Bill C-35

Canada Early Learning and Child Care Act

An Act respecting early learning and child care in Canada

This enactment sets out the Government of Canada’s vision for a Canada-wide early learning and child care system. It also sets out the Government of Canada’s commitment to maintaining long-term funding relating to early learning and child care to be provided to the provinces and Indigenous peoples. Finally, it creates the National Advisory Council on Early Learning and Child Care.

[Peter Jon Mitchell, Program Director, Family, Cardus]

Thank you for the invitation to appear this morning, and thank you for the work of this committee in support of families across Canada.

Cardus is a non-partisan think tank dedicated to clarifying and strengthening, through research and dialogue, the ways in which people, institutions and governments work together for the common good. I direct our family program at Cardus, which explores how to strengthen family stability.

Child care is the care of a child, regardless of who provides that care, whether a licensed provider, an in-home caregiver, a neighbour or relative, or a parent who forgoes income. Statistics Canada data shows that Canadians rely on diverse forms of care to meet their needs.

Bill C-35 supports only a limited number of care options. The bill enshrines inequitable treatment of families, based on the type of care they use. Canadian data and international examples show that higher-income families are more likely to access subsidized licensed care as compared with lower-income families. There are better and more equitable ways and options to support the care needs of Canadian families. However, should Bill C-35 proceed, I recommend three amendments.

First, paragraph 5(e) should reflect that parents and guardians have the primary responsibility for the upbringing and development of their children. Parents are best positioned to make the care choices for their children. In the brief that we submitted to the committee, we provide wording that reflects the phrasing found in article 18 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the same article from which clause 5 of the bill draws its inspiration.

Second, paragraph 7(1)(a) discriminates against licensed independent operators in favour of public and not-for-profit providers. This discrimination harms families and hampers the government's own goals. This discrimination contravenes an earlier statement in the bill supporting the importance of flexible early learning and child care programs. Many of the agreements prevent funding intended for space creation and growth from going to licensed independent providers who are currently serving Canadian families.

This discrimination hampers accessibility. Currently, there are only enough licensed spaces for about one-third of Canadian children under the age of six. The aggressive space creation targets within the Canada-wide agreements are proving difficult to achieve. In the first year of its agreement, Saskatchewan exceeded its space creation budget, only to achieve 37% of its space creation target. The Financial Accountability Office of Ontario estimates that in that province, 25% of families with children under the age of six who want a highly subsidized space will be unable to access one. It is very unlikely that space creation targets will be met without independent licensed providers.

Third, clause 16, regarding annual reporting, must be strengthened. The desire to report on progress within the bill should be applauded, but clause 16 should be more specific. The federal government collects detailed financial data and progress towards targets from the provinces annually. The agreements in most cases state that provinces “may” report progress to the public. To my knowledge, only two provinces have publicly reported on the progress made during the first year of their agreements within the timeline specified in their agreements. One way to remedy this is to strengthen the federal reporting requirements within the bill, requiring the federal government to release detailed expenditures and progress towards stated targets for each province. How well are families being served by the Canada-wide program?

Caring for vulnerable populations, such as children, is complex and expensive. We should be striving for higher levels of accountability. Child care is the care of a child, regardless of who provides that care. We should strive for policy options that treat families fairly and offer true flexibility to families as they select the care that best meets their needs.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair (Mr. Robert Morrissey (Egmont, Lib.)), Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

I call the meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 63 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the House order of June 23, 2022. Members will be attending in person in the room, as you can see, and virtually, online.

Before speaking, and to ensure an orderly meeting, please wait until I recognize you by name.

You have the option of speaking and participating in the official language of your choice. Interpretation services are available in the room, where you can use the interpretation earpiece. Online, at the bottom of your Surface, you can choose French or English audio. If there is a problem with interpretation, please get my attention, and we'll suspend while it's corrected.

Please, for your benefit, screenshots are not allowed of the meeting today, in the room or virtually.

Also, if you do not have a House of Commons-approved headset, you cannot participate in the meeting verbally. If you're a member of the committee, you can participate in the voting format by simply indicating, but I will not recognize you to participate verbally.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on Friday, February 3, 2023, the committee will continue its study of Bill C-35, an act respecting early learning and child care in Canada.

