Human Resources Committee on March 21st, 2007

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

I just don't want to use up all the time in terms of my questions.

So you didn't want to answer that question. Can you tell me how many child care spaces your organization has actually created?

[Monica Lysack]

Again, the mandate of our organization--and I've said this before in committees--is not to create child care spaces. That is your job as government. Our job--

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

So the answer is zero.

[Monica Lysack]

Our job is to critique public policy.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

Thank you.

I apologize. I just want to get my questions in, and obviously you don't want to answer them.

The Vanier Institute has produced a study that says that 90% of parents prefer to care for their children or have a family member care for their children. I'm just wondering how you advocate for those parents.

[Monica Lysack]

Actually, I'm one of those parents. I have three children. I prefer to be their primary caregiver. I am their primary caregiver as their mother. I prefer to have my family and friends involved in their care whenever that's possible, but the reality of my life, like many others, is that this is not always possible. So for those families for whom that is not a possibility or a choice, we advocate for a system of early learning and child care.

Furthermore, the vast majority of families choose early learning experiences for their children, regardless of whether they're employed inside or outside the home and regardless of what their other family arrangements are.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

So you're basically advocating only for parents who choose to use institutional child care.

Since 2000 your organization has received about $1.5 million in taxpayers' money. There was $132,648 of that for a project called “Child Care Advocacy and Canadian Policy Processes: History and Practice from World War II to the Present”. Can you explain how that project is going to create child care spaces?

[Monica Lysack]

I think you're talking about the history project.

I'm not sure exactly what you're getting at, but again let me clarify. We do not create child care spaces; that's your job, as government. We advocate around public policy and public education. It's on a fee-for-service basis. When the government puts out a call for proposals, we submit.... If it's chosen and we're funded, we meet the terms of the agreement and the accountability.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much.

We're going to move to the second round of five minutes.

Mr. Savage.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Ms. Lysack, I'm going to stay with you for a bit. I want to talk about child care and employability.

There are two ways that child care impacts employability in this country. One is providing suitable places for families to have education, development for their youngest children. The other area is in the child care spaces themselves and the people who work in those spaces.

When I look in my community, people like Sue Wolstenholme and Pat Hogan, who have worked in child care for decades, should all get the Order of Canada. They work for almost nothing. They are extraordinarily dedicated people, often going away beyond the call--not only in educating and helping to develop our children, but in other ways as well. These are the people who, in the last couple of years, saw such hope in the Liberal child care plan. One of the ways that money was going to be spent in some provinces was directly on salaries for child care workers so that we could actually provide a decent living wage for the people who help us take care of our children.

I wonder if you would talk specifically about the wages of child care workers in Canada and how the previous plan might have helped to make it a better system.

[Monica Lysack]

I think you've raised an incredibly important issue. I did allude to it earlier when I gave the example of the child care worker in Alberta who left to work in a restaurant.

The people who work in this profession feel it's a calling. They do it because they love what they do; they don't do it for the money. And they do it at great personal sacrifice for themselves. Very few early childhood educators have decent salaries, or any kind of pensions or benefits that other people enjoy. While women make, I think, 73¢ on the male dollar, child care workers make, I think, 62¢ on the male dollar. So they're paid even less than other women.

The importance of having an investment strategy that doesn't just create spaces but invests in the infrastructure is that we can then invest in training and salaries and other supports, so we can recognize that important workforce.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Thank you very much.

To the Canadian Dental Association, it's good to see you again. In my other incarnations on the health committee and the finance committee, the CDA has come before us. They are always well briefed and have good information. The people you use to advocate with us are very effective. I want to congratulate you on that.

I have two questions about dentistry. You mentioned the tuition. The average tuition is $32,000 a year in Canada. If you're able, I'd like to know how that compares, on average, to other comparable nations such as the United States, OECD nations, and things like that.

The second question is on foreign-trained dentists. Quite often when we bring in foreign-trained doctors we're actually taking them from countries that need them a lot more than we do. Is that an issue with dentists? Would it be an issue as we go forward, if there are shortages?

