Evidence of meeting #31 for Finance in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was manitoba.
11:35 a.m.
Conservative
Dean Del Mastro Conservative Peterborough, ON
I would suggest that's not correct, because the CAW specifically came out--and they're amongst the most conservative of the spending analysts--and said that to provide what Ms. Pagan has suggested, a universal child care system, costs right now are pegged at $13 billion. So with inflation, 1% of GDP might be $10 billion, so it might be half of what you're actually looking for.
So if we're going to commit that much, where do you propose we cut from? Or how do we fund it?
11:35 a.m.
President, Manitoba Child Care Association
I would say there's a cost to not funding it. Certainly I would say that the OECD is making recommendations as well. These are not recommendations that we come up with on our own. So certainly we understand what the implications are of a well-funded, well-rounded system that's equitable across the country. So at this point, that's the focus we're looking at.
11:35 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Brian Pallister
Thank you, Mr. Del Mastro.
Ms. Ohlson, thank you very much.
We'll continue with Madam Wasylycia-Leis.
11:35 a.m.
NDP
Judy Wasylycia-Leis NDP Winnipeg North, MB
Thank you. May I have a point of order first?
Mr. Chair, first of all, I won't get another chance to thank you for inviting us here this morning. I had a wonderful time, and I wanted to let you know that when we went to the Chinese restaurant you recommended last night, something very interesting happened. I received a fortune in my fortune cookie that said, “Do not hide your feelings. Let others know where you stand.”
So, Mr. Chair, I want to do just that, because I'm not accustomed to showing my feelings.
And I want to focus on this issue of child care because in fact--
11:35 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Brian Pallister
Ms. Wasylycia-Leis, would you like a ruling on the point of order?
11:35 a.m.
An hon. member
It's a point of order that that's actually not true.
11:35 a.m.
NDP
Judy Wasylycia-Leis NDP Winnipeg North, MB
If that means you're going to give me an extra five minutes, sure.
11:35 a.m.
Conservative
11:35 a.m.
NDP
Judy Wasylycia-Leis NDP Winnipeg North, MB
Child care is, I think, one of the biggest issues we're facing. I think Dr. Visentin from Brandon University said it all. At an earlier panel, he said all our focus is wasted if we're not going to deal with kids aged zero to twelve.
I think there's every bit of evidence to suggest, contrary to Dean's comments, that in fact, if we get to 1% of GDP, we're getting there, and at least we're not sitting at 0.25%. In fact, if we planned this, it would cost $1.2 billion annually just to get to that over 20 years. We can do it. It's not impossible. Yet we can't seem to get through to these Conservatives. We've been on the road for a week. We've been having hearings for three weeks. We can't seem to convince them that it's absolutely a public policy imperative.
So I want Gay and Karen and Debra and Susan and Donna to get through to the Conservatives for me. Why do we have to do this now?
Gay, do you want to start, and then we'll go around.
11:35 a.m.
Organizer, Manitoba Government and General Employees Union
It's interesting. I received a number of items in the mail the other day talking about crime and how we can tackle crime. What we need to look at is dealing with children in their formative years so that, if we invest in child care now, we're not going to be investing in tackling crime in years to come. Every dollar invested means $2 to $4 returned in the health, education, or justice system. So instead of sending these flyers around, let's send flyers around that deal with children in their formative years, and not only in their formative years--because those are ages one to six--but until they are twelve, because you can't leave a nine-year-old at home by themselves. I have a nine-year-old. I can't get day care in my area, and being a single parent, I need to find something. So let's look at dealing with child care.
11:35 a.m.
Member, Steering Committee, Child Care Coalition of Manitoba
I'd like to ensure that your committee knows three important economic facts: one comes out of a 1998 study done by University of Toronto economists Gordon Cleveland and Michael Krashinsky, who tell us that there's a 2:1 return for every dollar spent on child care. That's a long-term cost.
Evidence from Quebec's experiment, the wonderful program that's made so much progress, tells us that 40% of the cost of Quebec's child care system is recouped the following year in increased taxes. That comes from Lefebvre and Merrigan.
Finally, the study that we were able to do in Winnipeg in 2004 tells us that every dollar spent on child care in Winnipeg that year returned $1.38 to the Winnipeg economy and a $1.45 to Canada.
These are prudent investments in Canada's economic infrastructure and competitiveness, and they tell us that the cost of child care is largely returned to Canadians at par and possibly even more than par.
11:40 a.m.
Project Manager, SpeciaLink
So that may be of interest to you folks that are here from the investment industry, as well, because there aren't very many investments out there that give you that kind of return.
Judy, I think your question about how we help the Conservative members understand the child care dilemma that we face really goes to people's familiarity with the kind of child care that we're talking about.
