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

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, as I indicated earlier, within the Liberal caucus there is a great sense of accomplishment on this particular file. We understand that there is a lot more to do, but I can tell the member that when we reach out to our constituents and talk to some of the child care workers and some of the parents, there is a high sense of excitement. That is why I believe this is sound legislation that should be supported by all parties of the House.

If we believe in the importance of accessibility, affordability, inclusivity and high-quality child care, then this is good legislation that will enshrine the principles of those things into law. We can then continue to work with our constituents to ensure that more jobs are created. Also, there is going to be more opportunity and more free time for people to get involved in the workforce, in volunteer work and in many other activities.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Madam Speaker, our colleague across the way made reference to a situation where one parent was working during the day and one at night, and somehow their plan made for a better quality of life. Does this $10-a-day day care apply when somebody is in the home, because people who work during the day have to sleep during the night and vice versa when we have a family with parents on double shifts?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, I am trying to be a little sympathetic to constituents of mine who have children and are not able to afford child care. For the first time, they can now look at maybe not having as much work, where one parent has to work in the evening and the other in the daytime and they are not necessarily able to make the connection they would like with their family unit.

I am suggesting that at the end of the day, this particular program, which has been achieved through a great deal of effort with different levels of government, is ultimately going to provide more opportunities that will be for the betterment of the child, the individual parent or guardian, the child care worker and Canadian society as a whole. That is the point that needs to be emphasized.

[Anna Roberts, Conservative, King—Vaughan, ON]

Madam Speaker, I rise today on behalf of my constituents of King—Vaughan.

Bill C-35, an act respecting early learning and child care in Canada, sets a vision for a Canada-wide early learning and child care system committed to ongoing collaboration with provinces and indigenous people to support efforts to “establish and maintain”. Just over 52% of Canadian children younger than six years were in licensed or unlicensed child care in 2022. This bill proposes to cut day care fees by an average of 50% by the end of 2022 and down to an average of $10 per day by 2026.

Bill C-35 is a step in the right direction. However, it is too generic and does not consider or address many obstacles that parents face when accessing child care. Affordable, quality child care is critical, but if it cannot be accessed, it does not help families. Bill C-35 is beneficial for families that already have a child care space, but it does not help the thousands of families on child care wait-lists or the operators who do not have the staff or infrastructure to offer more spaces.

I forgot to mention that I will be sharing my time with the member of Parliament for Battlefords—Lloydminster.

In Ontario alone, the Financial Accountability Office says that demand for the program will exceed the number of available spaces. The FAO estimates that by 2026, approximately 600,000 children under the age of six will have potential access to $10-a-day child care, but only 375,000 licensed child care spaces will be available. Therefore, approximately 227,000 children under the age of six will be left behind, not able to access the $10-a-day child care.

Canada needs far more child care spaces than it has, and Bill C-35 would not address the need for increased child care infrastructure. The Liberal government simply offering up grants and subsidies through Bill C-35 does neither initiate nor promote operators to step up and start up centres where they are needed.

Bill C-35 also fails to address the child care labour shortage. There is currently not enough qualified staff to keep all existing child care centres running at full capacity. Child care workers in Canada continue to leave the sector due to the low pay and poor working conditions. The majority of child care professionals are overworked and suffer burnout. The shortage of workers means that in many communities there is only one child care space available for every three children who need it and wait-lists are long.

According to the Canadian Union of Public Employees, Bill C-35 fails to address the shortage of early childhood educators and child care workers. Until the child care staffing crisis is resolved, the promise of affordable and high-quality child care for every family in Canada that needs it will remain unfulfilled.

One of Bill C-35's commitments is to provide more accessible child care to indigenous people and contribute to the implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Indigenous early learning and child care programs that focus on the languages and culture identities of first nations, Métis and Inuit communities have been found to contribute to better educational outcomes for indigenous children and help to build their language ability and sense of cultural pride. However, there is a shortage of indigenous workers trained in early childhood education in Canada, particularly because of challenges they face in acquiring training, such as cost, entrance requirements and residence in remote areas with restricted technology.

