Evidence of meeting #16 for Finance in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was federal.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5:55 p.m.
Executive Director, Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada
Thank you very much.
No, it is not in fact our organization's mandate and never was our claim that we would actually create spaces. We support a public policy dialogue, give voice to those—particularly women—who do not have access to early learning and child care spaces as they're trying to achieve their own economic equality.
5:55 p.m.
Conservative
Rick Dykstra Conservative St. Catharines, ON
I appreciate your acknowledging this: that no spaces have been created.
The third question I have relates to the company Environics, which did a poll for you regarding the child care allowance. Is that correct, that you guys paid for it?
5:55 p.m.
Conservative
Rick Dykstra Conservative St. Catharines, ON
In all your requests for funding to the previous government, did you ever ask the former government for funding to do polling?
5:55 p.m.
Executive Director, Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada
No.
Let me be clear about how our organization uses our funding, because I think you're getting at some things or are making perhaps some implications that aren't quite correct.
As I said, we have agreements for all funding we receive federally for a fee for service. We have a clear outline of deliverables—research papers, consultations, and so on. We are absolutely crystal clear in our accounting of it. We have separate bank accounts; we deliver the reports we agreed to deliver. Whether or not people like what they say is another issue, but all of that is very straightforward within the parameters that are set by those programs.
The funding for the poll—incidentally, I have brought copies, if anyone is interested in having a look at it—came from donations. I'm happy to provide a clear accounting of the donations, but we have received hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations from far-reaching groups. You hear around this table how important it is to the anti-poverty movement; you hear how important it is to the nurses; you hear how important it is to parents all across this country. We receive donations as small as five dollars from child care workers who make appallingly low wages to several thousand dollars from labour groups and from other organizations.
So that is the funding. It goes in a separate bank account. That's the funding that is used to do the political lobbying, the polling, all of those kinds of things. It's funded completely separately.
6 p.m.
Conservative
Rick Dykstra Conservative St. Catharines, ON
I guess the gist of the direction I think you're suggesting is that the federal government needs to invest more money into child care, and I certainly respect that this is your position as an individual. And certainly this government has made it one of its priorities. But I would think if you're making a request or a submission here with respect to finance, it would be in all of our best interests from a federal government perspective to invest money into actually creating spaces rather than paying for advocacy to just come back to government and advocate for the very same things that in fact you're suggesting we do.
6 p.m.
Executive Director, Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada
It's such a tiny comparison, and—
6 p.m.
Conservative
Rick Dykstra Conservative St. Catharines, ON
I don't think it is. I like to think the taxpayers like to see that their money is invested into something that's going to, at the end, create something.
6 p.m.
Executive Director, Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada
Right. And actually the Canadian public has been very supportive. There's information in that polling that the Canadian public do feel it's a very good federal investment to invest in research. So in fact I would say the Canadian public is supportive of it—certainly not in exchange for creating child care spaces, but let me just point out, as you're saying your priority is to create child care spaces, that in the analysis of that there is a cut of $1 billion from communities that are already rolling things out. There are parents in Saskatchewan whose fees have been reduced through subsidies.
6 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Brian Pallister
Mr. Dykstra's time has elapsed. I'll let you work your further comments perhaps into another question, but that time has elapsed.
6 p.m.
NDP
Judy Wasylycia-Leis NDP Winnipeg North, MB
Now I've got my blood boiling so much that I don't know where to start.
There's such a misrepresentation on the issue of child care that it's.... As I said to Rick Dykstra and others before, they need to tour some of the different child care programs in this country to really appreciate what is being recommended. We just sat here in the last panel and listened to an individual from an organization called Care of the Child Coalition. I didn't hear Rick ask her any questions about where she got her money. Here we have people who suggest that on the one hand, people like Monica Lysack are talking about institutionalized day care; on the other hand, we have people like those in the Care of the Child Coalition talking about home settings with baked cookies and flower gardens.
What has to be emphasized here is that we're talking about an investment in an area that will produce options for women and families so that their children will be well cared for, whether that be in an organized child care space, a home day care setting, a rural co-op, or a workplace centre. The full range is part of what Monica is talking about, and I think Monica needs now to address, for Rick and others, the issue of what happens if we don't invest in child care that creates options for women and families so that they can use their skills to fill the skills shortage we've all heard about in terms of this competitive economy. What happens if we don't invest, and who loses, and are you prepared then?
