a bit of a misconception out there that somehow provinces in their own sphere of responsibility are accountable to the federal government. That is not the case constitutionally. As a matter of fact, it's not the case under the social union framework agreement. As a matter of fact, the social union framework agreement, which was a multi-party agreement signed by the Government of Canada and the various provinces, explicitly states that each order of government is responsible to its respective constituency.

I just want to set that on the record here, because I think it's a very important point to make in terms of fiscal federalism.

Our government acknowledges the need for child care. We acknowledge the need for early childhood learning programs. We also acknowledge the need for federal leadership in certain areas of provincial jurisdiction, whether that be health care, infrastructure, or post-secondary education and training. There may be other areas in which the federal government may decide to take leadership in utilizing the federal spending power. However, child care is not one of them.

I believe in strong federal governments and I believe in strong federal leadership in various areas, but I believe child care is best delivered by the provinces because child care and early childhood learning are really extensions of the public education systems. No federal government and no parliament would think of telling provinces how to run their public education systems; a similar argument can be made for early childhood learning programs.

Quebec has a certain system that's admired by people throughout the country. Ontario has the Early Years Centres. Ontario has the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. A lot of these are provincially driven in collaboration with provincial ministries of education or through the Council of Ministers of Education that meets from time to time.

What our opposition to the bill is really about is that this is a service best delivered by municipal and provincial governments. Maybe Madam Streatch and Mr. Dent could tell us how they are working in collaboration with their provincial ministries of education in terms of early childhood learning strategies and indicate how they see that unfolding in coming years.

[Charles Dent]

Thank you.

I'm minister for education as well, and early learning and child care programs come under that ministry. There is a clear alignment. We have developed clear lines of what we expect to see in the programs. We have a direct role in supervising and in ensuring that operators are meeting the requirements. We have no problem with the four principles of quality, universality, accessibility, and accountability. We ensure that our programs meet those right now.

To me, Ms. Davis's comments strengthen the need for an approach that isn't unilateral across Canada, because right now we have that system in place. We report annually and very publicly on how we're spending our money. We send that report across Canada, in fact, so that others can find out how we spend money in early learning and child care, and we are spending way more of our money than we are of federal money.

What scares us about this bill is whether we will be able to continue getting that little portion of the federal money that we're getting right now. This isn't a situation in which our government is pocketing a bunch of money; we want to know that we're going to continue to get the little bit of support we're getting right now, and hopefully in the future build that into something more meaningful.

[Judy Streatch]

Thank you very much for the question.

I want to state that I very much appreciate the commitment to respect our provincial jurisdiction, in the same way that we respect the federal jurisdiction and welcome the federal leadership on a variety of issues.

I want to also state that each province, and I'm here as a provincial minister, is accountable to its constituents. I'm accountable to my constituents and I'm accountable to Nova Scotians. That's where the accountability lies. The cooperative nature and the consultations that we have with the federal government are welcomed. We've enjoyed them in the past, and I know we will enjoy them in the future, but accountability rests within the parameters of our own province. I have to say that I take issue...and I resent the implication that the Nova Scotia government would misspend any dollars that came to Nova Scotia specifically intended for early learning and child care. I want to state that for the record.

The question about collaboration with education is one that I very much appreciate. As an educator I take special interest in the collaboration we have between our early learning child care and education. We have lots of good things to come when it comes to combining those two departments.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Ruby Dhalla]

Thank you very much.

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

Are we out of time?

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Ruby Dhalla]

We're scheduled to be finished at 12 o'clock, but I've had a few of our colleagues approach me to see if we can have another round of very quick questioning. I don't know what the timetable is like of our witnesses.

[Judy Streatch]

I have a flight to catch. I'm sorry. I appreciate it, but I can't stay. Thanks.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Ruby Dhalla]

Mr. Lessard, you had one quick question.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Madam Chair, I would like to take advantage of the presence here of Madam Streatch. I also wish that your colleague who has just left were still here.

I would like to come back to the issue that was brought up by our conservative friends, with regard to the ability to pay and to the fact that this falls under provincial jurisdiction . The Social Union Framework Agreement, or SUFA, that was signed in 1999, goes in the opposite direction of what you were saying, Mr. Chong. On the basis of this agreement, there must be a federal contribution in the form of financial support, and this support presently comes in the form of tax deductions for families.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Ruby Dhalla]

Just one second.

I want to say thank you to the minister for coming down from Nova Scotia. We really appreciate it. Thank you.

Sorry, Mr. Lessard, go ahead.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Our friends that we have invited here this morning could perhaps tell us if we have understood correctly. It is a question of financial means; each province, as well as Toronto, obviously, has the will to develop child care centres under the initiatives that have been taken.

However, the conservatives are now saying that it is a matter of societal choices and, as Mr. Chong stated, the development of child care centres is not their choice. Their choice is the development of military equipment. They want a debate on child care funding, whereas there was no such debate last year with regard to the 17.5 billion dollars for military equipment. This is a decision that was made outside of Parliament. It was submitted to no committee and those people did not say a single word with a view to understanding what had taken place. Today, now that we are talking about children, they are trying to place the burden on those who wish to develop these programs. This is shameful! This is quite worrisome as a societal choice.

This must be stated here because this is part of the debate that we are having. Since this morning, the message being relayed is that it is virtually embarrassing to want to develop child care centres, because we do not have the money for it, whereas we have tens of billions of dollars for arms. This is rather worrisome for society.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Ruby Dhalla]

Thank you, Mr. Lessard.

Maximum two minutes, and then we're going to be calling the meeting to an end.

Mr. Lake.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

I have a couple of comments.

First of all, to Mr. Lessard, this is not really a question, but I am intrigued to know why he wouldn't consider it to be fair that Quebec would be under the same rules as other provinces in this legislation. That would be the one comment I would make there.

As for Ms. Davis's comment about the Ontario election, I hope you're not holding your breath for that Ontario election to come and that promise to be fulfilled, because if you talk to any parents in Ontario who have kids with autism—