Human Resources Committee on May 1st, 2007

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

I'm asking if is acceptable to have a program that would apply to Canadian citizens living in only eight or nine provinces.

[Carol Gott]

In terms of--and it's your term--a national program or universality, what we're asking for is national leadership. We're not arguing that it's a provincial-territorial jurisdictional issue. In fact, that's what allows us to respond to individual needs and diversity in communities across Canada.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

So what do you say to those—

[Carol Gott]

What we're arguing is that we won't remain a country on the issue unless we have federal leadership, and that in fact federal leadership, which includes measurable outcomes and definitions of access for communities, is what's going to allow us to get flexibility at the community level.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

What if it only applies to Canadians living in nine out of ten provinces? Is that acceptable to you? What do you say to Canadians—

[Carol Gott]

It's not. For Rural Voices, no, it's not acceptable, because our organization has people who are participating in every province and territory.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Yes, I understand.

Thank you.

[Carol Gott]

So as Rural Voices, we certainly think it wouldn't be. As a Canadian, I think it would be a hell of a start.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Thank you for that answer.

I have a similar question for the members from CUPE.

Thank you very much for your testimony. It was very interesting.

What is your feeling on a national program? You've argued for a program that should be--you've actually used these words--a national child care system. Does that mean “national”, as in Canadians living in nine out of ten provinces, or as in Canadians living in all ten provinces?

[Jamie Kass]

We certainly would support it in all the provinces and territories, recognizing Quebec as a distinct society, and for aboriginal peoples. So we certainly would.

Our members live in every province across this country. So whether they work for municipalities, in health care, in homes for the aged, or with hydro, they need child care. So we're hearing it across the country. We hear it as a union that represents child care and early childhood educators, but also, we represent working people.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Thank you very much for the answer to the question.

Just to finish off, that's one of the reasons we think the bill is flawed. Clause 4 of the bill exempts Quebec from this proposed program. In my view, Canadian citizens are Canadian citizens across the country, regardless of the province or the territory in which they live. It's a responsibility of a government to articulate on behalf of all Canadians living in all provinces. I feel quite strongly about that. So I think you've highlighted somewhat of a contradiction in this bill with regard to a national system that doesn't include Quebec.

[Lynne Yelich, Conservative, Blackstrap, SK]

I would like to go back to Mr. Savage's remarks.

First of all, we do have a plan, and the plan was to address universality right off the bat, and $100 went out to every child under the age of six, as of last July. So there was over $1 billion put immediately into each and every child. That was your choice in child care, and it was universal.

The child care spaces were to be implemented starting in our budget in 2007, and that is what are working on, to create new spaces. It's started. We are giving money to the private sector to create spaces, but also to the provinces. We are dealing with the provinces to create spaces as well. On Thursday, the provinces all stated that they had created spaces very recently. I know Saskatchewan has created 500 spaces, whereas under the Liberal plan they didn't create spaces. We don't know what they did with the money, but they did not create spaces. Now they are, because that is part of the plan.

I must say, Mr. Dinsdale, I think this speaks to the bill. It's pretty hard for us to vote on it and to be in favour of this bill when it has left out a significant part of the population that it was meant to address, and this was part of the remarks of the author of the bill. She specifically said we must create spaces for the aboriginal people, and you have clearly showed us that it doesn't exist in this bill. Therefore, to support this bill would be supporting a bill that most people in the House must know they're not supporting on your behalf.

I want to talk about the section of the bill that talks about accountability, because that's what we're really talking about. It's not accountability.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Ruby Dhalla]

You have 10 seconds left.

[Lynne Yelich, Conservative, Blackstrap, SK]

And this is the reporting aspect of it. The bill does say the providers must be non-profit, that the program is administered by the government of the province, it reports to the provincial government, and is subject to a public audit of its accounts.

So I want to know if any of you report to the provinces. As Mr. Dent said, he thought the demands of the reporting of the bill would be difficult for many of the child care outfits. Would you have to change your reporting, if you do report? Do you have any reporting mechanisms?

We're talking about accountability of the bill. It states that—

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Ruby Dhalla]

I'm sorry, I'm going to have to cut you off because you're way over time. You'll have to answer in the next round.

