Status of Women Committee on May 5th, 2014

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

The time is passing quickly, isn't it? Thank you very much, Ms. Crockatt.

Ms. Duncan, you have five minutes.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Ms. Thompson, you talked about raising your children and how child care helped. In my own riding one of the challenges is that when the parents go off to work, there's no one to feed the children. The other challenge, which comes back to Ms. Cattari, is the choice between a $5 litre of orange juice or a $2 double litre of orange pop, and the choice is clear when you're trying to stretch that dollar.

What could we do better to make sure that children have safe, adequate, and nutritious food?

[Laura Cattari]

Provincially, we started a push for student nutrition programs through schools and through day cares, and after-school programs that do provide nutrition. That is the first step.

It not only provides nutritious food but it does it in a way that allows dignity, so that students are not pointed out for their lack of prosperity. It is very important to not stigmatize children at an early age into believing that they are different somehow. It helps with success later on and it also helps their educational efforts to be well fed. That has been proven time and time again.

If there were a strategy that came from the federal level, making sure that it was available across Canada, that would be fantastic with regard to food.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

I'd like to pick up on that, if I could. About 169 other countries feed their children. The U.S. has had a national breakfast or lunch program since the 1940s. Canada doesn't. It is unconscionable that any child goes to school hungry. It impacts behaviour. It impacts education. It impacts health. It impacts health in the long-term.

What do you think, you and Ms. Thompson, about the need for a national breakfast or lunch program in this country to go with a national child care program? If we want to ensure we have healthy adults going forward, we have to do both. I'd like your thoughts.

[Brenda Thompson]

That's an excellent idea. Food security is a big topic across Canada. Too many of the breakfast programs that do exist right now are community-funded. It's organizations fighting for the same $5.

They all need to be funded. I absolutely agree that we need a national breakfast program, not just in the schools but also in day cares. I believe it could even extend into the home through programs because a lot of people are home schooling their kids as well.

The United Nations has even said that Canada needs a food security program—

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

In 1992....

[Brenda Thompson]

In 1992, and here we are in 2014 and nothing has been done about it.

I particularly would like to see that. As a former researcher on a food security program in Nova Scotia, I would like to see that nationally as well. Let's start with the kids, and let's take it out to a broader base.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Do we want both a national child care program and a national breakfast program as recommendations in this report?

[Brenda Thompson]

Yes, absolutely, that's an excellent recommendation.

I would like to add that when my children, both of my daughters, were in subsidized child care, they both did get healthy breakfasts and lunches, which I counted on as a low-income, single mother.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

I'd like to add that, in fact, we do have immunization programs. They are done through the schools because that's where children gather. It's the same thing for food.

[Brenda Thompson]

Yes.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Thank you. I have no more questions.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Ms. Young—and it is Ms. Young this time—you have the floor for five minutes.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

I'm so sorry I only have five minutes because this is such an important and great subject matter. I want to thank each of you for coming out and sharing your personal experiences with us, which is deeply personal obviously.

For myself, I am also an entrepreneur. I owned my own consultancy business for 18 years. I also developed and established Canada's longest-running breakfast program. It's in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, which is where I'm from, in British Columbia.

I'm also a sociologist. That's my background. I've spent 25 to 30 years doing social policy at all the different levels of government, from municipalities to the provinces to the federal government as well, prior to being elected an MP. I just wanted to say that child care, as you all know, is a provincial responsibility.

So what has been interesting in this discussion here, having been a mother, an advocate, a community person who has developed grassroots programs in the Downtown Eastside from the ground up, having fostered seven children—and I'm a foster grandmother as well in the Downtown Eastside. I've also done macropolicy at a sociological level with $5-billion programs across Canada.

There seems to be this sort of interesting play from where, Victoria—if you don't mind me calling you that, Ms. Lennox—is saying that we need to be grassroots, we need to come from the ground up because that is where people are going to become engaged. That has certainly been my experience in developing not just breakfast programs but youth at risk programs, all kinds of programs for local community across Canada.

Secondly, though, I am hearing you that the federal government obviously has a role. We do have a very strong women's network that the Minister of Labour and the Minister of Status of Women is putting together and has led. We are doing international things in terms of child and maternal health as well as through the United Nations International Day of the Girl, and even with this study.

What I'm trying to ask is, where is the middle ground? Where is the low-hanging fruit? We do want to move forward with this. We're very thrilled that there's so much activity, obviously, in the women's sector regarding business development, etc. You're right, Victoria. We're a very large country geographically with a very small population spread across it. Where's the low-hanging fruit?

[Brenda Thompson]

I believe the low-hanging fruit is the national government. It's a provincial responsibility, child care, but I believe the national government can engage the grassroots and provincial governments in child care recommendations and setting them up.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

So is that like setting a standard for the different provinces to meet? For example, if we used a Quebec model. All the other provinces should be—

[Brenda Thompson]

No, I would say that each province has its own characteristics that they need to address.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

So it should be something that's developed and implemented provincially then? Is that what you're saying?

[Brenda Thompson]

Yes, but there should be some federal transfer of funds to child care—

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

Well, there are federal transfer funds. We transferred funds to the provinces—

[Brenda Thompson]

But I'd like to see it increased because I'd like to see more child care—

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

But what the provinces spend that on and their priorities is a provincial regional jurisdiction.

[Brenda Thompson]

Yes, that came down to the CHST.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

Anyway, next to Laura, please, because I know I'm running out of time.

[Laura Cattari]

Thank you for that. I will echo that.

National strategies tend to coordinate provincial ones. We're here about leadership, and I think the federal government could be a leader in setting the tone in what the expectations are, and if their provinces are given money, what it should be spent on—