Bill C-303 (Historical)

Early Learning and Child Care Act

An Act to establish criteria and conditions in respect of funding for early learning and child care programs in order to ensure the quality, accessibility, universality and accountability of those programs, and to appoint a council to advise the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development on matters relating to early learning and child care

This enactment establishes criteria and conditions in respect of early learning and child care programs that must be observed before payments are made by the Government of Canada to a province, territory or aboriginal peoples' organization in support of such a program. It also provides for the appointment of a council to advise the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development on matters relating to early learning and child care.

[John Huether]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I'm very honoured to be able to make this presentation on behalf of Success by Six Peel. My name is John Huether and I'm a volunteer member of the executive of the Council of Champions of Success by Six Peel. In the past, I was the executive director of the Peel Children's Aid Society.

Success by Six is a collaboration of more than 40 partners from different sectors of the community, including business, labour, and human services. We are dedicated to ensuring that all children zero to six will thrive in Peel. We are committed to research, public and professional education, and community capacity building. Success by Six provides coordinating support to a variety of early learning and child care programs, including neighbourhood parenting programs. Our strength is in our multidisciplinary approach.

There are over 100,000 children in Peel under the age of five. A recent study of school readiness using the widely recognized early development instrument revealed that more than 27% of the children entering school in Peel Region were not ready to learn in one or more of the domains covered by the EDI.

In Peel, one in seven children live in poverty. Only 4,000 children have access to fee subsidy for child care within the 22,500 licensed spaces in the region. Therefore, there is a great need to increase the number of licensed and subsidized spaces within our region. To address the gap in Peel and in many other regions of Canada, significant investments must be made by both the provincial and federal governments in early learning and child care.

We're very pleased that Parliament has passed Bill C-303 through second reading for review by this committee. We believe that, if passed, this bill can make a positive contribution. It is extremely important that much-needed additional investments in early learning and child care are made consistent with the principles of quality, accessibility, universality, and accountability. Therefore, we support the express purpose of the bill as outlined.

We are supportive of the definition of early learning and child care service, which includes parent support and child drop-in centres. We are strongly in favour of the provision of substantially more child care spaces for parents and families, and support the range of options listed. We are also cognizant of the value of high-quality parenting support programs, which teach parents strategies to promote healthy development. Programs such as the Ontario Early Years Centres in neighbourhood hubs have demonstrated their value to children and parents. These parenting support services can well be combined with core child care services and programs so there is flexibility to respond to the needs of families. A full range of child care programs and parenting support programs should be supported by this bill.

We're supportive of the provisions in the bill that address quality. The reference to standards related to compensation in subclause 5(3) is welcome. The provision would support the need to increase the salaries of many professionals in the early learning and child care field who are not fairly compensated for their contributions to the well-being of children and society. In Peel, for example, the average salary of early childhood educators is in the neighbourhood of $18,000.

In examining subclause 5(3) on quality and in keeping with the above comments about parent support programs, we would urge that the criteria be written in such a way that does not preclude parent support programs being funded using federal dollars. We are concerned that the current wording of paragraph 5(3)(b) may have this result. Perhaps an additional provision related to parent-child programs in this section might be added.

Universality, in our view, is important to an effective, accessible early learning and child care program. We agree with the interpretation that this means these programs should be available to every child whose parent or guardian wishes to avail themselves of them.

There is a danger that the words “equally entitled to early learning and child care services that are appropriate to their needs” will continue to mean having equal access to waiting lists, unless greater investment is forthcoming.

We wonder if consideration could be given to setting targets for funding for early learning and child care. This could lead to Canada's investing 1.25% or 1.5% of GDP in early learning and child care, instead of our appallingly low current contribution of 0.25%.

We are encouraged by the specific reference to children with special needs in subclause 5(5). In making this provision a reality, the contributions and supports provided by specialized services to young children with special needs must be recognized. Speech and language specialists, public health nurses, mental health workers, occupational and physiotherapists all contribute to quality programming for special needs children in early learning and child care programs. Therefore, it is important to include the funding of these kinds of supports for integration, as well as appropriate teacher–child ratios within the purview of this legislation.

We welcome the accountability requirements outlined in clause 8. It is important that Canada have the ability to track the impact of its investments in supporting children in their early years.

We are also supportive of the provisions for the creation of the advisory council on early learning and child care. We know from the growing body of research in neuroscience and other sciences that the early years are crucial to the healthy development of all children. It is therefore important to support investment in early learning and child care.

Parents and families have the primary responsibility to care for and make sound decisions about their child's development. They should be supported in their responsibilities. To the significant extent that this bill supports this policy direction, it is worthy of support.

Thank you very much.

[Sue Colley, Volunteer, Code Blue for Child Care]

I won't take that much time, I think.