We're going to be starting our second round. For five minutes, we have Mr. Merasty.

[Gary Merasty, Liberal, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Thanks, Madam Chair.

The first question is more to Mr. Dinsdale at this point. From what I understand, there is an amendment coming forward on the aboriginal issue, more specifically. One of the concerns I've had is this. I've heard recently there are potentially going to be cuts and rollbacks to the ECIP, or early childhood intervention program, and the head start program, combined with the lack of child care spaces currently out there. I'm hoping the amendment will speak to some of these concerns.

The issue I hear from my community and across Canada is that the aboriginal population is the only population that's having a huge baby boom, and there seems to be a choking of resources--I don't mean that intentionally. It is really bottlenecking. Less and less funding is going into providing early childhood spaces, and there are potentially some rollbacks from Indian Affairs and from Health on Head Start, Brighter Futures, and ECIP.

What do you think the impact will be? Dr. Shanker talked about the long-term impact, not just psychologically but for all these others, because of that lack. To me, it's potentially very detrimental if those investments aren't immediately channelled into this baby boom. I wonder if you can expand a bit more on your five points, very briefly, on why that investment is so necessary.

[Peter Dinsdale]

I obviously was strong in my comments and I probably surprised some by the strength of them in criticizing the bill. It's because I think it is so critical that we get this right at the outset, because it would be leaving such a significant portion out.

We certainly support the bill. With the current process that's in place, we aren't seeing the aboriginal community benefiting. We aren't seeing aboriginal day cares opening up with the $100 a month. We aren't seeing those kinds of things happening. The plans simply are not reaching our communities, and neither would this one. That was our concern.

The head start program has been incredibly vital. We have 20 urban aboriginal head start programs across the country. These head start programs are having tremendous impact on the young. Our communities do not have a culture of learning right now. Half of our people are dropping out of high school. Imagine in your riding and in your family, if half the people didn't graduate from high school, the kind of national outcry there would be.

The head start program is one of the few programs that are having a tremendous impact in giving these young kids a head start, and it's having tremendous impact. The parents are involved in the communities. The teaching is happening. It's an incredible thing. This could add to that. The head start programs are in addition to the child day care spaces I talked about, but they certainly are a complementary strategy in terms of having these head start programs where kids are coming in and learning.

So I hope my comments and the strength with which I present them aren't being misconstrued to suggest that we don't support the bill or that the bill should be....

I'm hoping that in our strong language you'll see the areas where we think amendments need to be made in order to ensure that our community has proper access, and I think cutting the head start program back would be a tremendous detriment to the community and the kind of momentum that's occurring in a lot of these agencies right now.

[Gary Merasty, Liberal, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

You see, I'm caught in a bit of a tough place, because the current Conservative plan basically ignores the aboriginal communities. It's just not going to happen.

I, of course, was concerned about this bill when it first came out. The amendments will hopefully speak to the concerns that were raised, but those same concerns also exist in my riding, a rural riding, with economically marginalized infrastructure, and we have small, private home operators. They're the only ones who can exist. They're not necessarily not-for-profit, but we need them.

That was my other concern about this bill as well, when it came to those two issues. I'm wondering if you could speak to what we actually should be doing with the amendments that are being talked about to protect the not-for-profits and the small operators.

[Carol Gott]

Certainly in our work in developing the national strategy paper, which again included people who both provide and operate child care from every province and territory, we spent a long time on the non-profit/for-profit issue.

From a rural perspective, we don't have the same concerns of big-box child care coming in. They're just not going to come. But we also know that the very best child care, the very best solutions, have been developed around a non-profit base that allows different sectors of the community, well beyond the child care sector, to work together for the benefit of families and children, and that's very difficult from a for-profit base.

So even the people who were for-profit operators, within the context of that national strategy paper, eventually supported the notion that we brought forward in the paper of grandfathering for-profit centres that are there now, but certainly directing the limited funding to developing much more community-based, much more inclusive non-profit centres and solutions--not centres, because certainly we looked at home child care. We looked at, as I said, a whole continuum of service.

