Thank you very much for allowing us to present our ideas.
I'm here on behalf of the B.C. Child Care Advocacy Forum. As our brief outlines, we are an alliance of six provincial organizations that bring together thousands of parents, caregivers, professional groups, and concerned citizens on child care in this province.
As our brief outlines, we know and the research confirms that child care is a multi-purpose program that supports social and economic goals, but given the focus of this year's pre-budget consultation and the focus of this committee, our brief and my even briefer comments are going to focus on the reasons that child care is part of the solution for Canada's place in a competitive world.
I want to briefly make four points.
The first is that the Canadian economy currently faces a growing labour shortage. This labour shortage has to some degree been offset over the last two decades by the unprecedented entry of mothers of young children into the Canadian labour force. Families and the economy are dependent on and count on women's economic participation, but without investments to support women's essential role in the home and in the labour force, the shortage will only worsen. Access to child care is part of the solution to this problem.
Secondly, the committee is concerned about a healthy and skilled workforce. The research is absolutely clear that the quality of the experience that children have in their early years matters. Our key trading partners recognize this and make significant investments in early childhood services. The recent OECD report highlights this and indicates that Canada is at the bottom of 14 OECD countries in terms of public expenditures on services for young children. Quality child care is clearly part of the solution to a healthy and skilled citizenry.
Thirdly, child care is part of the solution to regional and local economic development. A series of cost-benefit studies demonstrate a benefit over cost in public investment in child care, and those don't even take into account the regional and local stimulant. We know that given the small-scale nature of most child care and the wages paid in child care, these dollars are spent in the community. So investment in child care is part of the solution to regional economic development.
Finally, we would suggest that the market approach to child care, which has been evident in this country for over 30 years, has not worked. Families do not have access to the services they need, and those who do are paying more for early childhood than for university. The reason for this is that the broad social and economic benefits of child care are beyond the ability of individual families to pay. We are asking them to make the highest expenditure at the time in their life when they're earning the least. Focused public investment in quality, accessible, affordable child care is part of the solution.
Our recommendations to the committee are the same as they've been in our previous submissions. We're looking for federal sustained multi-year funding that moves child care away from a user fee system to a publicly funded one. As a starting point, we're asking for a $5 billion commitment over five years, tied to provincial and territorial action plans.
Thank you.