Human Resources Committee on May 1st, 2007

[The Vice-Chair, Bloc, Yves Lessard]

In accordance with the order of reference of last November 22, the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities is today continuing its review of Bill C-303. We have witnesses here, in Ottawa, as well as one witness joining us by videoconference, Mr. Shanker, whom we also welcome. Each group has seven minutes for its presentation.

As we, the members, expect to be summoned as of 5:15 p.m. for a vote being held, I suggest that each member have two five-minute opportunities to go around the table, until the vote is held at 5:30 p.m.

Without further delay, I give the floor to our guests. You have seven minutes to give your presentations. If you agree, we will start with Mr. Shanker, who joins us by videoconference.

[Stuart Shanker, President, Council for Early Child Development]

Thank you very much.

I've been invited to speak to you because I wear two different hats. One of them is that I'm the director of a neuroscience institute at York University, and the other one is I am the president of the Council for Early Child Development.

I won't try to go over all the material that was submitted to you, but I'll instead focus on two critical points that bear on this committee's decision-making, particularly as you try to come to terms with the cost-benefits of this kind of investment in early child development.

The first point relates to our understanding today of the extent of children with biological compromises that are going to significantly constrain their ability to flourish in a school environment.

There is a continuum of problems. These problems can range anywhere from the very severe, which will result in a child who has a diagnosable disorder, to a child with a relatively mild compromise, which will nonetheless significantly constrain the child's ability to pay attention, to form friendships, and to understand the rules and regulations of a school environment. We're talking about a very broad range of children. We estimate that anywhere from 50% to 60% of our children have various subtle or significant challenges in the ways they process information.

As we study how the brain develops, we also know that by the time a child is six or seven years old and the child enters school, the brain has established trajectories that are very difficult to change at that point. This is the reason we hear from so many educators and administrators that they essentially can predict how well a child will do in school from the child's very earliest experiences in a school environment. If we want to enhance a child's developmental potential, we have to reach the child very early.

The second point is directly related to this. Over the last five to seven years, one of the most exciting breakthroughs that have happened in developmental neuroscience is that we are growing very quickly in our capacity to identify children at a very young age who are displaying subtle signs in their capacity to pay attention, to regulate their own behaviour, or to understand someone else's communicative gestures. If we intervene with these children at this point--and such interventions are the kinds of things that can easily be done within child development centres such as the one we are proposing--we can either significantly mitigate or, in many cases, actually prevent the kinds of escalating problems that we are now seeing in our children today.

As we try to make sense of what's happening in our society, we see all kinds of stresses and physical, environmental, and social changes that seem to result in an increased number of the kinds of biological problems that I'm talking about. In part, it's simply a result of the kinds of demands we're making on our children; in part, it's a result of a rapidly changing social environment for children.

This bill presents us with the opportunity to discuss how we can institute a universal program. It has to be universal, because the science we're doing shows us these problems afflict all sectors of society. In fact, the largest number of children I see in my own institute come from relatively wealthy middle-class environments.

With this universal program, our intention is not only to enhance whatever the child's core capacities are; it's to pick up and prevent the escalation of these problems such that by the time they get into a normal school system, which is when they're generally identified, it's already very difficult to change that child's outcomes.

I will end on that, because I believe I am very close to my seven minutes. But please do let me know if you'd like me to expand on any of the remarks I have made.

[The Vice-Chair, Bloc, Yves Lessard]

You still have some time, Mr. Shanker.

[Stuart Shanker]

What I should tell you, then, is what we do in my institute.

We work with all ranges of children, not simply children who have very serious problems, but also children who have difficulty understanding what another child is trying to do in play. We work with a broad range of these kids, and what we study is how their brains are developing. We are now in a position where (a) we can identify what constitutes a healthy brain development trajectory, and (b) we can identify what are the experiences that a child must receive in order to have this healthy functioning.

Everything we do tells us that the parent must play the critical role in this process, so our whole program is designed around providing parents with tools. And we provide these tools not in a classroom setting but simply by working with parents, providing them with the tools such that they can either enhance how their child's brain will develop or spot problems early and take effective remedial steps to significantly reduce the severity of that problem.