Mr. Pallister, you're here from Central Region. You know very well the excellence of the child care program that has developed here in Manitoba. It has developed over the years through various partnerships between the federal and provincial government, but overarching that has been a framework in which there has been broad agreement across Manitoba about what kinds of services we want for children and families.
So here in Manitoba, we have a system that includes part-time care for families that are at home. We have extended-hour care. We have seasonal care. We have care in northern and first nations communities, work site programs, etc. So we have a much broader base of public support and familiarity with that.
Sadly, grown-ups lose the ability to imagine something they've never seen, unlike children, who are great at pretending all the time. So I would really say, while the Conservative members are imported here, they should take the opportunity to maybe visit some of the excellent child care programs that are right here in this community. We have an extended-hour program--actually, the director is sitting in the audience--right here in Portage that's been running for many years to meet the needs of families for evening care. Come by for a visit and really take the opportunity to see what excellent kinds of programs are at work in this province for rural families and for families that need extended care, part-time care, etc.
11:40 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Brian Pallister
Thank you.
I'm sorry, Judy, your time is up.
And thank you for employing my niece, as well. I appreciate that very much.
We'll continue now with Mike Savage.
11:40 a.m.
Liberal
Michael Savage Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to all the panellists.
I want to save a little time for a question for you, Mr. Cenerini, because you're into an area that is important to me, the health promotion act.
I also want to talk about child care, since we have four or five experts here.
Ms. Pagan, I am little surprised to hear you commend the government's contribution of $1,200 to families through the universal child care benefit. As we go around the country, one of the things we're doing is making choices. We're prioritizing, because we can't do everything. In light of the fact that people at the Caledon Institute, for example, have done work indicating that the $1,200 is disproportionately going to higher-income single families as opposed to lower-income families--in fact, the $200,000 single earner keeps more than the $30,000 dual-income--I am surprised that you would think this is a good first step.
11:40 a.m.
Organizer, Manitoba Government and General Employees Union
It is a first step. Further to that, as I said, we need to do much more. Families need help in the area of early childhood education.
So I don't agree with this issue, but I think it's giving.... You're looking at child care in some formal way, but it does need to be looked at a lot more.
11:40 a.m.
Liberal
Michael Savage Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
Yes, but the people who....
I'd be interested in the point of view of others. Do you think we should have both a universal child care program and a universal child care benefit payment?
11:40 a.m.
Manitoba, Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada
I'm thinking of my four daughters--one who wants to be a lawyer, one who wants to be a vet, one who wants to be a doctor, and one who just wants to be a mom. While I appreciate the $100 or maybe $60 a month that I'm getting, it's not going to do Phoebe any good when she is trying to be a mom and maybe work part time. If she has an emergency and is in the hospital, where is she going to find child care that she can use?
The $100 isn't doing the system any good, in that sense.
11:40 a.m.
President, Manitoba Child Care Association
I can give you another example.
I do this position as a volunteer, but I have paid employment as an executive director of a child care program in Winnipeg. I had a call one day a couple of weeks ago, just as I was leaving, from a very distraught father. He said, “I've never needed child care before, but I just had a shift change, and I need a space for my child on Monday.”
Well, this was Thursday afternoon, and he thought he was really ahead of the game. He thought by calling and booking time a day early, it would give him the chance to come and visit the centre. But I had to tell him we had a waiting list, which, depending on the age of the child--his child was three--would probably be about two years. He couldn't believe it.
So for him, the $100 didn't make a lick of difference. He might have had it in his pocket, but he couldn't pay a dime of it on child care. He needed child care when he needed it, and that was Monday, not two years from Monday.
11:45 a.m.
Liberal
Michael Savage Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
That goes to my point, that it's not just a matter that both are good and that we'd like to have both. There is only so much money.
Again, let me ask the child care folks, would you have preferred that it be delivered through the child tax benefit, or at least through the low-income supplement of the child tax benefit?
11:45 a.m.
Organizer, Manitoba Government and General Employees Union
I would have preferred that the national child care program be kept.
11:45 a.m.
Project Manager, SpeciaLink
If there is going to be a benefit directly to families, then certainly it's always been the position of the child care movement that child care is just one piece of a family policy to make sure that money is flowing in a way that is non-taxable, that does not penalize low incomes, that really is there to provide support for all families.
Many countries are able to offer that kind of direct family support and also do a universal early learning system. There isn't really a reason why we can't do both.
Again, it's a matter of prioritizing and taking a look at other budget areas. Perhaps we don't need to spend quite as much on letters going out congratulating the new government on the fact that families are getting the cheque. We can take that $2 million and put it directly into services.