Do you think the goal of the Conservatives is really to get women back into the home so that they can bring in cheap foreign labour without any standards? What is the real objective here? Why aren't we ensuring that people with the skills can access good child care so that they can be both good parents and good contributors to the economy?
I'm sorry for the rant, but I needed to say that for the benefit of all the child care workers out there who work so hard.
6 p.m.
Executive Director, Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada
I appreciate that. While it is a great tactic to deflect from the real issue by making insinuations about federal funding to organizations and so on, you're right--the bottom line here is what this means for Canada, for our future productivity. Is this an issue about children? Is this an issue about parents and their ability to be in the workforce? Is this about Canada's economy? Child care is about all of those things. We know that if we don't invest in Canada's future, in our children, we are going to be in trouble.
I was in Alberta recently. There were signs everywhere; 7-Eleven is offering signing bonuses to people to try to get them to work there. Their coverage for child care is among the lowest of all provinces. They're scrambling to try to figure out how to address this problem. Seventy percent of the parents of young children are in the workforce. That's the reality. We can wish something different; we can try to provide incentives for something different....
On the whole idea of funding the child, let me say that again, despite the fact that we've been characterized in the media and so on as being opposed to stay-at-home parents, the reality is that if you look through our documents over the last three decades, you will see that the CCAC has always advocated for family policy. We have supported expanded maternity and parental leave to support families to be able to stay home during those important early years.
Do we think it's a great idea to fund parents to stay home for the first five years? Sure, why not?
Why not? Because it would cost about $80 billion a year. If we can afford that, let's look at it.
I don't think so. We can't just look at the amount it would cost. If we look at the amount of the maternity and paternity benefit, we also have to look at the reduced tax contributions of those working parents. Those working parents are contributing to our economy, and with our shrinking workforce and our shrinking birth rate, we have to address those issues. We have to do that by addressing it through a very systematic approach to providing early learning and child care, both to support labour force participation as well as to ensure that our youngest citizens get a good start in life, so that we aren't investing money in health care and education to undo the damage done when we don't support families to provide the best start for children.
6:05 p.m.
NDP
Judy Wasylycia-Leis NDP Winnipeg North, MB
Thank you.
I have another question for Dennis, since I think it's a similar sort of debate we're having. I think you've come with a very noble self-evident objective, which is to make poverty history. I'd like to hear from the Conservatives sometime about whether they're on board or not, but I think the problem is that we're dealing with some different philosophies, and we've got to tackle that if we're going to get through to the Conservative government.
On the one hand, we hear from business leaders and Conservatives that the more freedom we give the rich, the better off the poor will be. That's The Economist magazine article as well--you know, the rising tide will lift all boats. This article goes on to say we might get a few out of the mud, but not much beyond that.
Dennis, you need to address for this committee the alternative vision, which means you can have a country that is not in debt, that has a healthy economy, and that still invests in programs that get people out of poverty and counters this notion that the neo-Liberals are offering us.
6:05 p.m.
Coordinator, Make Poverty History
I want to recall that in one of the earlier consultations with the finance minister, the representative of the Canadian Bankers Association was calling for an investment in child care. The reason was that a number of the leading corporations are very concerned about the looming labour shortage. Unless something is done about that...we're already seeing the evidence of the economic harm it's doing. Things like day care and things like positive incentives to help people who are now trapped in welfare to be able to move into employment are critical to the health of our economy.
When we talk about productivity, people often think of high tech. That's where we're already highly productive. Where we would realize the most bang for our buck in terms of investment and productivity is investing at the lower end. Investing in training and education and in programs that would support people at the low end would yield the most benefit in terms of improved productivity. It may be counterintuitive, but the economic research is there to back that up--
6:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Brian Pallister
Excuse me, Mr. Howlettt. Unfortunately, sir, I have to tell you that we're out of time with your response, sir.
6:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Brian Pallister
We'll move to our next questioner. That would be Mr. Alghabra. You have five minutes, sir.
6:10 p.m.
Liberal
Omar Alghabra Liberal Mississauga—Erindale, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
First, I want to say I'm really appalled by the insinuation that...instead of arguing the debate and the merit of some of the presenters here, there is insinuation or implication that they have self-interest in their point of view. In fact, if that argument is true, I would see organizations like theirs would be supporting the Conservative government's point of view because they depend from your--
6:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Brian Pallister
Mr. Alghabra, I would urge you, sir, to address your remarks to the witnesses who are here.