Good morning. My name is Sue Colley. I am the executive director of Building Blocks for Child Care, B2C2, which is a community not-for-profit development agency for child care, and I'm also a steering committee member of the Code Blue campaign for child care.

I really can't add very much to what Morna has said. I think that what we wanted to do.... Actually, Morna has given me copious notes about what's been going on in these hearings that she attended every day, and we thought it would be nice to try to simplify what we think the bill represents and why it's important to pass this bill, and present it in a simple table.

Simply, I would like to suggest that we just go through this list of what it does and what it doesn't do. First, it does not create a national program of early learning and child care. It does not direct the choices that families make for child care. We think that those are completely independent of this act. What it does do, however, is create a small number of conditions to any federal funding that Parliament decides to transfer to the provinces and territories for early learning and child care services. It does not authorize any spending or any increase in federal or provincial or territorial funding for early learning and child care, but what it does do is it makes provinces and territories accountable for any funding that they receive.

For example, if Bill C-303 became law, the $600 million in federal transfers would be directed only to those provinces and territories with plans providing comprehensive early learning and child care that are of high quality, universal, and accessible. These transfers to the provinces would have to satisfy criteria related to accountability. And I do believe that with the federal government now spending $2.65 billion that is really dedicated to early learning and child care, taxpayers would be pleased about the fact that there would be accountability for this.

It does not prevent any additional allocations. It does require that governments publicly report on how they spend federal funding. It doesn't venture into areas of provincial jurisdiction, as confirmed by the justice department in an earlier submission. It does require provinces and territories to consider the needs of children who are frequently excluded from programs; so children with special needs and children who live in rural, remote, and northern areas would be covered by this legislation. It doesn't limit federal funding only to the children of parents in the workforce. It makes programs open to all parents, whether the parents work or not. It does not address all the needs of Canadian families or children, nor does it preclude the federal government from giving children and families other supports, such as income supplements and enhanced parental leave, which we also think would be a good thing. It does require provinces and territories to address the high costs of early learning and child care, and it does require provinces and territories to address the uneven quality in early learning and child care, which means taking steps to ensure that every child attending receives a program that supports their well-being and development.

I would just add that the rest of our concerns about this bill are articulated in our brief and we also have a few other sheets that we have handed out. I just would like to add that we are very supportive of the two amendments that we believe have been proposed. One is an amendment that would incorporate language about aboriginal peoples being included in the act explicitly. And secondly, because we have never believed that family home child care is a for-profit service, we think that this should be clarified in the act so that it can be embraced within the act and within the funding.

I hope the members of the committee will see it in their wisdom to embrace the simplicity and the importance of the accountability provisions in this bill and enact it into legislation.

Thank you.

[Morna Ballantyne, Volunteer, Code Blue for Child Care]

Thank you very much.

I'm Morna Ballantyne. I'm going to share the seven minutes with Sue.

Thanks very much for the opportunity to be here with you.

I'll take a few minutes to explain what Code Blue is. We're actually not an organization; we describe ourselves as a “campaign” that has the support of a number of organizations and a number of individuals.

I was going to print out a list of all the individuals who support our campaign. I actually have a printout of half of our supporters--and it's here, but I'm not going to unroll it, because it's 85 feet long--just to give you a sense of who we represent and that we are representing large numbers of Canadians who are concerned about the state of early learning and child care in Canada.

We're very excited that Parliament and your committee are once again addressing a piece of legislation regarding early learning and child care. It's of course not the first time. This issue has been on the political agenda for many years.

I'm a parent of two children. I consider myself to be one of the relative newcomers to this issue, having been involved for 22 years. I got involved when I was pregnant with my first son.

This is an issue that is not going to go away until we have a system of early learning and child care, not just in Quebec but in all of Canada.

We want to make it clear that Bill C-303, in our opinion, which we support, does not in fact give Canadians everything that we need and want with respect to child care policy and programs. In fact, it's only one government instrument that's required. There are lots of other instruments that are required to be put in place by different levels of government, community, and individuals.

We've been following your committee deliberations very closely--I've been in attendance at every one of your hearings--and we are incredibly impressed with the attention you're giving to this issue, to this legislation. We're also impressed with the excellent submissions made by other witnesses.

But we think that there is still a lack of clarity about what this bill does and doesn't do. We've tried to summarize in a handout--in case you're wondering where that handout came from, that's from us--in a chart, some of the aspects of the bill. We hope that will help to clarify some of the myths and some of the realities.

One of the things we want to make clear is that we think this piece of legislation is actually very simple and straightforward. In fact, the representatives from the justice department testified to that.

It's certainly not advancing anything new. There's been a suggestion that it's not right or it's not proper for a piece of legislation to try to deal with this very complex issue. But in fact this legislation deals with issues that have been on the table, the subject of public and political debate and the subject of very complex federal-provincial negotiations, for many years.