Everybody's equipment has been tested, so I would like to welcome our witnesses, beginning in the room with Mr. Peter Jon Mitchell, who is the program director at Cardus. From the College of Early Childhood Educators, we have Beth Deazeley. From the First Nations of Quebec and Labrador Health and Social Services Commission, we have Richard Gray, manager, and Patrice Lacasse, manager. Mr. Lacasse may be the one participating, because I believe we have an issue with Mr. Gray's audio.

Each of the witnesses will begin with five minutes this morning. We have one round of questions, so there will be six minutes for each of the parties.

We'll begin with Mr. Mitchell for five minutes.

I would ask the witnesses to please stay within the five-minute time allotment so that we can get our questions in.

Mr. Mitchell, you have the floor.

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

Ms. Moser, what do you feel needs to be added to Bill C‑35 as a priority?

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

Thank you.

Ms. Flaherty, is there anything else you'd like to see added to Bill C‑35?

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank the witnesses for being here today.

Ms. Hiscott, you spoke earlier about the importance of including certain definitions in Bill C‑35. Could you elaborate on that?

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to everyone today for your testimony on Bill C-35 and child care in Canada.

Ms. Moser, I'll start with you.

Can I ask you about your current wait-lists? How many child care centres do you oversee? How many spaces are there? How many parents are on wait-lists?

[Marni Flaherty, Acting Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Child Care Federation]

Thank you.

I speak to you today as the interim CEO of the Canadian Child Care Federation, an organization representing child care affiliates and members from across Canada. It is Canada's largest national non-profit charitable organization supporting child care in research and policy.

Since 1983 we have been giving voice to the knowledge, practice and passion of early learning professionals and practitioners across Canada.

I know my time before the committee today is limited. The federation has submitted a detailed written submission on recommendations for your committee's study on Bill C-35, an act respecting early learning and child care in Canada. Today I would like to focus on a key point.

The current child care landscape in Canada is a mix of private, public and not-for-profit operators. The government has made it clear that all new growth in child care should be primarily in the not-for-profit and public sector. The federation strongly endorses publicly managed child care.

All regulated child care services must be organized, funded and delivered in a way that puts the best interests of children and families first. This should be the core requirement for all services that receive public funding. Child care is a public good that brings significant benefits to all of society in much the same way that our more developed public education and public health systems do.

We are in the early days of this rollout. This is a huge transformational change in that it will take time to collect data, build a system, and ensure recruitment and retention strategies for early childhood educators. Our ECEs are the backbone of this system.

The federation welcomes a transformational change. Why? It is because today early childhood education in Canada is an uneven patchwork. It is unavailable in many communities; wait-lists are long; the quality of programs is uneven; and for many parents, quality licensed child care remains unaffordable and not accessible.

We would further recommend that within Bill C-35, funding be explicitly described as annualized and tied to the licensed, regulated system of child care, which includes centre-based and home child care. We applaud the government for their commitment to a national plan. Let me be clear: The federation believes in and supports Bill C-35.

We recommend that there be deeper consideration and directions in two areas—workforce development and quality for children.

Let me speak to workforce, our ECEs.

The success of the new plan is possible only with a well-trained, valued and compensated early childhood educator workforce. This includes educators working in centre-based and licensed home child care, a critical and often poorly understood part of the child care system. We would like to see strong language in the bill that promotes sustained investment in a national strategy for the recruitment, education and retention of the early childhood educators workforce.

We need to establish national standards for competitive wages and national education and credentialing standards for ECEs. We also need foreign credential recognition that supports high-quality programs and accelerates the entry of newcomers who are trusted and able to work in Canada.

I would like to highlight three more very important points.

One, the federation believes in the critical importance of language in the proposed act to ensure accountability through the annual federal public report on progress.

Two, the federation would like the act to clearly stipulate that there be Canadian-based early learning and child care research across a range of disciplines and methodologies. We need research into many areas, including early learning and child care for immigrant children, for children with special needs, for children from official minority language communities and for indigenous children.