[Irwin Fefergrad]

I guess I'm being asked to answer the second question. I thought you were going to ask what my salary is. I was going to tell you I'm grossly underpaid.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Irwin Fefergrad]

In terms of whether we're unethically or immorally soliciting foreign-trained dentists from other jurisdictions, that's not our information. Our information is that it's quite the reverse. There are people who are coming to Canada anyway, who have credentials, and they want to apply to work here. Unlike medicine, I suspect, that is not our information.

In terms of the tuition, my guess--and it's just a guess--is that our Canadian tuition is lower than the States, but not significantly. There are still a huge number of applicants for the few number of seats available in the dental schools in the country.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

I'd like to finish on child care, but not with a question.

I'm one of the 90% of the people who would prefer to raise my children myself or have my own family members raise them. I am in the fortunate position, as a member of Parliament, of being able to afford that; most Canadians are not in that position. Wanting to be able to do it and being able to do it are two different things. I don't think the government understands that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Mr. Savage.

Now we're going to move to Mr. Bouchard.

[Robert Bouchard, Bloc, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to the witnesses.

My first question is for the Canadian Dental Association. I would like to come back to the matter of tuition fees. Even if those fees are higher in US, nobody can deny that they are very high in Canada. I seem to have heard the figure of $72,000. Are tuition fees different in the various provinces? Having to pay such high tuition fees is an important barrier for anyone wanting to make a career in dental care.

What would you suggest to lower those fees?

[Dr. Wayne Halstrom]

Thank you very much, Monsieur Bouchard.

The issue of the quantity of money that has to go into creating a dental education is very concerning to us, because if it is only the affluent who can afford to get into these programs, then it is going to change the culture of the profession as we go forward.

In answer to your question about the variability in tuition among universities in the country, I can tell you that it is variable, but it is not significantly variable. If you look at the quote we used, it's $32,000 a year at the University of British Columbia. We understand, obviously, that there's a cost of living issue in B.C. That's one of the reasons it amounts to $171,000. That is the figure I used for what a graduate spends on tuition fees.

The tuition fee problem comes from the fact that there is an underfunded circumstance in the universities at large. The student is having to bear the cost of that education, and dental education is extremely expensive. It's expensive from a facility standpoint and it's expensive from a tutorial standpoint. It's going to be expensive to hire these people. We are losing competent educators to other jurisdictions, particularly to the United States, because they offer better benefits and better salaries.

Is there a solution to that problem? Yes. It can be found, as most things are found, in funding. The funding of the universities, unfortunately, has been far behind for a very long time.

I turn to Mr. Fefergrad.

[Irwin Fefergrad]

I can't add anything to what Dr. Halstrom said. I think he's got it right on.

[Robert Bouchard, Bloc, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Thank you.

My second question is for the United Steelworkers. The number of part-time jobs increases continually. Some time ago, there was one such job out of ten but, today it is one out of five. I have no answer to that.

Is the rate of unionization decreasing in Canada? Who really benefits from the increase of precarious jobs? In the short-term, I believe that employers are the beneficiaries but, in the long run, are they not losers?

[Jorge Garcia-Orgales]

On the first question, on the rate of unionization or the numbers of workers who have been unionized, the number of workers has been increasing, but the density or the percentage has been decreasing. At this point in Canada, 32% of unionized workers are doing quite well in unionization in the public sector. In the private sector, especially in industry, it's around 19%. We have been losing members, especially the steelworkers, through plant closings and technological change.

Who is benefiting from the precariousness of the situation? I think in the short term, as you say, the employer is benefiting. They have a new market; they can compete with us. They can put competitors over the table, they can threaten workers to close plants, they can threaten us with being temporary workers. People who have no status are also working in our field. In the short term, it's quite clear that the employer is benefiting.

Now, the concern is, as you say, the long term, and the one that won't benefit in the long term is Canada. When you have 59% of working people making less than $30,000, that implies that their spending potential and the country's possibility of growing economically is very limited.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you. Just finish your thought there, and we'll move on.

[Jorge Garcia-Orgales]

Okay.

Of the 59% of people who make less than $30,000, 99% of them do not pay taxes because of their amount of money, and that is also affecting Canada and the ability of the Government of Canada to use government money properly in infrastructure, education, health care, and all the needs for a better society.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Mr. Garcia-Orgales.

We're going to now move to Madame Savoie for five minutes.