Bill C-303 in fact represents a consensus of what the federal government needs to do. It also reflects what we know are the best practices in early learning and child care.

Sue is going to emphasize some of the other aspects of what the bill does and what it doesn't do.

[Martha Friendly, Member, Steering Committee, Campaign 2000]

Thank you.

I'm the coordinator of the Childcare Resource and Research Unit, and I'm a national partner of Campaign 2000 and a member of the steering committee.

I want to talk first about a couple of the main reasons that a universal system is really the best way to address the early learning and child care needs of children living in poverty.

First of all, poverty is dynamic; it's not static. This is true in Canada and it's also true in other countries. What you find is that who is poor at any given time changes over the years, and you can see that reflected in the child poverty numbers. Over a period of time, more of those children will have lived in a low-income family than the number of poor children at any one time. I think American research illustrates this very clearly also. A family can become poor if a job is lost or if there's a divorce, or through the death of one of the family members. From that point of view, it's really essential to have the support of a robust system of early learning and child care in order to meet the needs of those families if they change.

The other thing, and I think this is really important to keep in mind, is the idea of programs for the poor and universal programs, which Canada has tended to support. The statement that programs for the poor are poor programs is often attributed to Wilbur Cohen, who is one of the architects of American social security. The experience in other countries, particularly the United States, really does show that programs that are aimed at the poor are often marginalized programs in terms of recognition and support, and I think a really good illustration of this is the American head start program, which I got my start in early childhood education working on. In fact, that has never met the needs of even the poor families for whom it's intended. There are real shortages and underfunding. It's a very good illustration of the difference between programs for the poor and universal programs.

So just to pick up a couple of the elements of Bill C-303 that Campaign 2000 supports, in addition to the universal approach, first of all, the objectives of the bill that are stated at the beginning, that the primary objectives are to promote early childhood development and well-being and at the same time to support the participation of parents in employment or training and community life, are very much in keeping with Campaign 2000's principles. We would also go further to point out that there are other objectives for early learning and child care, such as social cohesion and social inclusion of new Canadians and aboriginal Canadians to bring them into a society, and equity objectives. These are very much our objectives.

We believe there is really the need for an act, because this is an issue of national importance, even though it's clearly within provincial jurisdiction, but a place for the federal government to play a role with the provinces and territories.

We support the conditions placed on universality, accessibility, and quality as merely illustrations of best practices for early learning and child care policy, and that's according to the body of empirical research and policy analysis. We very much urge accountability for public money spent, and we think the bill reflects those things in its insistence on not-for-profit services and on reporting.

I would just like to mention that we also would support an amendment, if there is an amendment, about the needs of aboriginal communities. We have aboriginal partners in Campaign 2000 who would really like specific recognition of the needs of aboriginal Canadians.

In closing, we would like to note that today, most of Canada's low-income children do not now have access to early learning and child care. I want to note that the OECD has singled Canada out to observe that, in Canada, only 20% of lone parents and 5% of disadvantaged groups are covered by early learning and child care.

I would like to really emphasize that in most parts of Canada, families of all incomes suffer because early learning and child care services do not exist in sufficient numbers or are of mediocre quality or aren't affordable. Bill C-303 is not the whole of the policy solution to this, but it's part of the policy solution. We know this is not a money bill, but together with adequate financing, a full policy framework, and political will at all levels, this legislation can be part of Canada's beginning to ameliorate the dismal state of early learning and child care.

Thank you very much.

[Laurel Rothman, National Coordinator, Campaign 2000]

Thank you.

Good morning. Thanks for the opportunity to talk with you today.

Campaign 2000 is a broad anti-poverty coalition. It's a cross-Canada coalition, founded in 1991, of more than 120 organizations to promote and secure the full implementation of the unanimous 1989 House of Commons resolution to eliminate child poverty in Canada. Clearly we've not achieved that by the year 2000, but we continue to urge all governments to keep their commitments and meet their obligations.

We're a diverse range of partner organizations in every province and territory, including low-income people's groups, parents' groups, child care providers and advocates, housing and health care providers and advocates, unions, women's groups, social planning councils, food banks, teachers, social workers, faith communities, aboriginal groups, and groups representing immigrants and refugees. Our partners in early learning and child care services include the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada; the Canadian Child Care Federation; the Childcare Resource and Research Unit; SpeciaLink, the National Centre for Child Care Inclusion; and the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care, to name a few. There will be a list of partners with the brief we submit.

Since our inception we have been committed to a balance of income supports and high-quality community services that are essential and that evidence indicates are needed to significantly reduce and eradicate child and family poverty and improve the life chances of all children. We seek to raise public awareness and to bring to light evidence-based and reasonable policy solutions. We meet with all levels of government, and we're non-partisan.

Martha is going to address some other aspects of the situation.

