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.

Canada Early Learning and Child Care Act

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am glad to hear that the member and I share an interest in early childhood learning, but I have a question for her.

Together we visited a number of remote communities in Nunavut, places with only a few hundred people. How do we make early childhood learning work in those kinds of small communities, which abound all across this country?

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

Uqaqtittiji, that is a great question. I think that is why this legislation discusses the importance of non-profit organizations in ensuring that public child care is also a priority.

All of the communities in Nunavut have schools. Some of them have spaces for Aboriginal Head Start programs. There are many communities as well with buildings that we need to ensure will provide access. I think that with more investments in ensuring that infrastructure exists, we could make sure that this bill could work for Nunavummiut.

Ultimately, we will also need to make sure that child care centres are being built in Nunavut.

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

Madam Speaker, my colleague is always very thoughtful, and I appreciate learning from her.

She did make a comment that I would like to correct on the record. I think it says it best about the difference between prioritizing and eliminating. I am going to read her a comment that Ms. Maggie Moser, director of the board of directors of the Ontario Association of Independent Childcare Centres, made at committee. She said:

Lower-income families were excluded from obtaining access to the CWELCC child care spots. Families who could already afford the fees of their centre were the ones who benefited from the rebates and discounts, while the rest were left behind on a long wait-list.

Does she recognize that the way the bill is currently written is actually hurting lower-income families?

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

Uqaqtittiji, I think that is a different type of program that she might be talking about, but it highlights the importance of Bill C-35 and why we need to nationalize child care. We need to ensure, as I have said, that those who have been excluded from accessing child care get the supports that they need.

I heard a Conservative member talking earlier about his family supporting each other in the area of child care. I question whether that member would have had that same level of support if all of their family members had been marginalized for decades, had been oppressed for decades and had been forced to experience genocide for decades. I question whether he would have had the same level of family supports that he needed to ensure child care for his family.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Madam Speaker, by establishing an early childhood education system, we are helping women return to work and also to school. We are creating an ecosystem that supports the local economy and community support.

I would like to hear what my colleague has to say about that.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

Uqaqtittiji, I think there are absolutely different views about what women can choose to do or what they do not want to do. I think raising children is such a beautiful privilege and a wonderful honour to have. I was not ever really able to be a stay-at-home mom, so I always have tremendous respect for mothers or fathers, any parent, to choose to stay at home to invest in their children's early learning.

I think that what this bill does is really focus our efforts to ensure that we are investing in children so that we can have a better Canada.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Madam Speaker, the Bloc Québécois supports the principle of Bill C-35 and will support the bill at third reading, even though it finds the bill to be ambiguous.

The bill does not comply with the distribution of powers set out in the Constitution, which clearly states that education and family policies are not under federal jurisdiction. Although the bill states that the provinces will be able to certify child care services and determine the applicable criteria, it also states that every government in Canada will have to comply with the principles set out in the multilateral early learning and child care framework.

This framework is full of good intentions and fine principles, but it is based on the federal government's supposed spending power, which Quebec does not consider legitimate or legal. One thing is clear: This bill was not tabled in the right Parliament.

I will first go into more detail about why we will nevertheless vote in favour of the bill. Then I will explain the Quebec exception and end my speech with an historical overview.

First, the bill excludes Quebec from this federalization of family policy for the next five years. In fact, the Government of Quebec will receive $6 billion in compensation for opting out of this centralist policy. In that sense, the bill respects the will of Quebec not to have the government interfere in its jurisdictions, especially since Quebec is a pioneer in child care services and a model of success, to boot.

Nevertheless, unlike Bill C‑303, the predecessor to this bill, the current version does not contain any wording on exempting Quebec. Indeed, Bill C‑303 stated the following:

4. Recognizing the unique nature of the jurisdiction of the Government of Quebec with regard to the education and development of children in Quebec society, and notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, the Government of Quebec may choose to be exempted from the application of this Act and, notwithstanding any such decision, shall receive the full transfer payment that would otherwise be paid under section 5.

The agreement concluded with the Quebec government spans a period of five years. Enshrining Quebec's full right to opt out of this program would help avoid another dispute between Quebec and Ottawa in case the federal government ever wants to interfere in Quebec's jurisdictions as it does so well.

