Thank you.
Good morning, folks. Thank you for allowing me to appear before you. I appeared before this committee some years ago regarding a fish campaign that the Public Service Alliance of Canada was promoting.
I'm here supplementing Matt's presentation from just a few moments ago, and I'd like to talk to you about child care and the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada. The PSAC is proud to join with them and lobby you for good public policy on child care.
I'm a father, and 11 years ago my wife was not able to return to work because of the lack of child care space and the competition in for-profit child care and infant care, so I have first-hand experience with this pressure that we all suffer under in Canada.
The Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada recommends that you make child care the cornerstone of family policy. You all make great policy, and sometimes policy is complex. Tax policy is complex. Over the last few weeks, Canadians and you have been embroiled in tax reform. I ask you to turn to policy about family, and realize that affordable child care is a public policy that needs your attention just as much as tax reform. We need to provide publicly funded access and support with a comprehensive, quality, inclusive program that provides a range of options not only for infant care and small child care but for after-school care as well.
It's an equality issue for you, as well. One of this government's major pillars and platforms is gender equality. I submit to you that there's no equality when those who need to get back to the workforce and contribute to their pension plans are restricted from doing so.
I'd like to summarize by supplementing the figures that Matt mentioned earlier in terms of what the Child Care Advocacy Association needs and what research shows it's time to return to, in terms of policy. With the other panel members having been dismissed, I'll borrow one of their phrases, which is that it's time to move away from a culture of “good enough”. I ask you to think that over and use that lens as well when you develop good policy for child care.
Thank you.