We're here to support the legislation, Bill C-303. We're very much in agreement with the perspective that child care services must be accessible for all children, not only low-income children. At the same time, a real system of high-quality and accessible child care services is an essential cornerstone of a poverty reduction strategy. I might add that the experience in Quebec, the only province where the child and family poverty rate has continuously gone down since 1997, is illustrative. I think we have to look at it. Perhaps we can talk about that later.

From our point of view, universality means that when a full system has been developed, all children will have access to good services if their parents choose it, whether they're urban or rural, low income, middle income, or well-to-do, have a mother in the paid labour force, or they're aboriginal, Québécois, or a newcomer to the country.

There are a number of reasons we feel that the best way to meet the early learning and child care needs of low-income children is within a universally accessible system. Martha is going to address that.

Thank you.

[Claudette Pitre-Robin, Administrator, Association québécoise des centres de la petite enfance]

Good morning. My name is Claudette Pitre-Robin, and I represent the Association québécoise des centres de la petite enfance [Quebec association of early childhood centres]. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for accepting to hear our views on this bill.

The Association québécoise des centres de la petite enfance agrees with Bill C-303, since clause 4 enables Quebec to continue its child care services program. We feel that it would have been truly unfortunate if this clause had not been in the bill, as it is important to us to be able to continue in the same direction, as Quebec has done over the past decade in developing child care services.

We currently have 200,000 child care spaces at $7 per day. Recent election commitments have led us to believe that another 20,000 spaces would be added to meet the needs of families. We feel that it is important for the Quebec government to be able to continue this approach. We are also pleased that during the course of the coming year, we should not be required to increase the current $7 fee paid by parents.

We do not have a specific brief to support our comments today, but I have taken excerpts from documents that, unfortunately, are not translated. I have left copies on the table at the back. It is a document that we worked on a few months ago to report on public investment in the early childhood development centre network and which shows the impact of these measures in Quebec.

The Quebec government currently invests $1.5 billion in the educational child care services network. That is just under 3% of the government's budget, but in our view, this investment pays huge dividends, economically and socially, and allows for the provision of universal services.

Economically speaking, we were able to measure the important contribution of the early childhood development centres network to economic activity and development in Quebec, as well as the savings generated in terms of long-term social costs.

We also determined that it led to an increase in gross domestic product. In Quebec, the level of economic activity by women of child-bearing age increased by 9% from 1996 to 2005. That increase is twice as high as in the rest of Canada. It means almost 90,000 more women in the workforce, women who are more financially independent and who have often been able to leave a life of poverty.

This has also had a very positive impact on GDP in Quebec and provides an extremely important contribution to the activities of Quebec companies, especially given the imminent shortage of skilled workers.

A Quebec economist, Ruth Rose, did a cost-benefit analysis study of a universal preschool educational program for the Conseil supérieur de l'éducation. She was able to estimate the return on investment for each dollar put into educational child care services in Quebec. Bear in mind that the Quebec government pays 80% of the cost and the parents, 20%.

The document shows many other savings, but I am going to simply tell you about the immediate impact. We have seen a reduction in social assistance spending, since mothers can work, an increase in direct income tax linked to the salaries of the mothers, and there was also job creation in child care, which broadened the tax base.

The federal government also made significant gains, which result mainly from an improved tax base and a reduction in the use of employment insurance.

It is also a critical tool for fighting poverty and social exclusion because it provides affordable educational services of high quality to families, regardless of their socio-economic or geographical situation, because development is done in an equitable fashion in all regions of Quebec.

It also enhances access to the labour market or to education for mothers. It plays a preventative role for children in vulnerable situations. It supports parents in their parental role. It also makes it possible to integrate children with special needs.

We have seen the importance, for children, of increasing income, especially in single-parent families. Poverty indicators produced by Statistics Canada show a spectacular decline, in Quebec, in the number of single-parent families facing poverty where women are the heads of the household, whereas the decrease Canada-wide, although it is significant, is much lower.

According to statistics, in 1997 in Canada, 53% of female-led lone parent families were living below the low-income cutoff, whereas in 2004, it was 40%, or 13% lower. In Quebec, the rate was 60% in 1997 and 30% in 2004, or 30% lower. So there was a 50% reduction in the number of poor single-parent women in Quebec. That is significant, and it is truly one of the fantastic objectives of this policy. Quebec's family policy has therefore had a major impact on the incidence of poverty among children and especially in lone-parent families. We cannot stress enough that this is about supporting the development of all children and that for them, it is a protection factor, especially for those living in a context of vulnerability. You all know that the majority of studies on this topic show that children from under-privileged backgrounds benefit immensely from their child care experience.