According to Statistics Canada, indigenous childhood educators and assistants and child care providers are less likely to have post-secondary education compared to their non-indigenous counterparts. Although claiming to support indigenous child care, Bill C-35 would do nothing to address the shortage in indigenous child care workers or the disparity of education between indigenous and non-indigenous child care workers.

The guiding principle of the framework for Bill C-35 heavily gives preferential treatment to public and non-for-profit day cares over small business models. This piece of the bill opens the door to a two-tier framework of child care across Canada.

Quality child care comes in all shapes and sizes. In Canada, options for child care range from nannies and home day care to day care centres, preschool programs, and before- and after-school programs. By giving preferential treatment to public and not-for-profit child care, Bill C-35 discriminates against women. The majority of child care operators are women, and the language and intent of this bill prevent any growth and opportunities for private female operators.

How would Bill C-35 assist single parents who do not have regularly scheduled nine-to-five jobs? This issue is not addressed in the bill. How does Bill C-35 address child care for children with disabilities? In British Columbia, children with disabilities are continuously left behind when it comes to child care. There is no official count on how many child care sites are accessible for kids with disabilities, because there is no provincial definition of what makes a child care site inclusive. How about grandparents who have stepped up and put their retirement on hold for their grandchildren?

The 2021 federal budget pledges $30 million in new spending on the national child care system over five years, with another $9.2 billion annually. These stats are coming from the Liberals' numbers.

Morna Ballantyne, executive director of Child Care Now, told CBC News, on the implementation of Bill C-35:

...we'd like to see...a full report on what progress has been made with respect to the system building in each jurisdiction. How many spaces have been created, where have they been created? Who's operating the spaces that have been created, what are the ages of the children being served by the new spaces?

We really think there needs to be a proper and full public accounting of how the money, the public money, has been spent.

The minister is on record saying that providing the federal government with details of the provinces' child care plans is a condition of their deals with Ottawa, but how can we trust that? This is coming from a government that has eight years of failed Liberal policy and does not hold itself accountable for it.

This is coming from the same government that spent $54 million on an ineffective ArriveCAN app and refuses to supply Canadians with a full list of all the contractors who got the money. This is coming from the same government that has $28 billion of suspicious spending and another $4.6 billion of outright waste. This is coming from the same government that failed to keep children's medication on the shelves.

Can Canada really trust the government to implement a quality child care system and ensure this federal funding is properly used? From the lack of detail in Bill C-35, I am not so trusting. Amendments need to be made to ensure all Canadians have access to quality child care.

[Ya'ara Saks, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Families]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague across the way is very fixated on details and numbers and spending. The government is supporting Ontario's efforts to grow its child care system by providing $10.2 billion over five years as part of our agreement with the Province of Ontario. In turn, Ontario has promised to create 86,000 spaces. Premier Doug Ford called it “a great deal for Ontario”. That is exactly what he said on March 31 when we announced that deal. I would like to ask if the member opposite agrees with the Premier of Ontario.

[Anna Roberts, Conservative, King—Vaughan, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am not doubting that we need to take care of our children. Our children are our future. I have no doubt of that. My question is, do we have enough staff to support these child care centres and do we have enough spaces? I have not personally seen any evidence of that. We need to ensure that all this documentation is provided to all members of this House so that we can also ensure that our children are taken care of moving forward.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from King—Vaughan, who serves alongside me on the Standing Committee on the Status of Women.

In several studies that the committee has conducted since I joined it, we have observed that Quebec has a really wonderful model that was put in place by a feminist. Pauline Marois created a unique model. The economic impact of early childhood centres in Quebec was clear in the study on the impacts of COVID-19 during the pandemic and how women were disproportionately affected, as well as in the study on invisible work, where this issue of child care also came up. Many economists will say it: This has allowed thousands of women to return to the labour market. This is crucial.

It was interesting to hear the member talk about jurisdiction. In my view, this falls under Quebec's jurisdiction. It is a model. If the rest of Canada wants to emulate it, that is fine, but Quebec has jurisdiction over this issue. Furthermore, any tax credit that might be put in place, as some Conservatives want, will never happen.

Let us remember why early childhood centres were created. It was to provide equal opportunities for young children and all women. Quebec's child care system is perfect. The rest of Canada should use it as a model, but the government needs to sign an agreement giving us the right to opt out with full compensation and giving us the money to manage the system we have in place.

