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.