Good day. My name is Jody Dallaire. I will be making my presentation in both English and French.
Since committee members have received a copy of our submission, I won't get into the specifics. I will however, give you the highlights and conclude by saying a few words about new research findings that have just been published.
I want to thank you for the opportunity to present this morning. Members of our organization, mostly volunteers, have been presenting to the Standing Committee on Finance over the past 25 years. Personally, I have been presenting to members of this committee since 2001.
Every year we deliver a consistent message to government: investments in child care programs, if they are accountable, benefit children and their parents' labour force attachment and contribute to reducing poverty. This is in addition to the short-term economic stimulus provided by this investment.
This year our presentation focuses on two recommendations that go to the heart of the questions being examined by this committee. First, what federal tax and program spending measures are needed to ensure prosperity and a sustainable future for Canada? Second, what federal stimulus measures have been effective, and how might relatively ineffective measures be changed?
Regarding the first question, we recommend that the government commit in the 2010 budget to new transfer payments to the provinces and territories for child care services. We further recommend that these payments be conditional upon the government putting forward a plan, with measurable targets and timelines for improving access to quality, affordable child care services.
When it comes to the second question, effectiveness of investments, we recommend that the federal government use international agreed-upon child care service outcome measures of quality, availability of services, and affordability.
Canada has consistently finished last of all developed nations when it comes to these performance measures, as measured in reports released by the OECD, UNICEF, and Save the Children. Hence, our organization calls on the federal government to cease its misleading claims regarding current child care spending.
It is fundamentally incorrect to describe the $5.9 billion, primarily in the form of tax measures and unaccountable transfers, as annual federal funding for early learning and child care. More than $1.5 billion of this amount is in tax deductions for families with children, with no link to child care spending. More than $1.1 billion is in transfers to provinces and territories, which, again, have no child care spending provisions, as confirmed by Canada’s Auditor General.
The last chunk of the spending that the government takes credit for, approximately $2.5 billion, comes in the form of the so-called universal child care benefit. Again, this program has nothing specifically to do with child care. The federal government takes no responsibility for ensuring that child care services actually exist, leaving it to individual families to negotiate markets that have repeatedly failed to deliver the access, affordability, and quality that they require. As we now demand some public responsibility for the economy, we must also abandon this failed market approach to child care policy. We do not give people transportation allowances hoping that they will build transportation systems. It won't work for child care either.
In this last portion, I want to take the opportunity to highlight some of the most recent research that has come out.
Robert Fairholm, an economist with the Centre for Spatial Economics, recently released a report on workforce shortages. He found the following.
Child care services help to bolster the economy. Every dollar invested in child care services represents an additional $2.30 for the economy—in effect acting as a short-term economic stimulus. For example, an investment of $1 million in child care services generates $40 million, or 40% more than in other sectors, and four times as much as in the construction sector. Child care services pay for themselves, and then some. Every dollar invested in child care generates $2.54 in long-term economic spinoffs.
In short, child care services are a good investment. Research has also shown that these services stimulate the economy in the short term. Thank you.