[Anna Roberts, Conservative, King—Vaughan, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I enjoy working with my hon. colleague on the status of women committee. We should learn from what Quebec is doing. I have no issues with that at all.

However, we also need to ensure that, province by province, we are all different. Each province has different needs, and we need to ensure that each province will at least adhere to the principles that we know will protect our children and provide women the opportunity to make that choice, whether or not they choose to go back to work.

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member was talking about discrimination against women, and I found myself reflecting on what really does discriminate against women.

We know that what discriminates against women is not having access to public and non-profit child care that provides affordable, high-quality and accessible day care for families who need it, not day care that makes profit off the backs of parents. We also know that public and non-profit child care provides better wages and working conditions for staff, who are predominantly women.

The member is clearly very much in support of child care. How can the member justify throwing away a bill that would provide national, accessible, affordable child care for families as being in the best of interests of anybody?

[Anna Roberts, Conservative, King—Vaughan, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think the member understood what I was saying.

I am not against child care. The Conservatives are not against child care. However, what about the individuals like our grandparents who have to give up their opportunity for retirement to help raise their grandchildren? What about myself, when I was left as a young widow and did not have the choice of $10 day care? My hours were so irregular, the cost to me was out of this world. This bill does not help women who work shift work.

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

Mr. Speaker, for young families across this country, child care is a principle concern. When a child is in their care or with another, parents want to feel confident that their child is being well cared for, and that they are safe and in a healthy environment that supports their development.

Canadian families across the country should have access to affordable and quality child care. Parents should also be able to choose a child care solution that best suits them and works with their family's own unique needs. The reality is there is no one-size-fits-all child care solution.

Not only is the issue of child care important for families, but it is also a significant consideration in workforce participation. Access to child care continues to be a large barrier to workforce participation, and it cannot be overlooked as we look into addressing the labour shortages we are experiencing across industries in this country.

While there is presumably a consensus on the viewpoint that there should be accessible, affordable and flexible child care for parents throughout our country, this legislation offers no real assurances to Canadian families that there will be. The families that will benefit from this legislation are those families who have already secured a child care space in a public or not-for-profit program.

However, this legislation does nothing to help the thousands of families on child care wait-lists and those whose child care needs require more flexibility. It does nothing to help those families whose child care needs fall outside the standard hours of operation. In fact, the primary problem with this legislation is that it fails to ensure that demand can be met and that supports are flexible enough to meet the needs of all Canadian families.

Affordable, quality child care is a great concept. It is a wonderful concept, but if a parent cannot access it, then it is ultimately worthless. In laying out a vision for a Canada-wide, early learning and child care system, Bill C-35 offers Canadian families a single, just one, child care solution, and by its own design, the access is limited.

This legislation intentionally ignores an entire section of the child care landscape, which is critical to meeting demand. The Liberal-NDP government is shutting private operators, who tend to be women-owned small businesses, out of its plan. It fails to even ensure them a seat at the table.

There is no representation for these women-owned small businesses in the makeup of the proposed national advisory council on early learning and child care. In addition to public child care programs, these women-owned small business operators are critical to meeting the growing demand for child care spaces, not to mention that, by limiting supports to public and not-for-profit child care programs, this will drive up the demand for child care spaces in these programs where the wait-lists already exist.

We know that wait-lists already exist because there is not necessarily the staff or infrastructure put in place to offer more child care spaces. This legislation does not solve the issue of recruitment or that of retention in the early learning and child care sector. It does not answer the pressing question of who will staff these programs.

Report after report indicates that early childhood educators are overwhelmed and burnt out, and that there is a steady stream of early childhood educators leaving the profession. There have been operators who have had to close their doors at times because there was not necessarily enough staff to operate.

To ensure that the government is delivering more than just announcements to Canadians, the government needs to deliver a tangible plan, in partnership with our provinces, to recruit and retain labour. That plan should engage all child care providers.

With limited resources, it does not make sense to shut out these women-owned small businesses from this solution, nor should the government be putting these entrepreneurs at a disadvantage. These child care providers should be able to operate in a fair market.

Without a real plan to address the existing challenges in child care, access to child care will never really be achieved. If the goal is truly to deliver universal access to child care, child care policy also needs to be comprehensive.

