Thank you, members of the committee and Mr. Chairman.
I'm Martha Friendly, executive director of the Childcare Resource and Research Unit, which is a small policy research institute.
Actually, the August pre-budget brief of my group shows in detail how universal child care is essential to Canada's competitiveness, and why gender equality isn't possible without accessible quality child care for all. Further, not only is child care fundamental for women's economic security but Canada overall would derive substantial benefits by strengthening it. These arguments have been around for many years since the Royal Commission on the Status of Women argued the same back in 1970, but today we have abundant evidence to back these arguments up. In the written handout I've given you, I've described four recent studies making these points, but in the interest of time I won't read them. I'll be happy to answer some questions about them if you have them.
I want to start by saying that it's most welcome that the current government has re-engaged in child care. I commend the federal, provincial and territorial governments for crafting last year's multilateral agreement on early learning and child care for the federal budget commitment and the three-year action plans across Canada. I especially want to recognize the recently completed indigenous-led early learning and child care framework that's intended to address the needs and aspirations of indigenous communities. These were welcome and significant first steps in a multi-year process for building a high-quality, affordable, early learning and child care system to meet multiple goals: women's equality and economic security, children's well-being and development, and other social goals such as poverty reduction and social inclusion.
But I want to focus on the next phase of taking child care forward to become, as the 2016 federal budget called it, more than a convenience but a necessity. Looking to the end of the first three-year agreements under the multilateral framework, I want to note that these are a starting place. They set out the shared principles of accessibility, affordability, quality and inclusion, but they're not yet accompanied by sufficient federal funds or by the evidence-based implementation plans that are needed to deliver on their potential.
Thus I'm going to put forward three recommendations needed to move early learning and child care to success in the next phase. This process, by the way, should begin this coming year.
First of all, the current annual commitments do not ramp up adequately to account for the need for substantial service expansion. A gradual year-by-year increase in transfer payments to provinces, territories and indigenous communities is absolutely needed to support the service expansion that's needed to achieve any kind of reasonable accessibility. We recommend an allocation of $1 billion in 2019 with and additional $1 billion in each following year until accessibility targets are reached. Annual spending on a mature child care program reaches the international minimum benchmark of 1% of GDP about a year from now.
Second, to ensure that the substantial public funds are used effectively, we are calling for plans to operationalize the multilateral frameworks that are based on the best available evidence, and for these to be developed collaboratively by governments at all levels, with the full use of the expertise of the child care sector and the community of researchers.
Third, to support development of provincial-territorial child care systems across Canada, we envision a solid system-building strategy, again developed collaboratively and based on best evidence. At a minimum this should include first of all a child care workforce strategy, and, second, the creation of the much-needed infrastructure to support development of child care services and policy development. I would suggest that the federal government develop an early learning and child care secretariat to organize the collaboration on policy development, research and data, best practices, and innovation that are very much needed. The system-building also needs to reinstate the federal funding to rebuild the child care community's capacity, including the child care organizations that have long provided much of the infrastructure for child care across Canada.
Fourth, all of us most welcome that funds for a fourth system-building element, an early learning and child care data strategy, have already been committed in the 2017 federal budget.
In conclusion, I just want to emphasize that when we make progress towards gender equality, everyone benefits. But progress towards gender equality and its benefits for everyone are going to continue to be impeded if we don't develop the universally accessible child care system that has so long been elusive for most Canadians.
Thank you.