Human Resources Committee on April 26th, 2007

[Judy Streatch]

We've committed to a $137-million plan for the 10 years, but on the ground in the first five and sustained through the last five.

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

I have a specific question. One group that was very disappointed by the loss of the child care agreements was la Fédération acadienne de la Nouvelle-Écosse. As you are a former French teacher, I'm sure you're familiar with them.

Do you have any special provisions for minority language child care? Is that going to be something that will get some attention as we go forward over this 10 years?

[Judy Streatch]

Certainly there are many components of the plan that can incorporate the Acadian communities and our francophones. The family home child care—we are working on the regulations as we speak, and hope to get them out the door very soon—I see as a key part for those communities, which are smaller and which are diversely spread across the province. So I think that component itself will be extremely beneficial.

If I may say to the member, you know, I've spent some time with those groups as well. I know their concerns. I've heard their concerns, and I know the concerns are legitimate. I also know they celebrated with you and the government of the day on the commitment and the signed agreement. But I have to say that we're equally encouraged today about the future.

And this isn't about a government of the past, or a government of the present; this is about creating a sustainable plan in Nova Scotia that will respond to those needs, and making the best use of the dollars that we did get and the best use of the dollars that we will get in the future.

I'll reiterate that one point: we just want to be at the table to discuss where those dollars do come from.

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

I applaud your optimism, I really do. But what's even better than optimism is optimism plus money. So far you've got the optimism.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Ruby Dhalla]

Mr. Lessard, for five minutes, please.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I too wish to thank you for being here this morning. Your opinions, especially those of the provinces, are for us very revealing and enriching.

I understand the intent, but I would like to understand the way of doing things. Ms. Streatch spoke of her love of Canada and of her desire to work with Canada. I understand. It is a choice that your provinces also make.

Mr. Dent also well expressed your opinion, that is to say that we each have our own characteristics and that it is the provinces that will be managing these characteristics. For example, with regard to the management of child care centres, the city of Toronto, which has tremendous weight in Ontario, is equivalent, in itself, to two or three provinces. We therefore must deal with all of that.

In Quebec, you know to what extent we too are concerned with conserving our characteristics and of assuming our laws and our societal choices, just the way you do, as a matter of fact. We see that within the federal dynamic, given the way the money is presently distributed, people are very conditioned within the federal government.

In the case of transfer payments for health, for example, we have seen that your provinces, just like Quebec, have been penalized over the years. The fact that the federal government has contributed less and less to health care, most notably, has imposed an additional burden on the provinces.

What I am trying to get at is that we are politicians, and you are too. I would like to know, with regard to the will of each one of you to establish a child care system, universal or not — and I know that the will is there —, if it would be preferable, instead of having transfer payments, that there simply be a transfer of tax points to the provinces in order for them to govern themselves properly? In this way, no one would be dependent upon the federal government, and everyone would be free to make his or her own decisions.

Who would like to respond?

[Jeanette MacAulay]

I'm personally not familiar enough with the merits of tax points vis-à-vis money. I know at the end of the day it all comes down to the fiscal arrangement within the country.

Is your question, Monsieur, about how we feel about tax points?

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

There are ministers and deputy ministers here, but my question is directed more specifically to the ministers, because you have a political responsibility. I would therefore invite Madam Streatch or Mr. Dent to respond, if they would.

[Judy Streatch]

Thank you very much.

One of the statements you made, I couldn't agree more with: we are all unique in our own ways. As provinces, as territories, as municipalities, culturally we are unique. That is why we believe in Nova Scotia that choice is so important. That's why one size fits all doesn't work for us in Nova Scotia.

I want to re-emphasize that point, that it's about the uniqueness of our culture. It's about the uniqueness of our family structures. That's why it's important for us to be the ones who create the plan and who work with the stakeholders to ensure that plan is sustainable. That's why it's so important to us to be the directors of our own future.

I honestly would have to refer the question of tax points to the Minister of Finance. I'm not familiar with a tax point versus a transfer analogy.

[Charles Dent]

Thanks for that question.

In the Northwest Territories, like Quebec we have clear accountabilities for early learning and child care, and we report annually to our constituents and to Canadians on how our system is performing. So we think we have the same sort of approach as what is taken in Quebec. We have a good plan, and we want to take the money to deliver it.

To the question about tax points, that would not work for the Northwest Territories. There are three territories. It wouldn't work for any of the three territories actually, because we don't participate in equalization. We don't have a big enough tax base in order for it to make a difference. In fact, depending on the territory, between 70% and 85% of the total funding comes as transfer payments from Canada. So for us it would be essential that we'd be talking about grants in order to improve on programs.

That is where we ran into a problem with the 2003 agreement. We'd agreed, all across Canada, all ten provinces and three territories had agreed on the terms—how we would account for the money, how the money was to be spent. None of the three territories would sign, because we couldn't agree with the formula. Because if it's based on per capita, the amount of money we would get is so small that it wouldn't allow us to increase the numbers of spaces in the territories by an equivalent amount to what they could with the economies of scale they have in Toronto, for instance.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Ruby Dhalla]

Sorry, Ms. Davis, but if you want to answer, you have 10 seconds.

[Janet Davis]

We'd love some tax points. We'd love some tax powers. We'd like some share of federal income tax revenues and provincial revenues.

In fact, the Ontario government has granted Toronto new authorities under the City of Toronto Act, and we are now in a position, actually, to enter into agreements with the federal government for the first time. We are the only municipality in Ontario that has that authority.