As regards universality, social equity is at the heart of the $7-a-day child care network, and often, there is a lot of criticism. On the one hand, if we recognize that it is an essential service, that means that it must be universal. The current system is such that everyone contributes to supporting the family, since a portion of the expenditures are paid by the government. We are asked why parents with higher incomes benefit from spaces at $7. Through the tax system, families that are more well-off are already paying more than $7. Facts show that once tax contributions are applied, parents that are more well-off pay more than $7, as taxpayers in the highest tax bracket account for 60% of individual income tax.

[Yvonne Coupal, Coordinator, Citizens in Favour of Equal Government Childcare Subsidies for All Children]

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for the opportunity to testify today.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for the opportunity to testify today.

Let's start at the end. We respectfully recommend the following.

Firstly, all federal MPs elected to ridings in Quebec have the moral obligation to vote against Bill C-303, or at the very least, to abstain from all future votes. Bill C-303 discriminates against the children of Canada by showing prejudice and favouring only one type of child care: that of third-party child care.

Secondly, clause 4 must be deleted from Bill C-303 because it discriminates against nine provinces and the territories in Canada. It demonstrates clear prejudice by favouring one province, Quebec, which is exempted from the constraints provided by the standards, the conditions and the accountability provisions. In addition, the clause will create an intentional fiscal imbalance should it remain in the bill.

Thirdly, all reference to universality in Bill C-303 must be removed because universality is not only unrealistic, it is also fiscally unwise.

Even now we are having difficulty paying for our legislation. If bill C-303 is passed, we are doomed to pay for it with our collective credit card, also dooming the same children whom we say we want to help to bear a huge financial burden. How ironic! Ultimately, the children will be paying the bill. The pernicious effects of universality are creeping into our elementary schools in Quebec. The quality of life, the air quality and the lack of space are deplorable, because, in large part, of the universality of before-school and after-school child care programs that destroy our school infrastructure and undermine the healthy educational climate. There are only so many fish that you cram into a can, even when they are sardines. The can has a lid, but there is no lid on school infrastructure in Quebec because no-one has the courage to put a lid on Utopia. What will it take to do it one day? At the moment, ladies and gentlemen, mum's the word.

Let's start at the end. We respectfully recommend the following.

First, all federal MPs elected to ridings in Quebec have the moral obligation to vote against Bill C-303, or at the very least abstain from all future votes. Bill C-303 discriminates against the children of Canada by showing prejudice and favouring only one type of child care above all others: that of third party child care.

Delete clause 4 from Bill C-303 because it discriminates against nine provinces and three territories in Canada. It demonstrates clear prejudice by favouring one province, Quebec, over and above all others, as Quebec is exempted from the restrictive standards and conditions that will be applied.

In addition, it will create—intentionally, imagine—a new fiscal imbalance, should this remain within the bill.

I always ask myself the same questions in circumstances like these. How many of us went to daycare when we were little? The average age of your committee is around 46. I really doubt that many of you have any experience of daycare at all. If you did, how many went full time, five days a week?

And how many of us who did not attend day care as children—because we might have benefited from other care settings, like our own homes, or with a relative, grandmas, and neighbours—would have preferred to go to day care? Each of us knows the answer deep down inside.

Above all we must not deny this feeling because we have already come out in favour of C-303. There is still enough time to look once more at the whole question of child care inclusively rather than to start from a biased position that favours third-party care.

As adults, we're obliged to take a serious look at the past 10 years of Quebec's day care experiment before short-sightedly imposing a utopian dream, a dream for which the supposed benefits remain unproven to this day.

Quebec MPs are well aware of parents' concerns with third-party child care. Those who use the services know the current shortcomings: a rigid schedule, Monday to Friday from 7:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., no part-time service, no right to pay extra for better services for their children, even out of their own pockets. All in the name of universality.

[Beverley Smith]

Thank you for inviting me. I'm pleased to be here.

I'm particularly impressed with the teleconference, which is, I think, a way to get a lot more public and women's involvement in issues.

When you are discussing Bill C-303, I have to say that it's pretty well impossible to be against a bill to benefit children. I have, for 30 years now, argued for you to be looking at issues like this, to spend more money on children's care, to value the role of the person taking care of children, and to notice that these are pivotal years for the education of children, so that's all good.

I'm not here to criticize the bill for what it says, so much as to criticize it for what it doesn't say. It is actually excluding some important considerations legally and ethically. I've been a long-time promoter of women's rights, to value our paid labour and our unpaid labour, and to value children's rights. This bill is working for educational stimulation, health and safety, the right of women to participate fully in society in ways that they wish. All of those are good goals, but this bill is a problem because it doesn't go far enough.