Three, we support the National Advisory Council on Early Learning and Child Care and enshrining this advisory body into law.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today about Bill C-35. The Canadian Child Care Federation fully supports this critical piece of legislation. We believe in the goal of the federal government to provide a Canada-wide quality and affordable early learning and child care system. The federation and all the early childhood professionals and practitioners we speak for look forward to continuing to do the work together with our government partners to realize the transformative system for children and families.

Thank you for your time.

[Kim Hiscott, Executive Director, Andrew Fleck Children's Services]

Thank you very much for the opportunity to appear before this committee.

I am the executive director of Andrew Fleck Children’s Services, which is a multi-site, multiservice, not-for-profit agency here in Ottawa. This commitment to early learning is something I have dreamed about for decades, and the generational, long-term influence on children and families will support Canada beyond what we can even imagine.

I echo the comments from others that Bill C-35 can be strengthened by adding a robust, clear definition of “early learning and child care”.

Andrew Fleck Children’s Services has been around since 1911. We have a license capacity of over 3,000 spaces in our group sites and home child care. When we shared with our families that our fees would be reduced, the relief was palpable. We heard stories like this:

We haven't been able to save for a house since my child started daycare, it was almost as much as my rent. We thought we definitely would not be able to afford having another child either. This will change our lives so very much that we finally don't have to feel like we are drowning just to have quality care since we could not afford to stay home either.

However, as you know, affordability is only one component of respecting early learning and child care in Canada. I would like to focus on what else we need to pay attention to, including appropriately compensating and supporting early childhood educators, the expansion of not-for-profit licensed child care and the modernization of licensed home child care. I submitted a brief that expands on these points.

For decades, not-for-profits have kept our parent fees as low as possible to support families and the affordability of licensed child care. This came at the expense of the dedicated individuals working with children and those who support them. With 80% to 85% of our budgets attributed to compensation, we know that employees have subsidized the sector, and we are now experiencing the consequences of this approach. Not only are fewer individuals interested in obtaining their credentials; committed, experienced educators are leaving for other opportunities.

We have models in Ontario, and likely elsewhere, in which the role of an early childhood educator has been appropriately evaluated through a robust job evaluation process comparing the scope, breadth and depth of responsibilities of the role with comparators. It is appropriate and necessary to look to post-secondary institutions and municipalities that directly operate licensed child care and replicate their compensation packages, including benefits and pensions.

Factors that inspire early childhood educators to remain in the sector, such as programming time, professional learning, etc., are also necessary, alongside appropriate compensation, but not instead of. Other current or proposed solutions to address our labour crisis without addressing compensation are destined to fail.

There are already numerous examples of programs that are not at their allowable license capacity due to the lack of available employees, and the problem is expected to get worse. As we look to expand access to early learning, we know that finding qualified employees will be our biggest barrier. However, being optimistic and expecting that compensation issues will be addressed, we know that the expansion of our services will be necessary, because our current waiting lists are already very long.

I urge the government to strengthen its expectations that all federal investment should be focused on expansion in the not-for-profit sector. Public funding must be viewed as an investment to create long-term sustainable community assets. A federal lending program—either directly or through a third party—that not only offers financing at reasonable lending rates but also supports not-for-profits through the complicated construction or leasehold negotiation process is also necessary.

Not-for-profits can and will expand. They can be and are responsive to their communities, and they often work with other community agencies, such as services for seniors or housing, to the greater benefit of neighbourhoods.

Now I'll move to the modernization of licensed home child care.

Currently in Ontario, there are two options for home child care: licensed and unlicensed. Both include the individual provider being self-employed, but only licensed care includes oversight, monitoring and CWELCC eligibility so that parent fees are affordable.

With its flexibility of hours, including evenings and weekends, licensed home child care must be a component of a national system and may be the most viable option in smaller communities.

The licensed agency model is key to supporting quality. The federal government should separately and in great detail review compensation options that agencies can offer to these small business owners, including how to access benefits and while ensuring that providers are able to retain their self-employed status.

If we do not embrace licensed home child care, the agency model and self-employed providers, we will be perpetuating a two-tiered system in which families who can choose centre-based care because the operating hours fit with their schedules will have access to affordable child care, while those who need the flexible hours offered by home child care won’t.