So we're willing to look at all options if we can have some sustainable funding to expand our services and protect them.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Ruby Dhalla]

We'll go to Ms. Chow for five minutes, please.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

I want to talk briefly about consultation. I know that since 2000 there has been a series of discussions. The first one was called the early childhood development initiative. At that time, there were four principles, and one of the principles was to deliver early learning and child care. Unfortunately, even with all the discussions, the funding—$5 billion over five years—certainly came through, but hardly any child care spaces were delivered from that initiative.

Then there was the multilateral framework agreement. Of course, there were a lot of discussions and a lot of consultations with the provinces and territories, year after year. There was then the beginning of some movement on creating some child care spaces, but by far, there was not any kind of national program whatsoever.

Then there was the bilateral agreement that was signed in principle with all the provinces. Again, there was a lot of discussion and a lot of consultation. I'm curious as to why there were that many provinces that did not sign on as a funding agreement, because the plan really was that the agreement in principle was okay for the first year. In the second year there was supposed to be a funding agreement that would govern how the funds would be transferred. There needed to be a plan, the plan to be approved by the federal government, and then the funds would be transferred.

The plan was based on four principles—equality, universality, accessibility, and developmental—which are, in fact, the basis of this child care bill. Other than the bill enshrining these principles in legislation, there is not a lot of difference from signing those funding agreements and having the federal funding transferred.

I believe there was an intention to sign. Was it because we ran out of time? I understand that the Northwest Territories had discussions about the dollar amount. But in terms of P.E.I., why wasn't it signed?

[Jeanette MacAulay]

Are you referring to the 2005 agreement?

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

That's right.

[Jeanette MacAulay]

Certainly our province did sign the agreement—

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

In principle.

[Jeanette MacAulay]

—and of course we ran out of time. An election occurred immediately after that. It was our intention to sign into that arrangement.

I think the difference, though, from what was being expected of provinces in terms of accountability with respect to the QUAD principles and the plan is the prescriptive nature of this piece of legislation compared to the annual plan we would have provided to the federal government as a consequence of receiving the money.

Our discomfort is more with the prescriptive nature, and perhaps the tool, that in many ways—a sledgehammer, I think is what we feel this is. When you have in legislation words like “examining” how the provinces have done—

The issues around the administration are so detailed and are perceived, at least in our minds, as being such a very onerous process, that it would be costly to deliver, as opposed to a reporting of how we're progressing on those QUAD principles. And we're always prepared to do that in partnership with the federal government.

[Judy Streatch]

Nova Scotia signed. Your colleague down the way was at the ceremony. The Government of Nova Scotia of the day definitely did sign.

But I see a big difference between that agreement and Bill C-303. The challenges I articulated earlier, whether it's jurisdiction or the administrative costs that would be downloaded to the provinces, are real. The biggest challenge in Nova Scotia would be the inability for anyone other than a non-profit to offer child care in the future. We cannot do that. Today over 50% of my centres in Nova Scotia are commercial. I need the commercial sector to sustain family home day care. So for me, that component is a reality piece that I can't ignore.

[Charles Dent]

Obviously the devil is in the details. In 2005 the provinces and territories spent a considerable amount of time negotiating with the federal government to achieve a clear understanding of what each of the QUAD principles meant. We haven't done that on this bill, so we're not sure what the meanings are. Until we have some clear understanding, or there has been some agreement between the parties as to what those principles actually mean in day-to-day practice, it engenders a lot of fear for us.

[Janet Davis]

I agree with you. The principles in this bill are very similar, if not virtually the same, as the previous cost-sharing program.

If I could address the issue of profit/non-profit, in the city of Toronto, 22% of our child care system is for profit. We have the remainder either directly delivered by the municipality or through community-based non-profit child care programs. We have made a commitment to expanding only the non-profit sector. It took some time, but we have very firmly taken that position now. We know, and even recent research has demonstrated, that it is more likely to have high-quality child care in the non-profit sector.

A study released just this week, specifically on Toronto, was very interesting. Despite the fact that we have a second tier of regulatory regime that we apply to all of our contracted services, differences were still found between the for-profit and non-profit sectors in terms of quality. We believe that all the expansion in the future should be in the non-profit sector. We will grandparent, and we are grandparenting, the existing for-profit operations.

That's what this bill does. It doesn't say they all have to convert to non-profit. It doesn't say you can't fund the existing commercial sector. It simply says, moving forward, it should go in the non-profit sector, and we fully support that.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Ruby Dhalla]

Thank you, Ms. Davis.

Might I request that if we're asking all our witnesses questions, we perhaps start with Ms. Davis? We feel bad that she keeps getting cut off because time has run out. We'll go from right to left for the remaining questions.

Mr. Brown, for five minutes, please.

[Patrick Brown, Conservative, Barrie, ON]

I have a series of questions, Ms. Dhalla. I'll try to make sure we save one for Ms. Davis too. If I can get some quick answers, I can get through all of them.

I'm trying to determine, from the provincial perspective, whether this is a type of pie-in-the-sky, Alice in Wonderland legislation in terms of costing or whether this is legislation that has some realistic costs.

To go through some numbers, I mentioned in my first round of questioning that according to the Hamilton Spectator, there are 2,772,000 kids under six in Canada. I broke that down, per province, and then I used the $9,000 figure that my colleague Ms. Chow brought up. I noticed there was a bit of inflation from the meeting before, but that's okay. For Nova Scotia, that would break down as 80,388 children under the age of six. That's $723,492,000.

Ms. Streatch, do you have $723 million that you could use to implement this legislation?

[Judy Streatch]

No.