We are also studying countries that have launched large-scale population programs, universal programs based on exactly the principles I'm describing here, and so far what we see is not only much higher rates of literacy, much lower rates of social problems, but also significantly lower rates of the kinds of developmental, psychological, and behavioural disorders that are escalating dramatically in our own country.

[The Vice-Chair, Bloc, Yves Lessard]

Thank you, Mr. Shanker. Now we will hear Ms. Gott and Ms. Wilson, from Rural Voices for Early Childhood Education and Care.

[Carol Gott, Co-Manager, Rural Voices for Child Care]

Good afternoon.

My name is Carol Gott, and along with my colleague Jane Wilson, I co-manage Rural Voices for Early Childhood Education and Care.

Rural Voices is a broker of knowledge, learning, and best practices in early childhood education and care locally, provincially, and nationally.

Each of you has our submitted brief, so our intention today is to say a few words to summarize our views.

Jane and I both volunteer our time and energy to provide this link between rural, remote, and northern communities across Canada because we know first-hand how difficult it is to develop responsive, flexible, quality services in our rural communities for families and children.

It is difficult, but not impossible. It's not impossible, but it's certainly not probable, simply because, as a country, we have not made it a priority to ensure that every child in this country receives the best start in life and that every parent, regardless of their work status, receives our utmost support in their parenting role.

This will not be achieved by leaving leadership on child care issues at the provincial-territorial arena alone. To hope that, as a country, each province and territory will have the political will or the financial ability to ensure equity of access to quality child care services and supports is not socially responsible. For decades, child care has been the jurisdiction of provincial and territorial governments, yet the most critical issue in rural, remote, and northern Canada remains access to quality child care services. This is true whether you are in rural Alberta, Ontario, Nova Scotia, the Yukon, or any other province or territory in this nation.

We can only assure equity of access to services through federal leadership, a leadership that begins with the approval of Bill C-303.

As each community across rural, remote, and northern Canada sees themselves as different and distinct, so does each province and territory. Although this diversity does us well at a local level, it hinders our ability to act as a nation, a nation that needs to strongly support our youngest citizens.

We have research that affirms the benefits of quality child care for children and families, and now recently we have rural research from the University of Manitoba that affirms the economic benefits of child care as well.

We can tell you, from our travels and work with Rural Voices across this country, that the benefits of quality child care for children, families, and communities are much more powerful and long term than any document could adequately attest. Although it's only a beginning, Rural Voices believes that Bill C-303 will develop a framework to support the challenges that rural, remote, and northern Canadians live every day.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Bloc, Yves Lessard]

Does that complete your presentation or do you have something to add, Ms. Wilson?

It is complete as far as you are concerned?

[Carol Gott]

Yes, the only thing we would remind people about from the brief is that when we talk about child care, we mean a whole continuum of services and care that goes well beyond the traditional view of child care. Certainly in this country, and in many provinces and territories, it's referred to as early childhood education and care.

So we're certainly talking about licensed non-profit services, but we're also talking about supports to families through home support or resource-type services, as well as supports to informal providers in their communities. Certainly in rural Canada, when we speak of child care, we're speaking of something that's quite broad. It also includes children zero to twelve, which is usually not the case in terms of the political arena.

[The Vice-Chair, Bloc, Yves Lessard]

Thank you, Ms. Gott.

Now it is the turn of Mr. Dinsdale, from the National Association of Friendship Centres.

[Peter Dinsdale, Executive Director, National Association of Friendship Centres]

Thank you.

I'd like to begin by thanking the committee for the opportunity to present before you today on Bill C-303.

My name is Peter Dinsdale and I am the executive director of the National Association of Friendship Centres.

In case you're not aware, friendship centres are community agencies that are mandated to improve the quality of life of urban aboriginal people. We are a service delivery body, not a political voice or representative body, and we are there for urban aboriginal first nation, Métis, and Inuit peoples.