This bill doesn't give all children benefit. It looks at only one lifestyle and gives it the benefits. That's a concern. So this bill, although good, needs a sister bill in order to be fair. It needs a partner to value what it left out. It did leave out children who are not in the child care settings being provided for--the third-party, non-family-based care. That is actually the majority of children. It omitted children in parental care or grandparent care; the care of a day home, a trusted neighbour, a sitter; home-schooled children; in the care of parents who telecommute, parents who take the child to paid work, parents who do paid work evenings only and weekends off-shifting. These people are also parents and they're also offering care of children, and they vote.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Canada signed at the United Nations, said a child has the right to be raised in the presence of the parents, wherever possible, and if the parents choose to assign a caregiver, trusting the best judgment of the parents, the caregiver can be anyone who shares their values, their language, their culture, and the things they want to endorse. The parents are the ones trusted to know the best interests of the child.

Children outside the centres are valuable too. This bill has forgotten them. In section 15 of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms, we're told that we have to give equal benefit under the law to all children. So Bill C-303's problem is that it's not universal. It says it gives universal access, but that's a legalistic trick and couldn't hold up under a court. Access to agreeing with a policy isn't really access to equal benefit under the law.

Bill C-303 suggests a majority of women now earn, so they need this bill. In fact, it says its purpose is to help women earn. That's a problem, actually, because if we're going to value care of children, we shouldn't as a main focus be valuing those who are not caring for children. Many women in fact do earn, but they do so from home or part-time and aren't using the third-party-care style.

So this is not in any way a universal benefit program.

You have been told there are wait lists of children who need this service. That may be true in some ways, but the wait lists are a little bit inflated, because children's names appear on several lists and there are names on those lists of children not even born. So it's a little deceptive, and we're not sure the wait-list people are not just waiting for the funding.

Proponents say there's a patchwork of services and we need to standardize. You know, in a democracy a patchwork is actually a good thing because it's a quilt, it's diversity. What we have to be really wary of is something that requires a standardized one-size-fits-all treatment. That's what got us in trouble before.

Proponents of Bill C-303 say universal child care is like medicare. Universal child care is not like medicare. We all risk emergency need of medical assistance if we have sudden illness or injury. Because of that equal risk we have, we pay a universal payment for health care. Child care centres are not locations of emergency risk, and employees are key, but they're not experts the way that medical doctors are experts.

Proponents of Bill C-303 say it's like universal education. We should start it from birth. The problem is that they don't have a monopoly on education. A child is born learning; it's born ready to learn. So although a child may learn in your child care centre, it's not learning any differently from or any better than in some very high-quality homes. Therefore, we should value education wherever it's happening.

Schooling and medical care are actually moving away from the one-size-fits-all formula for funding institutions. They're actually moving towards funding the home. We're trying to get more people cared for medically in the home. It saves money.

We're trying to get diversity for home schooling and other kinds of education to match the needs of the children. So to move to a one-size-fits-all standard is out of touch with what's currently found to be best.

Also, Bill C-303 will cost $10,000 per child per year. Just for the preschoolers in the country, it would $20 billion. The day care federations are saying that their goal is to provide a day care space for every child in the country. We simply cannot afford that.

Let's look at what we can afford that is still of universal benefit. The only way we could make that affordable is to raise taxes, as they do in Sweden, to a 60% tax rate.

[Dave Quist, Executive Director, Institute of Marriage and Family Canada]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and to all members of the committee, for the opportunity to present information for your consideration on Bill C-303.

The Institute of Marriage and Family Canada is a research think tank designed to draw together the social science on issues such as the raising of our children. We believe that you, the decision-makers, should consider all the factors involved when making these decisions. To this end, I'm pleased to present a cross-section of some of our work for your consideration.

Much of this research comes out of documents before you, and it's also available in full on our website at imfcanada.org.

One of the crucial pieces of the child care debate is to best determine what it is that parents actually want. There's much rhetoric and a variety of polls of various levels of quality that have been done on this very question. Of primary importance is for officials to not presume what parents of young children want, but to actually ask them. To this end, one year ago we published the results of a survey that delved directly into this question. Copies of this poll have been included in the package that you have before you at this time.

Although there's a lot of information in the survey, please allow me to highlight just a couple of the key pieces that are pertinent to your debate today.

Of the parents who have young children and who may be actually accessing child care, 78% indicated they would prefer if a parent were able to stay home to raise their children. This did not change significantly when we factored in the gender of the parents, the geographic region they came from, or their respective level of education.

Of course, we know that having one parent stay at home is not always feasible, whether this is due to single-parent families, fiscal constraints, or other logistical considerations. To this end, we then asked the respondents what their preference for child care would be. The results that we found were quite dramatic. A majority of 53% indicated they would prefer a relative to care for their child; the following 20% preferred a family child care setting; and trailing were non-profit child care, at less than 17%, and for-profit child care, at a low of 7%.

Again, these results did not change across different break-outs based upon geography, income or education levels, marital status, urban versus rural settings, or gender. One notable exception is that the Quebec respondents had almost an even split between a relative or family child care for their child. If we adjust the results for those parents who have children under six years of age, the results remain almost identical.