Passing this bill would also enable Quebec to recover significant amounts that could be used to reinforce its network and improve working conditions for workers in the sector.

By allowing Quebec to withdraw with full compensation, Bill C-35 takes into account these two opposing trends in federal-provincial relations. That sort of consideration is rare at the federal level.

Outside Quebec, Ottawa is seen as the guarantor of social progress, which results in a strong tendency towards centralization. Quebec rejects that type of interference. It would be interesting if Bill C-35 were consistent with the previous version in recognizing that the Quebec government's child care expertise is unique in North America. In fact, the international community acknowledged that in 2003.

The OECD, in its study of child care in Canada at the time, mentioned the following:

[It is] important to underline…The extraordinary advance made by Quebec, which has launched one of the most ambitious and interesting early education and care policies in North America....none of these provinces showed the same clarity of vision as Quebec in addressing the needs of young children and families....

In short, to come back to Bill C-35, public officials said that the bill was drafted with respect for the provincial and territorial jurisdictions and indigenous rights.

They also stated that the bill did not impose any conditions on other levels of government. That was the main concern of some provincial governments during the consultation process. Any provision seeking to ensure that the provinces shoulder their share of the agreement would be part of the individual bilateral agreements signed with each province and territory, agreements that must be renegotiated every five years, as I mentioned previously.

Here are some interesting figures to think about. Access to low-cost regulated child care could lead to the addition of 240,000 workers to the Canadian labour market and a 1.2% increase in the GDP over 20 years. In Quebec, the money would also serve to strengthen the existing network of early childhood education services, which is grappling with a shortage of teachers.

After the committee completed its work, it became clear that the demands of the Bloc Québécois and Quebec were not heard or respected.

Throughout the study, Quebec was cited as a model. It may not be perfect, but the Quebec model was cited on numerous occasions as being a model to emulate. However, at the amendment stage, when the time came to recognize Quebec's expertise in the bill, we saw the three other parties dismiss this reality out of hand. The same thing happened to our amendments giving Quebec the option of completely withdrawing from the federal program with full financial compensation. The only place the other members were even remotely willing to mention Quebec's expertise was the preamble, which is the only place where those words would ultimately have no concrete effect on the bill.

Although Quebec does not get the option of completely withdrawing from this program with full compensation, an agreement to that effect had already been concluded between Ottawa and Quebec. Senior officials who worked on the bill also repeatedly stated, when questioned on the subject, that while nothing would prevent the federal government from imposing conditions as part of a future agreement, the bill had always been designed with the asymmetry of Quebec's reality compared to Canada's provinces in mind. The members of the Liberal government who spoke to the bill also mentioned several times that the Liberals intended to keep working with Quebec on this file. The current agreement also pleased Quebec since it did not interfere with any jurisdiction and gave the Quebec government total freedom to spend the money in whatever sectors it wanted.

Third, let us rewind to 2022, when Quebec celebrated 25 years of the family policy. On January 23, 1997, Quebec's family policy was unveiled by education minister Pauline Marois on behalf of the Parti Québécois government. It was a visionary policy that reflected the changing face of Quebec, including the increase in the number of single-parent and blended families, the growing presence of women in the workforce and the troubling rise in job insecurity.

This forward-thinking policy has allowed Quebeckers to benefit from better work-life or school-life balance and more generous maternity leave and parental leave, and it has extended family assistance programs to self-employed workers or workers with atypical schedules.

This model is an asset. It is a source of pride for the entire Quebec nation, as studies show that every dollar invested in early childhood yields about $1.75 in tax revenues, and that every dollar invested in health and in early childhood saves up to $9 in social health and legal services. Early childhood education services have also been a giant step ahead for education in Quebec. They help improve children's chances of success and keep students from dropping out. They have a positive effect on early childhood development, help identify adaptive and learning difficulties early on, and ensure greater equality of opportunities for every young Quebecker, regardless of sex, ethnic origin or social class.

In conclusion, we also believe that a true family policy is the exclusive jurisdiction of the Quebec and provincial governments. Parental leave, income support and child care networks must be integrated into a coherent whole. In our opinion, to be efficient, this network and all these family policies must be the responsibility of the Government of Quebec alone. The Constitution clearly indicates that education and family policies are not under federal jurisdiction.