Today there are over 117 friendship centres across Canada from coast to coast to coast and, hopefully, in most of these MPs' ridings as well.

According to the 2001 census, 50% of all aboriginal people live in urban areas, 50% of all aboriginal people are under the age of 25, and 50% of all aboriginal people do not graduate from high school. We are very young, very urban, and a very impoverished population. And according to research conducted by the Ontario Federation of Indian Friendship Centres, 50% of all aboriginal children grow up in poverty in this country today.

In short, we work for an incredibly important segment of the Canadian population to be served by this legislation.

Friendship centres are active in early learning and child care as well. Across the country, there are over 30 friendship centres providing direct day care facilities through over $7.5 million in programming supports. These programs are only one portion of the $19.5 million spent on general family programs out of the total $114 million provided in programming across the friendship centre movement each year.

Like all who are here before you, we have certainly read Bill C-303 and are prepared to make our comments on it. I only want to raise for your attention that we have submitted a brief that details our support for early learning and child care programming. There is no question that the friendship centre movement sees the need for a national network to be in place.

But with Bill C-303, we would like to make a number of observations, and we have some concerns based on it. We're not sure that the appropriate framework exists for directing provincial areas of responsibility with such vigour. Will the appropriate resources be secured to fund the rigorous standards outlined? However, my most troubling question and the most troubling for us in general is how this bill impacts aboriginal people and the friendship centres that we serve. How will this bill apply on-reserve?

The bill does not discuss the challenge of this program, paid for by the federal government, monitored by the provinces and territories, and administered by local profit and non-profit organizations, to navigate the jurisdictional minefields that exist in this area. It is also not clear how this bill would impact friendship centres as potential non-profit partners for the delivery of these services.

Using the lens of friendship centres and the clients we serve, I'd like to comment on five troubling aspects for us.

The first is the notion of universality. What would this mean for urban aboriginal access? It needs to be understood that equal access does not always mean equal outcomes. Given the tremendous social barriers facing aboriginal peoples, it is essential that aboriginal-specific programming exists.

It is important for a number of reasons. Culture-based programs have been shown to be more effective at reaching aboriginal clients. Intergenerational reconnection is an important element to aboriginal programming. Positive role models, community reconnections, healing for the family and their extended family, traditional skills rediscovery, and comparable services all mean a more successful outcome for that child and the parents.

The second area of concern is the notion of tariff. Even the most modest of tariffs for access will be a significant barrier for urban aboriginal people. The average income for aboriginal people is $14,533, according to the 2001 census, versus $19,000 for non-aboriginal people. Aboriginal household income is 87% of that of non-aboriginal households. And aboriginal people's unemployment rate is 19.1% versus 7.4% for the non-aboriginal population.

We're impoverished. Any tariff for aboriginal families is a significant barrier that must be addressed.

Our third area of concern centres around the notions of indicators of availability. While it is clear that the minds of the bill's drafters are turned to ensuring that the widest possible geographic access is being considered, it does not once again provide any comfort that aboriginal people are considered an important client for availability and programming.

Our fourth area of concern rests with the indicators of affordability. It states that service fees should be set at a percentage of average wages for each jurisdiction. It simply reinforces that aboriginal people will have unequal access, as our wages are far behind any average in any jurisdiction.

The fifth area of concern is around the indicators of accessibility. Once again, the drafters' minds are turned to ensuring broad access in terms of eligibility requirements, with a percentage for special needs and other geographic considerations. There also appears to be an inherent contradiction in using income levels of parents as an accessibility measure. Single parents and their prevalence in our community will certainly skew our access, and the ability to pay the aforementioned percent of the region's average wage will further reinforce that.

Finally, and maybe most troubling, the bill does not recognize the jurisdiction of first nation, Métis, or Inuit peoples to provide for their own programming and to serve their own people. It seems not to have considered aboriginal people from either a governance, service delivery, or access basis. But we want to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. There is no question that more early learning child care spaces are needed across this country, and this is a noble attempt to do that. However, it is our assessment that should this bill in its present form become law, it will have a minimal impact for aboriginal peoples for all the areas raised.