It's clear to me from these empirical findings that the intent of Bill C-303 is not in keeping with what Canadian parents desire. We believe that each family has its own unique challenges, and a one-size-fits-all program is not in Canadian parents' best interest.

We believe that the government needs to honour the choices of parents, who are best positioned to nurture and raise their children. Parents who need child care for their children should be allowed to do so in the manner they deem appropriate for their circumstances.

Clause 4 of Bill C-303 notes that the Province of Quebec may exempt itself from the provisions of this bill. My assumption is that this is because Quebec has a form of provincial child care already in place. From listening to previous witnesses, I think the Quebec model has been held up as how a national child care program should indeed be structured.

With all due respect to those who are involved with the Quebec child care program, the latest evaluations clearly show some substantial failings. According to Pierre Lefebvre, professor of economics at the Université du Québec à Montréal, the Quebec policy “favours higher income families, is unfair to families who choose to care for their children themselves or do not use non-parental child care, and is not well suited to parents working part time or non-standard hours.”

Professor Lefebvre continues: “Children from low-income or less-educated families may be triply disadvantaged by being less likely to receive stimulating care at home, less likely to be enrolled in educationally oriented care outside the home and more likely to be receiving low-quality service when they are in child care.”

The economics of the system have left parents worse off. “By its very nature, the $7-a-day child care model favours a specific type of child care setting that is subsidized and state-regulated. It benefits certain parents to the detriment of others,” writes Norma Kozhaya of the Montreal Economic Institute in an October 2006 briefing note on Quebec’s child care system.

One of the main problems with child care in Quebec, using data from the Quebec Longitudinal Study of Child Development, is that children, while in a safe environment, are not learning. According to an Institute for Research on Public Policy report: “The majority of child care settings attended by the children in the QLSCD had a global rating of minimal quality, which means that they provided safety and security for the children but offered a minimal educational component.”

It's also important to note that the CBC reports there's a waiting list of 35,000 children in Quebec, and that Quebec immigration actually tells new immigrants to that province that there is a one- to two-year waiting list for child care.

In light of this comparison and the other research that's readily available to you today, the IMFC is opposed to a national system of early learning and child care as proposed in Bill C-303. It allots money preferentially to one type of care: centre-based or institutional care. It therefore does not help parents make choices. It offers one solution alone, at great cost, to the detriment of those who do not make that choice. We believe this is discriminatory.

We would point this committee to research from the U.S.-based NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, the largest, most expensive child care study ever undertaken--it has been running for close to 25 years now--which has been examining the long-term effects of all types of child care on children.

The researchers have found that high-quality non-maternal care, including that by fathers and grandparents, improves cognitive outcomes, things like a child's vocabulary and memory, but that too much time in centre-based care, even high-quality centre-based care, was related to poor behaviours, including hitting others and arguing a lot. In their latest research this spring, the researchers have shown that this negative behaviour is measurable up to and including the sixth grade.

In short, while there are benefits to high-quality care, those benefits are not limited to centre-based care, such as the care proposed under Bill C-303. Rather, the benefits are seen in many different types of care in more informal settings. The drawbacks, like increased aggression in children, are seen in poor-quality centre-based care. Currently, care in Quebec is described as mediocre. High-quality care under a state-run, state-financed system is difficult to create.

There are other issues that should be addressed here; unfortunately, time does not permit me to address those. However, in conclusion, I'll say I believe you cannot measure this issue through strictly economic calculations. These are our children, our future, and they must be measured accordingly. We must hold ourselves to a higher standard.

While we recognize there is a need for high-quality child care within society, this one-size-fits-all approach does not meet the needs of many families and cannot be supported. This bill does not address the needs of the majority of Canadians who do not wish to use institutionalized child care.

I thank the committee for your attention. I would be pleased to address any questions you have in the discussion following.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

As to the order of reference of November 22, the committee will now resume its study of Bill C-303.

I'd just like to thank all the witnesses for being here today. I know we have a couple via video conference.

We can start with you, Mr. Quist. We'll have you start, for seven minutes. We'll move then to Ms. Smith, Ms. Ward, Ms. Coupal, and Ms. Landriault.

If we can get started, I'll give you a two minute- then a one-minute warning, just so you can gauge your speech from there. It'll be followed by a round of seven minutes, followed by subsequent rounds of five minutes each.

Mr. Quist, once again, welcome, and thank you for being here today. You have seven minutes, sir.

Child Care

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I recently visited a wonderful parents and tots program in my Halifax riding. The Lions Club, supported by the United Way and municipal government, has created a space in the Spryfield Recreation Centre where preschoolers can play together in a safe, spacious setting while moms and dads can share parenting tips and support one another. That is the good news.

The bad news is that the majority of these families have been desperately seeking accessible, affordable, quality early learning and child care opportunities and such spaces are virtually non-existent in their community. Why? Because of broken promises, first by the Liberals and now by the Conservatives.

