Finance Committee on May 20th, 2021

[Aden Hamza, Policy Lead, Canadian Nurses Association]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for the question.

We were, and continue to be, extremely concerned about the mental health of nurses. Throughout this third wave of the pandemic, we've seen a significant amount of stress due to the increased workload, the concern for personal and family safety, and the moral distress that nurses are experiencing. We're seeing a rising number of nursing vacancies across the country and we've been hearing a number of reports of nurses who may also plan to leave the profession due to burnout.

I think it's also worth mentioning that as we talk about recovery and the backlog that was mentioned earlier, we will need a healthy workforce to help relieve us of that treatment backlog. We are pleased to see the investments made to support nurses' and health care workers' mental health because, from what we're hearing, nurses right now are at a breaking point across the country.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you for that.

I asked the question especially because London, Ontario, where I am, is a health care community. We have two major hospitals serving not just the city but the broader southwestern Ontario region.

Thank you for your advocacy on this. It's clearly a very good step in the right direction, and when I say step in the right direction, I'm obviously talking about the budget. It's a step that builds upon previous investments that the government made earlier in its mandate, but there's certainly more to do, I think, in partnership with the provincial governments.

I want to go to Mr. Kucheran.

Sir, it's great to see you and Mr. Strickland again. I certainly remember our meeting a few months ago. I hope you're keeping well.

Mr. Kucheran, in your testimony you outlined your view on national child care and how national child care will help your members. I wonder if you could expand on that. It's not automatic for most folks to think that a national program like this, if it were to be implemented, could help so many in a variety of professions, including those in the trades.

I wonder if you could expand on that, and also look at whether or not this allows for greater participation in the trades. When there are these options in place, one would assume that the attraction and retention challenges that are faced in the sector you're representing could be addressed. I'm not saying it's panacea, but it is a measure that I think could help. I would love your thoughts on that.

[Robert Kucheran]

Thank you very much for the question.

You're absolutely right. The child care benefit program would allow more women to enter the trades, to backfill the spaces that we're losing members from through attrition. Women in the trades right now make up about 6% or 7%, and it varies for regions across Canada. The percentage right now of women who are participating is very robust. We have programs to support that. Like everything else, they need support in terms of apprenticeship and skills training and skills upgrading.

That means so much in terms of getting more people into the trades and into the trades that have careers. Day care is very expensive. When I was a young construction worker in downtown Toronto, my wife and I both worked, and one of our paycheques went to day care. That was 25 years ago, and that didn't include diapers. That was a big hurdle to overcome. This program will help the construction industry and it will help Canadians in general.

I'll defer to Sean Strickland, please.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

I'm sorry, Peter; we're going to have to move on.

I think we can get six more questioners in. We'll have Mr. Ste-Marie and Mr. Julian for two minutes, Ms. Jansen and Ms. Koutrakis for four minutes, and Mr. Fast and Mr. Fraser for three minutes each.

Go ahead, Mr. Ste-Marie.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My question is for Mr. Kucheran or Mr. Strickland. It's about employment insurance and the measures in division 36 of part 4 of Bill C-30.

Earlier today, we heard from Pierre Céré, a representative of the Conseil national des chômeurs et chômeuses. He was worried about the EI amendments, specifically, those that would apply for a one-year period beginning in September in relation to the number of benefit weeks and benefit amount. He called the measures a return to the status quo, referring to them as gaps that could hurt seasonal workers.

I believe some of the occupations you represent involve seasonal work, so I'm interested in hearing your thoughts on the EI amendments, especially in response to what Mr. Céré said.

[Robert Kucheran]

Thank you very much for the question. There are a couple of points I want to make.

Easing restrictions to get EI is so important. There's a long lag time between when you're laid off and when you actually get your first paycheque. That waiting period is a real challenge for construction workers. We applaud the government for that initiative, and we support the government for that. Anything to reduce the barriers to entering EI is very important.

Let me also touch on the EI sick benefits. We work with members who have substance abuse problems, mental health problems, and we don't have sick days. When we have problems like that, we don't get a chance to get help, or it's very difficult for us to get help. We often take painkillers or substances that help keep us on the job, and that can lead to big problems within the industry.