Once again, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to appear before the committee. I look forward to any questions you might have.

[The Vice-Chair, Bloc, Yves Lessard]

Thank you, Mr. Dinsdale. We are going to continue with Ms. Bird and Ms. Kass, from the Canadian Union of Public Employees.

[Jamie Kass, Co-President, Child Care Working Group, Canadian Union of Public Employees]

Good afternoon. My name is Jamie Kass. I'm the chair of the child care working group of the Canadian Union of Public Employees.

I want to send regrets from Paul Moist, the president of CUPE, who intended to be here but got fogged in on his way back from Gander, Newfoundland.

CUPE is the largest union in Canada, representing employees in diverse sectors, including child care. We are also part of the Canadian Labour Congress, which supports our position and represents approximately three million people.

Shellie Bird and I are going to split CUPE's short presentation.

Child care is a major issue for many CUPE members. Two-thirds of CUPE members are women, and women still bear the major responsibility for child rearing.

I want to start by stressing the need for a legislative framework if we are to build a national child care system. Recent federal governments have stepped back from their important legislative role of setting the framework for social programs. Instead, they favour federal-provincial-territorial agreements that exclude Parliament. These agreements, as we've recently been reminded, can be cancelled by a unilateral act, without any parliamentary debate.

Legislation provides transparency. Bilateral agreements are usually negotiated behind closed doors and often represent the lowest common denominator of federal and provincial policies. Now it appears the government is moving away from agreements, favouring transfers to provinces, with no obligation or framework to establish programs. The results are an international disgrace.

A recent OECD study found that Canada was the sole country without a goal for early learning and child care. We have not answered the OECD's call for a policy framework and improved monitoring. The annual report to Parliament, in Bill C-303, will contain information needed to develop and improve a Canadian early learning and child care system.

CUPE also supports Bill C-303's approach to the problems of commercial services. In 2004, CUPE warned about the trade consequences of establishing a publicly funded and privately delivered child care system, given Canada's obligations under various international agreements.

In a nutshell, the investment and services rules in international trade would likely apply to child care services if they're commercially provided. Both NAFTA and the GATS trade disciplines would deny governments the right to prevent foreign child care companies from acquiring a dominant position in the sector. Under the GATS, the government's ability to create and maintain standards in the child care sector would be severely limited. These are risks we must not take with the new national program.

Restricting the expansion of commercial child care is not just a trade issue. A new report underscores the importance of making sure our new cross-Canada child care system is not for profit. This national study adds to the large body of evidence that non-profit child care centres have the highest-quality care.

Our concern about commercial expansion is not alarmist. Australia's experience with for-profit care is a warning for Canadians. In 1991, Australia had a predominantly not-for-profit child care infrastructure. Then the government opened up funding for the for-profit sector. Now more than 70% of the sector is commercially owned.

The largest child care corporation in Australia, and the world, is ABC Learning Centres. In the same year that ABC's profits skyrocketed, Australia ranked extremely low in an OECD child care report.

We're pleased to see the clear commitment to a public not-for-profit child care system in Bill C-303.

Shellie is going to complete our presentation with a focus on the workforce.

[Shellie Bird, Education Officer, Local 2204, Child Care Workers, Ottawa, Canadian Union of Public Employees]

Thank you.

CUPE Local 2204 represents 230 early childhood educators, cooks, cleaners and clerical staff in 12 child care centres here in the city of Ottawa, and we count ourselves among the 10,000 child care workers whom our national union represents.

Our members, along with thousands of other child care workers, support Bill C-303 because it acknowledges the direct relationship between quality early learning and child care and the need to invest in the child care workforce.

In our submission, we point out what you have no doubt heard countless times: our world has changed. A majority of parents with children are in the workforce, and consequently, millions of Canadian children require access to non-parental child care.

