Evidence of meeting #12 for Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the 40th Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was children.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Ben Lobb Conservative Huron—Bruce, ON
And then would you also want to see the $13 billion we currently contribute towards the other initiatives we have to combat child poverty, with all the different dollars that Mr. Komarnicki mentioned before? Is that cost for child care in addition to that?
Chair, Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada
Our plan actually costed a universal child care system for all children aged zero to six. It didn't base it on full-time care for all children because, as mentioned, some parents will choose drop-in centres, for stay-at-home parents, and some will choose part-time care. It's based on 1% of GDP. We didn't look at the global poverty reduction strategy. We focused our energy specifically on child care.
Conservative
Ben Lobb Conservative Huron—Bruce, ON
Thank you. We'll have to cross that at another time, then.
I'm from a rural area, so I guess it's only prudent that I ask a question about rural Ontario, or rural Canada. There just aren't enough children to attend day cares to have them in all the communities in the riding in which I live. How does your strategy address those issues in rural Ontario, rural Canada? I'm sure your group dealt with that.
Chair, Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada
That's a very good question.
I live in New Brunswick, which is a very rural province, and we work with an organization called Rural Voices. They've done some amazing creative things. Child care in rural communities does look different, but it is doable. Often you have multi-age groups, and you pair it with other services. It's really from the ground up. It's not something that's imposed by the provincial or the federal governments. It's the community that looks at what is needed and actually builds the services.
In rural New Brunswick, for example, we have community schools, and a lot of them are at risk of closing. So it makes sense that early learning and child care would be part of the school building, to be able to, first of all, save the school and to provide that essential service in the community. If at a certain time there are fewer children, we can do another service instead.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dean Allison
Thank you. That's all the time we have today.
I do want to thank our witnesses for taking time to be here. Thank you very much.
I'm going to tell the committee, while we're handing out other committee business, we're going to go in camera, so we're going to take about a two-minute break.
Once again, thank you for being here today.
[Proceedings continue in camera]