Procedure and House Affairs Committee on April 21st, 2016

[Roger Thompson]

—I've never understood why they were closed, because everybody needs to eat. I never understood why we—I'm sorry, I don't mean to say this—only cater to the MPs for these things and why they shut down.

Look at Christmas time; there are employees at all of the satellite sites on the Hill, employees who work at 131 or 181 Queen Street. When the MPs are not around, these employees need to eat, and when the cafeterias are closed.... There may be one or two cafeterias that stay open, and therefore for the employees, there are not enough of them open.

To be honest, yes, they could, but I'm not in management, so I don't....

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

No, that's a fair comment. I appreciate it.

Here is another question, again on House of Commons administration, effectively. At least two of you have kids; I don't know whether the rest of you have. When you had young children on the Hill, did you try to use the House of Commons' own day care? What kind of process was it? Why did you or didn't you?

[Tara Hogeterp]

I had both my kids at the Parliament Hill day care. I actually sat on the board of the day care, so I have a little bit of knowledge about the Hill day care.

With my first child, I did not realize that I needed to put her on a waiting list when I was pregnant, so she did not get to go to the Children on the Hill Day Care until a year later. I had to find alternative care until we were able to get a spot.

Once she had a spot, her sibling, my son, was automatically put on the list and given priority, so he was able to get a spot. However, at the Hill day care, they don't have the facilities to have children under 18 months. My maternity leave was only one year, so there was a six-month gap before I could potentially get a spot. For those six months, I had to take two months unpaid, and then I found a nanny for four months. My daughter still was going while my younger child was with a nanny full-time, so we ended up paying double.

I know that if you get a spot and your spot becomes available but your child isn't 18 months yet, you are required to pay to hold your spot, or else you lose it and it will go to someone else.

It's very much “in demand” day care, and it's a lovely place, and I loved having my children there. It was so wonderful to be able to drop them off at work, and my kids still talk about “remember when I saw you on...?”—and he's, what, six and she's eight. So they still remember. My kids could pronounce the word “parliament” way before most kids could pronounce the word “boat”.

Coming here and seeing them on the Hill, it's really quite an honour to have that chance, and the day care is wonderful, but they don't have the capacity to take on more children because of the limited space. Also, for the day care to run, they need outdoor space. They're really limited.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

We have a nice, big front lawn over there.

[Tara Hogeterp]

Yes, yes; however, there's a question of privacy for the children, though they literally get tugged around, and they are trained to say “no pictures” to the tourists. It's quite cute.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Fair enough; I understand.

Going beyond what you're able to accomplish on the board—going beyond that mandate—how would you see improvements to the day care. What kinds of improvements would you like to see? And what direction should it be heading in, in your view?

[Tara Hogeterp]

I'm not here representing the day care, so this would be just my opinion, but I would love to have that day care able to take on MPs' needs and staff's needs by having it accessible at 12 months rather than 18 months. That would be ideal, because that six-month gap can be quite challenging for a family.

I remember that wait list being a real challenge, so we need to make sure that MPs know, when they become MPs, that if they're thinking about having children or once they have children, they need to get their names on that waiting list right away.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

That's fair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you. That's your time.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

That answers that question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Mr. Schmale.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the conversation we're having today with former staff. I am one of the five, I believe, is the number we finalized on, former staffers both on the Hill and in the riding. It's good to hear the opinions coming from other staffers.

I just want to confirm—my memory is short on this—whether the day care here on the Hill is run by a private company or Hill staff.

[Tara Hogeterp]

Neither; it's a non-profit. It has a board of directors who run the day care.

I think it's at the pleasure of the Speaker that it exists. It was a long, hard-fought process by staffers—not necessarily political staffers, but people who worked on the Hill—who lobbied to have this day care created in, I believe, the eighties. I am pretty sure it was the eighties.

There are some resources provided by the House, basically to allow for the space, but everything is run by the fees collected from the parents.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

I've got that.

Well, I think what we're experiencing with the day care is something that most Canadians are dealing with. When I went to register my son, I did it before he was born, and there was a waiting list. We checked out...I can't remember how many, but only one that we could identify that actually took a child under 18 months, which is quite troublesome when you're trying to scramble to get everything organized.

Is it the ratio that's the issue in terms of getting a provider in to look after children less than 18 months old? Is the instructor-to-child ratio the issue?

[Tara Hogeterp]

There is an issue with the ratio and also the physical space, because children under 18 months require additional nap time, and there are also other requirements of the Ontario ministry for those children: there are requirements for change tables and certain elements. There's not enough space at the day care to accommodate that second, or essentially a third group, which would be the under-18 months.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

I'm assuming it's an “if you build it, they will come” sort of thing. I'm assuming that if it were started up, if we're able to move on this and this happens, there would be, from the conversations we've had in previous meetings, a lot of interest in changing that requirement and that kind of roadblock for many people.

[Tara Hogeterp]

I assume there wouldn't be any difficulty filling the spaces.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

That's what I'm hearing.

[Tara Hogeterp]

The day care tries to maintain bilingualism, so they have a French program and an English program. The difficulty, I remember, when I was there was sometimes making sure that we had enough French kids to fill the French spots and English kids to fill the English spots, but that's just a balance that needs to be met.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Perfect.

Just to pick up where Mr. Strahl left off concerning the compressed work week, for MPs it probably doesn't make much difference, but for staff, I'm assuming.... I'm just thinking as a former staffer, or as now an MP hiring staff, how I would sell that to my staff: “You're going to be here early in the morning, you're probably going to work 12 hours a day from Monday to Thursday, and then Friday you're playing catch-up, and then we start all over again on Monday.” Mr. Strahl has touched on this a bit. I'm just seeking more of your thoughts.

I don't know how it would work in an office environment, if you're dealing with managing your budget but also managing staff life. It would be quite difficult, I think, in a compressed work week.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

You have one minute.

[Mélisa Ferreira]

No, it's not easy, and I think this measure would be more convenient for the members than the employees. The members are already here. They already work 12 hours a day, while the employees have a schedule that ranges between 7 hours and 18 hours, if I may say so. Basically, I think it's really a measure that would favour the MPs rather than the employees. It would result in more overtime and more time spent in Parliament from Monday to Thursday than is currently being spent, and that would affect families. As Tara was saying earlier, the crucial time period is from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., before the children go to bed, and that would be time we would not be spending with our family.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you.

Ms. Vandenbeld.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Thank you.

I would like to get a clarification from Mr. Thompson and Mr. McDonald.

How many of the staff working on the Hill are seasonal certified indeterminate and how many are actually full-time regular employees?

[Roger Thompson]

We have approximately 102 SCI employees.