We also know that who these children spend their day with has huge implications for the kind of care and education they receive, yet child care workers are largely undervalued, underpaid, and unrecognized. The failure of governments to acknowledge staff as a key linchpin for quality or to take action to address chronically low wages, poor benefits, and working conditions in our sector means fewer people are coming into our field or choosing to stay once they do. We cannot expect to improve quality early learning and child care if we are not prepared as a nation to recognize the vital role the people who work with young children play.

My training, knowledge, and 26 years of experience working with young children gives me a real advantage in providing them with supportive and intentional learning opportunities that help them to grow. At the risk of boasting, I liken what I do in supporting children in our program, purposely and with intention, building their trust, their respect, their comfort and sense of belonging, and their efficacy in managing their environment to the skill and precision of a surgeon with a scalpel.

Supporting children to build relationships with their peers, find positive ways to work out their differences, to make their needs known, to share, to be angry, to be hurt and to make up, and to learn and experiment without judgment are specific skills I have developed and honed over my years, to the benefit of the children I work with. We need more of this, not less.

This bill, if adequately funded, will give our sector the ability to improve wages, benefits, and working conditions so that we can attract and retain a highly motivated and engaged early learning and child care workforce and ultimately give children what we know they need to flourish and grow and go on to become productive and engaged citizens.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Bloc, Yves Lessard]

Thank you, Ms. Kass and Ms. Bird. We will have a chance to ask you some questions in a while.

Let us now listen to Ms. Dallaire and Ms. Lysack, from the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada.

[Jody Dallaire, Chair, Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada]

My name is Jody Dallaire. I am the chairperson of the national organization called the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada.

With me today is Monica Lysack, our executive director.

I'm going to be giving my remarks partly in French and partly in English, and I'm going to start in French.

This year, the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada celebrates 25 years of advocacy for quality child care. Our membership reaches more than four million Canadians from across the country, including parents, educators, researchers and students, as well as various organizations at the provincial, territorial, regional and national levels.

I am here today to express our support for C-303. When passed, this bill will ensure accountability for funds that are directed towards building a learning and child care system. All federal parties agree that we want the best possible experiences and outcomes for our children.

Child care supports healthy child development, reduces child poverty, promotes women’s equality, deepens social inclusion and advances a knowledge-based economy and therefore ongoing economic prosperity. Moreover, improving child care services will help Canada meet its commitment to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which names child care services as one of the fundamental rights all children should enjoy.

Quality child care is a public good, and should be treated as such in terms of public policy, public investment and public accountability. Bill C-303 represents a significant step forward for child care services in Canada. This legislation lays the foundation for us to move from the current patchwork of expensive services of varying quality, funded primarily by user fees, to a framework that provides families with a choice of affordable, high-quality, community-based services, in licensed homes and centres, with both part-time and full-time programs.

The members and partners of our association envision a Canada where all children are supported by publicly funded, quality child care services. Like libraries and schools, child care programs should be a natural and expected part of our neighbourhoods. They should be available, accessible and affordable for all families that choose to use them.

Bill C-303 supports the community's vision for child care in Canada. In 2004, following a year of consultations, our vision was to translate it into a set of policy recommendations, which were put into a document called “From Patchwork to Framework: A Child Care Strategy for Canada”.

The first recommendation calls for legislation that defines and frames the implementation of child care in Canada. Our organization believes that when substantial public funding is available to build a system, as outlined in Bill C-303, new growth and expansion should be in the public and not-for-profit sector.

We advocate for the grandfathering of existing commercial facilities, as outlined in Bill C-303. This recommendation is based on the lessons learned about market failure and the current user fee subsidy approach and on extensive research about how public, community-owned and -operated child care promotes quality and accountability for public funds.

Bill C-303 acknowledges that child care falls within provincial-territorial jurisdiction and supports the communities to develop their own priorities. Having said this, we support the clause recognizing that Quebec has expanded its early learning and child care programs to ensure better accessibility than other provinces and territories.