One last thing: As the Standing Committee on the Status of Women has noted in more than one report, including the report on intimate partner violence I spoke about earlier in connection with another bill, by providing quality day care that is affordable and accessible to all, we are providing women with an opportunity to fulfill their professional ambitions without compromising their family responsibilities.

What is more, this bill seeks to enhance day care services by providing a safe and protective environment for young children and especially for mothers who are seeking to escape intimate partner violence. What we in the Bloc Québécois are saying is, let us do this with respect for the expertise, but above all, for Quebec's jurisdiction. We will be voting in favour of the principle of Bill C‑35.

I will end with an interesting economic fact. According to the work of Pierre Fortin, Luc Godbout and Suzie St‑Cerny, between 1998 and 2015, with Quebec's child care services taking care of all these young children, mothers' labour force participation rate increased from 66% to 79%. We implemented this feminist measure. Yes, early childhood education is a feminist policy that made it possible for women to return to the labour market, to become emancipated and to provide equal opportunities for young children.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, this is not a feminist policy. It would increase taxes on women as well as on men, and it would subsidize particular choices and not others. It would create a fiscal pressure by subsidizing people who use particular kinds of child care arrangements, and it would offer no support to shift workers, those who choose to stay at home for periods of time with their children, those who are relying on grandparents or those who are making other kinds of choices. I think a genuinely feminist policy would not say there is one way to do child care; it would say that we should be giving more money and more resources back to parents and back to families, and supporting them in making their own choices, especially in this time when we are seeing more demand for flexible work, more work from home, more web-based work and more alternatives.

Why does the Bloc not support choice in child care that would give the broadest range of options to all families and that would let women, without the fiscal pressure to make one kind of choice or another, have the resources to make the kinds of choices they want with their own families?

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Madam Speaker, with all due respect to my colleague, this whole issue of early childhood education services is a choice made by Quebec and the provinces. Quebec has chosen this model. Furthermore, this model offers more and more spaces to accommodate non-standard schedules. I am seeing more and more early childhood education centres all around me that are taking women's non-standard schedules into account. It needs to be developed further, but it is happening.

I was talking about a feminist policy. I remember very well that, during the pandemic, when women were suffering at home and I was urgently studying the pandemic's disproportionate effects on women at the Standing Committee on the Status of Women, we sometimes heard that women were faring better in Quebec. Why was that? It was because we had set up this service, which is designed not only to enable women to return to the workforce, but also to give very young children equal opportunities. This means greater social justice. I believe in these principles. In that sense, yes, this policy is—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

The hon. parliamentary secretary to the leader of the government.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, I would like to follow up with the member on that aspect. It is hard to imagine that the Conservative Party does not see the real and tangible benefits of this program, given that the Province of Quebec has had it for many years and we have seen a great deal of benefit, like more women getting engaged into the workforce. There is a wide spectrum of benefits from having this program.

I am wondering if the member could expand on why she believes the Quebec program has been as successful as it has and why it is, in fact, in Canada's best interest to try to duplicate that model nationwide.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Madam Speaker, Canada can only gain from drawing inspiration from a model implemented in Quebec.

Earlier, I ended my speech by talking about a study done by economists who found that, in only a few years, this model helped increase women's participation in the workforce from 66% to 79%. I think those numbers are striking.

Furthermore, I would say that sadly, Conservative governments have questioned bills where the federal government was drawing inspiration from what was being done in Quebec. It was Stephen Harper's government, and it is Mr. Poilièvre himself who said that, once elected to government, he would dismantle this bill—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

I remind the member that we are not supposed to refer to other members by name.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Madam Speaker, I apologize. It is late. I meant the member for Carleton.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for another inspiring and enlightening speech. I think she is absolutely right. As I was saying, the Quebec model of early childhood education centres, the CPEs, has helped people enormously. It is a great social benefit for families in Quebec.

What does my colleague think about the fact that an agreement has been reached between the federal and Quebec governments? It improves funding to perhaps add more child care spaces.

In terms of long-term federal funding, what does she think about the fact that priority has been given to public and non-profit child care facilities, and that we are trying to ensure that families across the country have access to child care?