Human Resources Committee on March 7th, 2023

[Michelle Lattimore]

Licensed child care matters in provinces and territories. Again, I'll remind the committee that licensing is a matter of provincial and territorial jurisdiction. That is not something the federal government has purview to be involved in.

Licensing ensures the quality of care that children receive in the country. It is the federal government's intention to ensure that we are supporting those spaces that are regulated and provide access to high-quality care.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mr. Long.

Welcome, Ms. Bérubé. You have the floor for six minutes.

[Sylvie Bérubé, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm pleased to be on this committee with my colleagues. I thank the witnesses for being here today.

We can agree that Bill C‑303, which was introduced in 2006 by the NDP, is the forerunner of Bill C‑35, save for a few differences. There is one difference that concerns me in Bill C‑35. There is no indication of the exemption for Quebec.

Do you think it would be good if Bill C‑35 were to include a provision setting out Quebec's full withdrawal from this program, with full compensation and without conditions? This would preclude negotiations, and even disagreements, between the federal and provincial governments every five years.

[Michelle Lattimore]

Thank you for your question.

Again, this is federally focused legislation that imposes no conditions on the Province of Quebec or any other province or territory in Canada.

Quebec remains a signatory of the Canada-wide plan through an asymmetrical agreement. What this legislation does is ensure the federal government will be there for Quebec and all other provinces in the long term, with continued funding to support—in the case of Quebec—continued improvement of its already very successful early learning and child care system.

[Sylvie Bérubé, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Why was clause 4 of Bill C‑303 concerning Quebec's exemption not kept and included in Bill C‑35?

[Michelle Lattimore]

I will note that previous private members' bills that were tabled predate the Canada-wide system—a system that relies in particular on bilateral agreements with provinces and territories for the transfer of funds. What we saw in a number of previous private members' bills were different approaches to use legislation to create conditionality for provinces and territories. These were not bills that were solely federally focused, which is what we're looking at today.

In the case of Quebec, legislation that had a provincial or territorial focus may have required that kind of exemption clause. However, as I explained, we have the opportunity to use bilateral agreements. In the case of Quebec in particular, we have asymmetrical agreements to ensure that Quebec—in recognition of the investments made and the success of its system—is not held to the same reporting requirements as other provinces and territories. There is nothing in particular to exempt Quebec from in this legislation, since there is nothing in the legislation that imposes requirements on Quebec.

[Sylvie Bérubé, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

How does the agreement with Quebec differ from those with the other provinces, territories and indigenous communities, within the multilateral early learning and child care framework?

[Michelle Lattimore]

The Quebec agreement, the asymmetrical agreement, is different in a few important ways. Quebec is not required to provide the federal government with action plans outlining in detail how they will invest funding. Also, there is a recognition with respect to reporting that Quebec reports within the province to its population and is not required to submit audited financial statements or annual reporting in the same way that other provinces and territories in the country are.

[Sylvie Bérubé, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Do you think that, like Bill C‑303, Bill C‑35 should recognize the Government of Quebec's expertise in child care services, unique in North America, as the international community did in 2003?

[Michelle Lattimore]

I won't presume to speak to whether or not that is something that should exist in the legislation. What I will say is that there is certainly recognition in the bilateral agreements with Quebec—and in all of our work with Quebec, frankly, even at the FPT ministers table—that recognizes the value that the province brings to this area with respect to its long history of work in this field.

[Sylvie Bérubé, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

According to the Constitution, education, like family policies, is not a matter of federal jurisdiction.

Do you believe that Bill C‑35 respects the Constitution and the various areas of jurisdiction?

[Michelle Lattimore]

The legislation respects the jurisdiction of all provinces and territories with respect to early learning and child care, as well as the role that indigenous partners and people in government play in making decisions about indigenous early learning and child care and how it applies to their children and families. There is nothing in the proposed legislation that intrudes in any way on provincial or territorial jurisdiction.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

You have 10 seconds left.

[Sylvie Bérubé, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

You spoke earlier about indigenous children. There are several indigenous communities in my riding. One part of Bill C‑35 concerns me. We know that the public data that you have on indigenous children is outdated.

Despite that, can we be sure that Bill C‑35 meets the needs and demands of indigenous communities?

[Cheri Reddin]

There's work outside the legislation to look at indigenous data in this phase.

As you can imagine, the collection of data relating to indigenous children and families is sensitive and requires great care and collaboration. It's for that reason that we have a public commitment to co-develop a first nation, Inuit, and Métis early learning and child care results framework to inform our work in this phase to assess progress and gaps going forward.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Ms. Bérubé.

Next we have Madame Zarrillo for six minutes.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to start by thanking you for being here. I'd like to let you know that families in my riding of Port Moody—Coquitlam will be benefiting greatly from this bill. The second-largest expense after their housing is child care. This will be life-changing for so many people in the most expensive region of the country.