Nevertheless, recognizing the diversity of Canadian communities does not mean accepting the existing disparity in services. All children and families, including those with disabilities, those from rural, remote, and northern communities, aboriginal families, and families from various backgrounds, should be entitled to quality and affordable child care services.

With child care legislation in place, communities and governments at all levels can work together to plan and implement a pan-Canadian child care system. We can build a system based on the existing government commitments to improve access to quality, affordable, and inclusive child care services, as outlined in the multilateral framework agreements in 2003, and we can begin to actually achieve these goals. The CCAAC has developed tools, such as a child care system implementation model, that support communities and governments in their joint efforts to advance a universal system.

Finally, legislation such as Bill C-303 is essential to accountability. Our experience in Canada over the last thirty years clearly demonstrates that we cannot leave the development of quality and affordable child care services to chance, nor can we rely solely on the minimal accountability provisions of existing intergovernmental agreements, such as those found in the multilateral framework.

Recent federal transfers have only required governments to report to the public, not to their legislatures. We note that most provinces and territories have not reported on how the federal transfers have been spent since 2004-05.

Since the only real accountability mechanism for analyzing and commenting on new investments is through public monitoring and pressure, this accountability mechanism places a lot of responsibility on communities. While community capacity-building, such as that provided by the CCAAC, can support citizens in this important work, our preliminary observations raise questions about the heavy reliance on this approach as the primary accountability mechanism when parents and community groups are already strapped for time and over-burdened.

In addition to reporting to the public, governments need to report to their legislatures. Public reporting should be complemented with legislated standards, such as those outlined in Bill C-303. Accountability for public funds requires no less.

It's easy for us to say that supporting children and families is important, but we call on our elected representatives to make these words real by passing Bill C-303.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Ruby Dhalla]

I want to thank everyone for their presentations.

I want to thank Mr. Lessard as well for taking the chair while I was speaking in the House. I appreciate it.

Due to limited time, because we have votes and the bells will start ringing at about quarter after five, we're going to do our first round for five minutes each.

We'll have Mr. Savage begin.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses who are appearing today.

First of all, Mr. Shanker, is it doctor or mister?

[Stuart Shanker]

It's doctor.

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

Dr. Shanker, I listened with great attention. Are you in support of Bill C-303?

[Stuart Shanker]

Yes, I am.

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

Okay. Thank you very much.

Everybody here supports Bill C-303.

I'd like to ask a question, if I could, to CUPE first of all.

I support Bill C-303, but the concern I have is around the not-for-profit sector. I understand some amendments are coming from the proposer. I have a great concern about these commercial child care companies, these McDonald's of the child care business, coming into Canada and sweeping up.

On the other hand, I know an awful lot of good private child care facilities that exist would be grandfathered, but if they exist now, it means they might be able to exist in the future. Do you have any concern about possibly getting to the level of child care spaces we need if we don't allow some of those to be part of the new mix?

[Jamie Kass]

I think we've supported the CCAAC's position around grandfathering existing facilities. We understand that the small programs in child care are usually not making a profit, are in there trying to meet good-quality program standards. But all the research, including the new research by Gord Cleveland, again underscores the importance, if you're building a publicly funded system, of doing it in the non-profit system.

So when you see that there'll be an injection of public funding, then you clearly have to make sure that it's a non-profit system. We've really looked a lot at this. We had someone from Australia come on a cross-Canada tour. What they said to us was quite sobering--namely, that they opened up public funding in large ways to the commercial sector, and that child care sector now represents over 70% of the child care. It's meant that the small for-profits, including the non-profits, have closed their doors.

So what we've seen is that in fact it then will be open for those large commercial programs to come in. We think Bill C-303 is very important in that it focuses on the non-profit sector.

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

Thank you.

To the CCAAC, Ms. Lysack and Ms. Dallaire, we all claim to be very interested in child care and in different methods as to how we think we need to create those spaces. The Conservatives indicated a promise in the campaign to create 125,000 spaces. Can you tell me how many, within the nearest thousand, have been created?

[Monica Lysack, Executive Director, Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada]

Zero.

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

That's a relatively precise number.