It's likely that jobseekers will make choices based on affordable access to child care, meaning that we may unintentionally exacerbate a workforce crisis in some sectors due to the lack of child care access.

The Canada-wide early learning and child care plan is, overall, a welcome direction for our country and for all Canadians. It makes sense that it will take conversations with all of us—including those directly delivering services—to get this right. Bill C-35 is a positive direction. Let's make sure it has the teeth needed so that all expectations can be met.

Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Racine and Mr. Dupuis, earlier, we spoke specifically and respectively about sections 8 and 11. In your opinion, what's the most important amendment you would like to see in Bill C‑35?

[Jean-Luc Racine]

I would also note that the first point raised by my colleague Mr. Dupuis is very important. We have looked at many previous studies, from 2017 to 2021, and found that, without a funding commitment, the provinces' investments are next to nothing. So a commitment is always necessary.

Consider British Columbia, for example, whose government has made a $52-million commitment to indigenous peoples. We are very happy for them, but for francophones, the government has only committed to holding consultations.

That is why Bill C‑35 must include strong provisions relating to funding and respect for minority communities.

[Alain Dupuis]

In our brief, we propose seven amendments, but I will focus on two of them in particular.

The first pertains to clause 8 of the Bill C‑35, regarding funding commitments. It is very important that we add a provision stipulating a financial commitment to official-language minority communities. Too often, and not just in the case of early childhood, but for all programs for which there are federal transfers to the provinces and territories, the services are not actually offered because no budget or quota has been set on the basis of demographic weight.

Let us consider Mr. Racine's example, where francophones in New Brunswick account for 33% of population, but have access to just 15% of child care spaces. The federal framework legislation must stipulate a funding commitment for a number of places that is at least equivalent to the demographic weight of francophones. That said, so few places have been available to francophones over the years that there could be some catching may be needed along with a greater investment based on demographic weight.

The second amendment pertains to clause 11 of Bill C‑35, relating to the National Advisory Council on Early Learning and Child Care. We would like at least 10 of the 18 Council members to represent francophone minority communities. The Council must consider the reality of francophones outside Quebec, since it is responsible for providing a framework for all future transfer payment agreements.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you so much, Chair.

My first question is for Mr. Dupuis or Mr. Racine.

In Winnipeg, I represent a community called Winnipeg Centre, which is right next door to St. Boniface. We have an absolutely rich Franco-Manitoban community, which in fact is very much tied to the Métis community of Manitoba, and certainly the French language. The way it's been maintained in St. Boniface, which is very much an Anglo city, is pretty marvellous.

How can Bill C-35 be amended to better reflect the unique child care needs of official language minority communities, or even language minority communities?

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to all of our witnesses who are here at HUMA to discuss Bill C-35. There's a lot to learn and a lot to take in and consider as we strengthen this bill and try to close the gaps.

I'll start with Ms. Bisnath.

I found your testimony quite interesting. I know there have been a lot of parents crying publicly, both metaphorically and literally, because they cannot access child care. They've likened getting a space in $10-a-day child care to winning the lottery.

You talked a lot about the way the bill, as currently written, is non-inclusive. There are kind of winners and losers. That's perhaps an unintended consequence of the bill, but it's what's happening. If you don't have a spot, you just don't get access to child care. We've had multiple families sharing that they actually cannot go back to work. Women actually can't go back to work. It's actually hurting women more than it's helping women.

You spoke about women entrepreneurs, winners and losers, non-inclusivity and including everybody in the choice. One of the major push-backs I hear is concern that children are not for profit and that by opening up this bill to include everyone, people will profit from children.

Can you expand on that concern from some people in the sector?

[Marilou Denault]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank the committee members for inviting me to take part in your study. I am Marilou Denault and I am the Senior Advisor for Communications and Public Affairs at the Observatoire des tout‑petits. I am accompanied by Christa Japel, associate professor with the Départment d'éducation et formation spécialisées of the Université du Québec à Montréal, who will be answering your questions along with myself.

Today, I will share with you the Observatoire's two biggest concerns about the current situation in Quebec, which highlight the importance of some of the bill's guiding principles. We believe it is essential to ensure the quality of services offered throughout the network by using quality standards that are scientifically recognized, and also to improve access to good quality child care services for the very young and the must vulnerable. I will now explain in more detail why these are concerns.