For the government to extend the period of sick days is very important, but again, make it easier to get sick days. I think that would go a long way to helping not only with our mental health but also with substance abuse.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you very much for that. That is a really important point, Robert.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Next is Mr. Julian, followed by Ms. Jansen.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Thanks, Mr. Chair. My question will go to Mr. Kucheran or Mr. Strickland.

Here's a shout-out to building trades members across the country, including my niece Hannah. She has just started her apprenticeship training and is excited to become part of the building trades across the country.

We know that we have the pandemic, but we also have the looming crisis in the background that is the climate crisis. The building trades issued a remarkable landmark report through the Columbia Institute back in 2017, “Jobs for Tomorrow”, about building trades and net zero. You called upon the government to make the investments required to create over a million jobs in that transition to clean energy. To date, we haven't seen the government step up in any meaningful way. This budget was a lost opportunity.

How important is it for the government to work with the building trades in the substantial investments that allow us to create the hundreds of thousands of new jobs that come with transitioning to a clean energy economy?

[Robert Kucheran]

Let me start by saying that our members, particularly in Alberta, are very concerned about transitioning from the energy sector to other sectors, so the transition is very important to us. Second, we are working with the government to identify areas in the new economy, in the green economy, to support, develop and invest in that will give us good jobs into the future, well-paying jobs into the future, and then transition existing members into those new industries.

Go ahead, Mr. Strickland, please.

[Sean Strickland]

Just quickly, we're calling on the government to form a task force on the future of energy sector jobs. We're going to do whatever we can to protect the existing jobs in the energy sector. There's a recent TD report that said we could lose up to 300,000 jobs between now and 2030 in the energy sector. We want to protect the jobs we have, but also position our industry for the future jobs in energy—small modular reactors, carbon sequestering, hydrogen.

We need to have a multisectoral approach to this, with the support of the federal government, so that we don't leave these workers behind.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you very much to you all.

Ms. Jansen, you have four minutes, followed by Ms. Koutrakis.

You are muted, Tamara. Hit it. Kick that computer.

Okay. There you go.

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

I'm having a lot of trouble with it today. I don't know what's going on.

Ms. Mrozek, I thought you hit the nail on the head with regard to the $10-a-day day care when you said that, number one, they will not be able to deliver on the promise, and number two, that we're going to get a loss of options. It's been very clear already. They did a pilot project here in B.C. and they definitely did not deliver on their promise. We ended up having the same number of spaces; some people are just paying less. Unfortunately, they tend to be those who are more upwardly mobile as compared with those who really need it.

I wonder if you could talk to that fact.

[Andrea Mrozek]

The research in Quebec has suggested that this is already happening. People of greater means are accessing the system on the backs of those who would most need it financially. I think there are various reasons for that. Ultimately, any kind of system that fails to identify those who are truly in need and creates a benefit for people who are the least in need of it strikes me as an inequitable way to provide child care.

We work with a definition of child care that says that anyone who cares for a child is doing child care. When you broaden out to look at the ecosystem of care, we don't have child care deserts across the country. We have parents, family, ethnic communities and all kinds of different care options available. They just aren't recognized by those who are strong proponents of a national day care system. I have very grave concerns about one homogeneous, universal style of system coming in and squashing the existing ecosystem of care.

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Absolutely. The term “homogeneous” has been used quite a few times with regard to a number of the programs the Liberals have put together. When I saw this one, I thought, “My goodness, it must have been some elite male politician who put it together.” I know that women's schedules are so diverse, and when you look at this, it's like....

I was speaking to a day care person here, who talked about how some day cares are open from eight to four and others from seven to six, and yet they were all pushed into the same square hole. Could you speak a little bit more to the fact that there are so many differences across Canada, and now suddenly we're going to try to squish everybody into the same box?

[Andrea Mrozek]

Yes, that's definitely a concern that I have, and I have commentary from female leaders in the construction industry who have noted that this schedule of construction makes a universal program unfeasible for women and that what they need is something more agile and flexible.

