Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The New Brunswick Childcare Coalition is happy to appear before the Standing Committee on Finance .
The Coalition is a nonprofit membership-based organization that includes individuals and organizations from across the province. We promote high quality, accessible, nonprofit childcare services provided by trained and well-paid staff for all children and parents in the province who want or need them. We are affiliated to the Childcare Advocacy Association of Canada, a national organization.
In order for Canada to prosper in the world today and in the future, it is necessary that we invest in our full potential. It is especially critical that we offer adequate support to ensure that children acquire the foundations for lifelong health, learning, and skill development.
As is already recognized in most other developed countries, quality child care programs help build these foundations and also help support ongoing learning, skill development, and labour force attachment for the parents. Public investments that improve access to quality child care services are affordable because these benefits significantly outweigh the costs involved.
As the Standing Committee on Finance conducts prebudget consultations clearly focused on Canada's place in a competitive world, we want to offer the following recommendations: the government should invest in quality childcare services providing support to children, families and communities, as well as to the economy, which will improve the global competitiveness of Canada.
However, the benefits of childcare will only be realized through a focused public investment strategy that ensures families' access to quality services. To build the childcare system that New Brunswickers and Canadians want and need, the New Brunswick Childcare Coalition calls on the federal government to restore and increase sustained, long-term federal funding to the provinces and territories. Federal transfers must be specifically dedicated to improving and expanding childcare services, based on provincial and territorial plans to advance quality, universal access and affordability.
Quality child care enhances the skill set and talent level of the Canadian labour force immediately and in the future. It offers parents, especially mothers, the opportunity to increase their labour force attachment and upgrade their skills while helping their young children get a healthy start, develop social skills, and build a foundation for lifelong learning.
These developmental benefits translate into greater contributions back to the community and reduce the chances that children will require targeted supports later in life. Social development and skill acquisition benefits not only citizens but also their employers. Canada's advantage in a competitive world is its people, and child care is a vital part of human capital and labour force development.
It is not surprising that the Bank of Canada's governor, David Dodge, the Vancouver Board of Trade, and a recent survey of executives in Canada's largest companies all have identified the economic importance of public investment in early learning and child care. It also helps to explain why the most comprehensive studies done show that the benefits of quality universal child care systems outweigh the cost by a factor of two to one, not including the additional benefits to children who are at risk.
The federal government is terminating the bilateral agreements that provided dedicated funding for provinces and territories to improve their child care services and replacing these funds with two piecemeal approaches: a taxable family allowance and a fiscal incentive for child care capital costs.
Though these approaches are intended to offer market-based efficiencies, years of experience and research indicate that they will not deliver the child care services we need because they are not tied to community-based strategies and therefore unlikely to respond to community-wide needs; will not create a national child care system, yet they hinder the provinces and territories in creating their own systems; and lack clear accountability for public funds. For example, what responsibility will the capital incentives recipients have to ensure access to new spaces by children with disabilities and lower-income families?
I'm going to go directly to my recommendations.