I would like to revisit some information about the federal government having limited influence. I don't think those were the exact words, but the federal government doesn't necessarily have full influence here, because it's provincial-territorial and indigenous government.

I want to talk about the workers and immigration opportunities. StatsCan released data that said that 95% of child care workers are women and that one-third of those workers are immigrants and/or non-permanent residents. There's been a long-standing call from the NDP to regularize workers who are already here in Canada supporting our economy in very important ways.

I'm wondering if the action plans that were spoken of include a workforce strategy and if there are any changes being proposed to immigration law.

[Michelle Lattimore]

Thank you. It's a really great question.

Provinces and territories have at this point been putting forward workforce strategies that attack challenges with respect to recruitment and retention and, importantly, to the recognition of the early childhood educator workforce. It is, as you've said, a highly gendered and racialized workforce, so there are a number of challenges that will need to be addressed as we move forward.

It is a matter of provincial and territorial jurisdiction, but there is work that the federal government can do to help play in that game. The legislation itself, in paragraph 7(1)(d), recognizes the role of the workforce in contributing to high-quality child care. We use the bilateral agreements to negotiate with provinces and territories greater investments in the workforce itself. We've seen other, more dedicated investments in the workforce as well—a $420-million investment that was dedicated in budget 2021 specifically to the workforce itself. There is ongoing work that we can do at the federal level to support this more jurisdictionally focused work.

There are some things that we are thinking about and doing right now. We are working in collaboration with the federal-provincial-territorial forum of ministers most responsible to talk to provinces and territories about how we can help them share best practices and look at regularization, at opportunities that would not necessarily be focused on immigration but would allow for more mobility in the workforce. The National Advisory Council on Early Learning and Child Care has had workforce as their first priority since being established in November 2022, and the national and regional indigenous partnership tables are also seized with how to address workforce challenges in indigenous early learning and child care.

Whether or not at this point the solutions are in immigration or in standardized licensing, I think we are on the cusp right now of doing that work with provinces and territories. This next round of action plan negotiations that we're getting into right now, which cover the last three years of the agreements, give us an opportunity to really dig in deeper in this space, both bilaterally and multilaterally.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you.

I'll just do a shout-out here that this is important. There's been exploitation. It's been undervalued, underpaid, for a really long time. I would like to shine a light on this important work. We need to be regularizing the immigration status for people who are doing this very important work.

I want to go to paragraph 7(1)(d), because you mentioned it—“qualified and well-supported”. Can you just give us the interpretation from your department of “qualified and well-supported”?

[Michelle Lattimore]

“Qualified and well-supported”, to some extent—because, again, we are dealing with provincial and territorial jurisdiction—is, I think, probably interpreted a little bit differently in each province and territory across the country.

From our perspective, the Government of Canada is working with provinces and territories to ensure that early childhood educators are well paid, that their profession is respected within communities, but we can't go as far as to set wage grids or wage scales, because the early childhood education sector is very much within the provincial and territorial jurisdiction.

By enshrining this principle in legislation, we are underscoring a principle that is already included in the bilateral agreements, and then we'll use the bilateral agreements to work with provinces and territories to add more detail about what that really means within each jurisdiction.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

In my last few seconds I'm going to ask Ms. Reddin a question.

You twice mentioned indigenous decision-makers “at the forefront”, and I just wanted to understand.... We know that free, prior and informed consent is a must in this country, so I'm wondering how free, prior and informed consent intersects with this statement made twice today about indigenous decision-makers being at the forefront in co-development.

[Cheri Reddin]

The proposed legislation will contribute to Canada's implementation of UNDRIP, including the UNDRIP commitment to free, prior and informed consent of indigenous peoples on laws, policies or programs that affect their territories.

The Department of Justice currently has a co-development process under way with indigenous governments to give a practical application and an action plan to what free, prior and informed consent will look like for the federal government. We're not trying to get out ahead of that process.

The legislation is intended to be flexible and to keep up to date as the Crown-indigenous relationship evolves, and to catch up to that action plan co-development process.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Madame Zarrillo.

Madame Falk, you have five minutes.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Thank you, Chair.

Budget 2021 made a commitment to introduce early learning child care legislation following consultations with provincial, territorial and indigenous partners, and experts and stakeholders.

When did that consultation take place? Did it inform this legislation as well as the agreements that are now in place with the provinces and territories?

[Michelle Lattimore]

Thank you for the question.

On the engagement on the legislation, we did pretabling engagement. That took place between January and March 2022. This was a discussion guide, so it was a short document that we put together that was shared with provincial and territorial governments, approximately 50 indigenous partners and about 70 early learning and child care national stakeholders in the space.