Whenever you work in a sector that is not nine to five, what we see in child care centre provision as one specific form of child care is that they generally cater to a nine-to-five work environment, which is at least part of the reason that it's inequitable and ends up funding people who earn higher wages, because these tend to be office jobs.

If you're in the retail sector or you have to do shift work or work after hours, this kind of care is not that accessible in centres right now, according to what I can see in the literature from across the country. People doing work outside of the standard work hours are going to have a hard time, I think, accessing this low-cost child care.

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

What is the better way to tackle it, then?

[Andrea Mrozek]

I truly believe that we can work with a realm of policy options, such as refundable tax credits for those using child care centres or something that could be tweaked in the provinces and be delivered more than just annually, which would provide financial relief to those most in need.

I think that money, a per child amount, allows for families to make decisions that work for them and recognizes that.... I personally don't believe that labour force participation ought to fall on the backs of the mothers of young children. I think it should be a choice that mothers make. We have data to suggest that the majority of mothers prefer to work part time or not at all and a minority of mothers who prefer to work full time. When you look at that data, a coercive measure to push mothers of young children into the labour force isn't super-helpful. It would be better to give money to families so that they could choose whichever—

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

I'm sorry; we're going to have to move on from there.

Ms. Koutrakis will be followed by Mr. Fast.

Ms. Koutrakis, you have four minutes.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses for being here this afternoon.

As an MP coming from Quebec, I am fascinated with some of the testimony that I'm listening to this afternoon on national child care.

If you want to talk about data and statistics, Quebec has probably the largest participation of women in the workforce, and a lot of that is because of our child care. Not only that, there are so many other jurisdictions that are looking to the Quebec model because it does work so well. If we want women to participate in the workforce, then we have to make absolutely certain that there is safe, affordable day care, and the Quebec model certainly demonstrates that it could be done. In fact, the U.S. is looking at the Quebec model to see how they can implement a similar program in their jurisdiction.

All you have to do is ask one of my friends. She and her husband were transferred from Montreal to Toronto, and instead of paying $10 a day, they're now paying $60 a day. It would be interesting to speak to families who have been directly affected just by simply moving from Montreal to Toronto, which I think is a great segue into my next question.

Sean Strickland, it's nice to see you again. I'm happy to see you here. I am wondering if you or Mr. Kucheran could speak on your support of the child care program and how a program like this will assist your members.

[Sean Strickland]

Thank you very much, MP Koutrakis. It's nice to see you again.

If I could just maybe pick up on Robert's comments from earlier, when you think of the national child care program, you don't naturally make a connection to construction. Certainly it will help with our efforts to get more women into the workforce. I think you're right to point out that Quebec has the largest participation rate for women across Canada, and it's because of the child care program. We support that and we see it as something that will help attract more women into construction.

I think the concerns raised around flexibility can be easily addressed by having child care centres that are open really early in the morning and late at night to accommodate for shift workers and so on.

The other thing, just picking up on what I said earlier, is that we have a challenge in attracting young people into the trades. Having access to good-quality child care will help us attract them, because they're often concerned about how they are going to manage child care when both parents are working. How are they going to manage child care when someone is working on a construction project? For example, in the big cities, construction shifts usually start at six in the morning and end at two so that the workers can get home ahead of traffic. How are you going to handle child care in that system?

I think the market will respond, based on these concerns, and provide more opportunities for women and more opportunities for shift workers and construction workers to get into the trades, for example, because they'll have assurances that safe, affordable, accessible child care is there.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Annie, you have a minute for both a question and an answer.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Thank you for your response, Sean.

My next question is for the Canadian Nurses Association, or it could be for Dr. Collins as well.

In response to the budget, I know that the Canadian Nurses Association has recognized the steps taken to implement a disaggregated data action plan to address inequalities in our society. Can you expand on the systemic inequalities in care and health outcomes faced by racialized Canadians? Can you also comment briefly on how the disaggregated data action plan will take steps to address these inequalities?

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

It will have to be brief. Go ahead, Mr. Villeneuve.