However, the government's vision for child care policy is limited. For one, it fails to acknowledge that not all parents have a standard work schedule. The reality is that standard child care operating hours do not meet the needs of most shift workers. Parents who work early mornings, evenings, nights, weekends, statutory holidays, casual shifts or any other irregular shifts are largely being left behind. By focusing child care supports on programs that do not offer any real kind of child care solution to families with non-standard work schedules, there is a massive gap in the NDP-Liberal government's child care policy. It is not a universal solution.

The NDP-Liberal government also purports to be addressing affordability through the creation of a $10-a-day child care program, but that is not entirely accurate either. As I have mentioned, the only families who are benefiting from the cuts to child care costs are those who already have child care spaces in eligible public and not-for-profit programs.

We are now hearing reports of operators who are struggling with the skyrocketing cost of living in the country. These operators, like all Canadians, are seeing the cost of everything climb. Many who offer food programs are now having to consider whether they are going to cut these programs entirely or charge parents additional costs to keep them running.

Either these parents are getting fewer services from their child care providers or some of those savings will ultimately be lost. Of course, for those parents who cannot access a child care space, they are not benefiting from these savings, but are still struggling under the pressures of the rising costs.

In fact, I was listening to the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development's speech earlier in the debate today. She highlighted that she had heard from parents who could now afford their mortgage payment because their child care fees were reduced and other parents who could afford groceries for their family because of the reduction in child care fees. Well, she was quite proud of that achievement, and it really points to a bigger problem, a problem that is her own government's doing. Canadians are paying the price for this costly coalition's tax-and-spend agenda. The NDP-Liberal government needs to take affordability seriously.

Canada's food price report has reported that the average family of four is expected to spend $1000 more than it did last year on groceries. Meanwhile, surveys are already reporting that 52% of Canadian families are concerned that they do not have enough money to feed their families. We are now seeing record usage of food banks across the country.

The cost of basic necessities is becoming out of reach for more and more Canadians, and the Liberal government's addition of half a trillion dollars in federal debt has led to the 40-year-high inflation rates that we are seeing now. Its continued deficit spending is fuelling inflation and Canadians are paying more in taxes than ever before.

We know that parents are stretching their dollars as far as they can go, but that is becoming less and less fruitful. Those parents who are shut out of the child care program because they cannot access it or because it does not meet their needs do not share the minister's elation.

The driving force behind the skyrocketing cost of living crisis needs to be addressed to really help Canadian families who are struggling to make ends meet and, ultimately, if we want to help Canadian families with the cost of child care, we need to ensure that child care is first available. Child care is unique to each family, and a federal child care policy should reflect that.

Bill C-35 is a flawed piece of legislation. Its approach to child care is narrow and it does not provide Canadian families the assurances that their child care needs would be met. I hope that the NDP-Liberal government is prepared to make some amendments and listen to this—

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

It is time for questions and comments.

The hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons (Senate)]

Mr. Speaker, there has been a lot of discussion today. We have been anxiously trying to get a position from the Conservative Party on whether it supports this or not. When we imply that it does not, the Conservatives heckle from across the way, saying, “How do you know what our position is?” If the Conservatives do end up supporting this, it will be a complete about-face.

Let us listen to how the Leader of the Opposition responded when he was asked, “when you say about cutting the supplementary spending, in your view does that include the newly signed child care agreements with most of the provinces?” The Leader of the Opposition said, “We've said we do not believe in a $100-billion slush fund”. He literally referred to the child care money as a slush fund.

He further went on to tweet on November 30, 2020, “Why should Justin Trudeau”, sorry, the Prime Minister, “get to force parents to pay through taxes for his government daycare scheme, instead of letting them choose what's best for their own kids?”

Therefore, if the Conservatives do support this, it will be a complete about-face. I wonder if the member could enlighten the House on what the Conservative Party's position is.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

Before we go to the answer, I just need to remind members not to use member's proper names in the chamber. I know the member corrected himself, so I want to thank him for that.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The member opposite was using a tone that was unparliamentary. We can hear him quite fine. He does not need to yell. Therefore, I would like to make sure that he carries on with the decorum of this place.