That is why it is vitally important to enact Bill C-303, the New Democrat early learning and child care act. Every child deserves that chance. Every family deserves that choice, whether home based or community based.

As with every vital social program, from medicare to employment insurance to public pensions, federal legislation is needed, resources are required and standards must be set that will allow each province and territory to apply those standards and allocate those resources for the benefit of children and families needing child care.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Yes, very quickly, I wondered if you've had a chance to look at Bill C-303, the Early Learning and Child Care Act, which Olivia Chow and Denise Savoie put forward. One of the things about it is that it makes a child care system empowered by legislation. It is secured in legislation. I wonder if you could comment on that.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I found the discussion between Mr. Dinsdale and Mr. Merasty quite interesting. To make sure the bill is equitable for everyone, we would almost have to go to two extremes.

The Aboriginal peoples’ situation shows that their conditions in terms of services are such that special provisions should be made at all times. That is the case here and that is to be expected. It is something that has to be done. I think that, if we manage to do so, eventually we will come up with some provisions enabling us to reach everyone. The people from Rural Voices for Early Childhood Education and Care can give us their opinion on this. If we can reach Aboriginal people, it seems to me that we will succeed in reaching other communities. This exercise should be one of generosity and not pettiness. We must avoid saying, for example, that one group in Quebec is receiving services and that this is not right because we have not yet got these services ourselves, and, if we cannot have services, these services should not be offered to another group. There is something unhealthy about that sort of thing and ideological positions...

When our friend Mr. Chong tells us that the Conservatives’ policies are very generous regarding more vulnerable communities, I do not understand. Indeed, the Kelowna Accord, in spite of its imperfections, was very positive. They are the ones who got rid of it. I do not want to turn this into a political issue, but we have to be clear with one another. We must not make any mistakes here; we have to tell it like it is.

Your last comments, Mr. Dinsdale, clarified the question more for me. A statement was made at the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, with whom you probably have some connections. The statement said that Bill C-303 contained some shortcomings pertaining to Aboriginal peoples, but by wording clause 8 so as to specify the particularities of Aboriginal peoples, there could be a positive outcome. The bill would be more effective and Aboriginal peoples could support it more readily. I would like to hear your comments in this regard. If by chance you have not given some thought to this question, you could send us your comments later.

I also very much enjoyed the contribution by the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada. I did not have time to consult your report, which looks quite rich, as do all the others, moreover.

I am going to conclude with an example, Madam Chair. When child care services were set up in Quebec in 1997, I was part of it. I worked on it, and my colleague too. We did not achieve perfection the first year, nor has it been achieved yet. This system serves as a model. We dared to do something. It remains that for many years the educators working within this system were paid less than zoo employees. This is the sort of thing that has been improved over time.

We could restrict ourselves to defending our own child care system so that it does not become vulnerable, but what we really want is for all of you everywhere in the country to have a good system. We are going to lend our support to one another and this way this kind of intervention will not make our system vulnerable.

I apologize for not leaving time for an answer.

[Stuart Shanker]

There are two aspects to your question, and the answer to the first is yes, absolutely, we love the kinds of wrap-around options that are available in a demonstration site like Toronto First Duty, particularly when, even in the case when parents are working and are dropping off their kids, programs are made available that suit the parents' times, where they too can have these experiences and pick up the kinds of skills we're talking about.

With regard to the second part of your question, we do study this very carefully, and we tried to explain this in the early years report that we published two weeks ago. We do see a gradient effect in our society, and by far the largest percentage of children with these problems are in the lowest socio-economic strata. Unfortunately, when we study this in terms of brain development we see significant lags. One of the most telling indicators we have is language development, and these children do lag significantly behind children from other sectors of society.

However, having said that, it is a problem that affects all sectors of society, and as I tried to point out before, the largest number of children, simply in terms of volume, come from the middle and upper classes. So it's not a problem that can be targeted, which is why we like Bill C-303. It is something that needs a universal approach.

[Peter Dinsdale]

I don't think there's any question the services are needed. In the brief we provided to the committee, we talked about the need for an early learning child care system. We were involved in some of the previous consultations leading up to this, and I certainly think it needs to occur more consistently and more effectively across the country.

The issue with Bill C-303, the way it sits today, is that it might not be the instrument we need to get to the aboriginal community. The tariff issue, the lack of jurisdictional coordination issue, and some of the access issues, we believe, are going to prevent a significant number of aboriginal people from truly accessing the program as they should.

I've heard that there's one amendment coming up on the profit thing. Hopefully someone is taking this to heart and is willing to look at it, because it's unimaginable that in the creation of a national system of early learning and child care there isn't contemplation of the challenges faced by Canada's aboriginal community.

And it's not going to get done, in our assessment, by the bill as currently constituted.