But it's really important. If we are going to dovetail with education, if we are going to work together with health, we need to do that from a community base, from a non-profit base.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Ruby Dhalla]

Thank you.

We now go on, for another five minutes, to Mr. Lessard, please.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I found the discussion between Mr. Dinsdale and Mr. Merasty quite interesting. To make sure the bill is equitable for everyone, we would almost have to go to two extremes.

The Aboriginal peoples’ situation shows that their conditions in terms of services are such that special provisions should be made at all times. That is the case here and that is to be expected. It is something that has to be done. I think that, if we manage to do so, eventually we will come up with some provisions enabling us to reach everyone. The people from Rural Voices for Early Childhood Education and Care can give us their opinion on this. If we can reach Aboriginal people, it seems to me that we will succeed in reaching other communities. This exercise should be one of generosity and not pettiness. We must avoid saying, for example, that one group in Quebec is receiving services and that this is not right because we have not yet got these services ourselves, and, if we cannot have services, these services should not be offered to another group. There is something unhealthy about that sort of thing and ideological positions...

When our friend Mr. Chong tells us that the Conservatives’ policies are very generous regarding more vulnerable communities, I do not understand. Indeed, the Kelowna Accord, in spite of its imperfections, was very positive. They are the ones who got rid of it. I do not want to turn this into a political issue, but we have to be clear with one another. We must not make any mistakes here; we have to tell it like it is.

Your last comments, Mr. Dinsdale, clarified the question more for me. A statement was made at the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, with whom you probably have some connections. The statement said that Bill C-303 contained some shortcomings pertaining to Aboriginal peoples, but by wording clause 8 so as to specify the particularities of Aboriginal peoples, there could be a positive outcome. The bill would be more effective and Aboriginal peoples could support it more readily. I would like to hear your comments in this regard. If by chance you have not given some thought to this question, you could send us your comments later.

I also very much enjoyed the contribution by the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada. I did not have time to consult your report, which looks quite rich, as do all the others, moreover.

I am going to conclude with an example, Madam Chair. When child care services were set up in Quebec in 1997, I was part of it. I worked on it, and my colleague too. We did not achieve perfection the first year, nor has it been achieved yet. This system serves as a model. We dared to do something. It remains that for many years the educators working within this system were paid less than zoo employees. This is the sort of thing that has been improved over time.

We could restrict ourselves to defending our own child care system so that it does not become vulnerable, but what we really want is for all of you everywhere in the country to have a good system. We are going to lend our support to one another and this way this kind of intervention will not make our system vulnerable.

I apologize for not leaving time for an answer.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Ruby Dhalla]

There's a minute and a half for a response.

[Peter Dinsdale]

Thank your for the question.

Two of my five concerns were in reference to clause 8, around indicators of availability, and the spelling out there, perhaps, of indicators of accessibility. There would be two ways to look at it. I think you still need to make sure that the on-reserve dilemma and the jurisdictional issues are addressed, and that might take more thinking. I'm glad I'm not in your moccasins...I don't know if that translates well. I'm glad I'm not in your shoes, because those things are not going to be easy.

I think the tariff issue is also fundamental. As much as it is an issue of aboriginal access, hopefully the same issue has been raised by some poverty groups. If you are making minimum wage or barely above it, if you are an aboriginal woman with a child, if you managed to get through high school and are working somewhere, and you need child care, and you are asked to pay the average wage for that, I guarantee you your wage is not the average wage.

If we want these young women to be successful and to have quality, accessible, affordable--to use the previous language--child care spaces that are culturally relevant, that are going to help her child finish and graduate as well, then I think we need to turn our attention to it. And I think the tariff is a huge barrier.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Ruby Dhalla]

Is there anything else? You have 30 seconds.

[Jody Dallaire]

I would like to thank you for your remarks. It is true that the Quebec system is the envy of the other provinces. Despite all the possible imperfections, we would like the government to show leadership, to establish a timetable and to make long-term investments.

I am very worried when I hear that a provision recognizing that Quebec has already implemented its own child care services might result in the other provinces not being able to set up their own, particularly since Quebec was recently recognized in the House of Commons as a nation. I find that both very worrisome and contradictory.