Our first concern is to ensure the quality of services offered. Studies show that child care services can have a beneficial impact on child development and help reduce gaps in development between children from more privileged backgrounds and those from lower-income backgrounds when they start school. However, in order to see that positive impact, child care services have to meet certain quality standards. Given the haste to create spaces in order to meet the needs of families, we would like to remind you of the importance of using recognized quality standards that have been documented in scientific literature.

Currently, two things could, in our opinion, threaten the quality of services that we offer very young children. Firstly, the required training for educators seems to have been reduced by measures that are meant to help ease staffing issues. I am referring to qualified temporary replacement staff, who only need to complete 25 of the 91 training units on childhood education techniques. And yet studies show that educators who are better trained are more sensitive to the needs of children interact more with them and provide better care and a variety of educational activities that are age appropriate.

There is also the issue of staff turnover, which has come out as one of the main concerns of parents in Quebec in a recent study done by the Institut de la statistique du Québec. Studies show that children who have been exposed to more frequent staff changes interact less with adults and will get lower scores in language skills tests.

Our second big concern is improving access to services for the most vulnerable children. We all know that many children are waiting for a space, indeed in Quebec alone 32,000 children are currently on waiting lists. We believe that some children are worthy of special attention, i.e., children from underprivileged backgrounds, children of immigrants and those that have special needs. These children are doubly vulnerable, because they are the ones who are living in conditions that are more difficult and would benefit more from quality child care services. Unfortunately in Quebec, these are the same children that often find themselves in daycares where the services are of lesser quality. These children and their families face geographical, financial, linguistic and administrative hurdles, to name a few. For example, services are sometimes not adapted to the needs of a handicapped child, or opening hours don't meet the needs of a parent who has an atypical schedule and works evenings and weekends. We believe it is essential to take these hurdles into account within existing daycares, but also for any new spaces that will be created.

We would also remind you that working within the community and with community organizations are proven strategies that allow us to better reach vulnerable families. These families have difficulty accessing child care spaces, which means their children change daycares often, which has an impact on the quality of the relationship that the children develop with the educators, the sought-after stability that is very important for a young child. Moreover, according to a survey done in Quebec, once these children reach school age, those who have been to three or more daycares are more likely to be vulnerable.

In conclusion, we hope that the challenges described today will be taken into account by the committee in its study on Bill C‑35. I would like to finish by highlighting the need to invest in the development of nonprofit services over the next few years. The networks that will be set up by the provinces must also have quality indicators and provide proof of the efficiency of the strategies used to reach vulnerable families.

Thank you very much.

[Jean-Luc Racine, Representative, Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada]

Why are we lacking early learning services in French? The Commission nationale des parents francophones has submitted a brief to the committee which lays out the problem and recommends some solutions. Basically, the problem lies with the agreements signed with the provinces and territories providing for a national child care program. These agreements do include language clauses, but the provincial and territorial action plans are vague and don't provide much of a framework for access to child care in French.

We are therefore seeing situations such as the one in Alberta, where only 19 out of 1,500 new child care spaces will go to the francophone community. In New Brunswick, the only officially bilingual province, only 300 spaces out of 1,900 will be set aside for francophones.

As it is currently drafted, Bill C‑35 will worsen existing systemic inequalities. We know that that was not the intention of Parliament nor of the government. We know that you want what is best for our children. That is why we are counting on the committee's collective wisdom to make the seven amendments to the bill that we recommend in our brief.

Our three main requests are the following: recognizing official language minority communities in the preamble, the definitions and other parts of the bill; including in the funding guidelines specific provisions for the establishment and expansion of child care services in French in nine provinces and three territories, excluding Quebec; and providing for representation of minority francophone communities on the national advisory council. These amendments will give a voice to francophones in all their diversity and ensure that francophones will be taken into account when decisions are made concerning early childhood services.

The federal budget that was tabled a few days ago explicitly recognizes that our two official languages are not on an equal footing and that the demographic weight of francophone minority communities is being eroded. Thanks to this bill, you, as parliamentarians, have the ability to change the situation for an entire generation of francophone children. It is vital that you seize the opportunity.