On the first point, you draw a parallel with the Quebec child care system. One of the reasons the Quebec child care system that was introduced in the nineties was so successful was that a government decided to spend money and transfer money directly to child care providers. Essentially the government decided to take the provision of child care “off the market” and to treat child care as a service that a government should fund and provide for.
Since the service was funded directly, the cost of child care to the parent could be reduced and regulated. This is what we would like to see across the country, direct funding of services as opposed to money transferred into the hands of some parents, not all parents, through a subsidy of sorts to help parents pay.
Giving parents some government help in the form of fee subsidies doesn't actually create child care spaces. We're in a situation across Canada of having a shortage of spaces, and the costs are too high.
That's why, in our plan, we say that the government should look at the issues of availability and cost simultaneously. It can't do one without the other.
With respect to what child care providers need, one of the big problems we're facing right now is a shortage of early childhood educators. There is a shortage of early childhood educators because the wages are so poor and the working conditions are so difficult.
Many early childhood educators are working for minimum wage, but increasingly government regulation requires a fairly high level of education to be able to work as an early childhood educator. We support high qualifications of educators. We think early childhood educator should be considered a profession and that educators should be trained, but in return they need to receive proper compensation.
When you ask why we don't have a child care system, it was first recommended by the Royal Commission on the Status of Women more than 50 years ago. I would turn that question back to members of the committee and members of the House of Parliament: For 50 years it's been recommended over and over again. Why have you not acted?