Human Resources Committee on March 31st, 2009

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Could you comment on what you thought of the last national child care agreement we had with the provinces, which was then cancelled?

I know you mentioned, Ms. Dallaire, that you wanted it to be only not-for-profit, although sometimes when you're negotiating--because we don't deliver it directly; it's delivered by the provinces--there are a lot of differences. Could you comment on the quality, if you like, of the previous agreements that had been established with provinces? If we're going to go into it, we might as well deal with what was good or not from the other ones.

[Jody Dallaire]

As I mentioned in my presentation, the agreements did effect change. Since the cut of the agreements, we have seen some cuts at the provincial level, with the possible loss of subsidized spaces in Ontario and cuts in direct grants to programs in B.C. In this most recent budget in New Brunswick, the provincial government is announcing that it's cutting transfer payments to child care programs as a direct result of a lack of that funding.

What we are calling for goes further than those agreements. We need to provide clear benchmarks and timelines to provinces, and if they do not meet them, they do not access the funding. We need to really use our spending power to make sure we're going in the direction we want, because if not, we won't get there.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

So you want us to be more directive or more aggressive. That's fair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

You have 30 seconds.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Go ahead, why don't you use it?

[Leilani Farha]

I'm not a child care person. I work for a broader feminist organization. One of the things we have seen that are somewhat problematic in those federal-provincial agreements on child care has been that they have not always extended those child care benefits to women in receipt of social assistance, who really do need access to child care, and affordable child car, obviously. If they're going to leave welfare and get into paid employment, child care would be essential.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

That's great. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much. We're right on time. Thank you.

We're going to move to Madame Beaudin. You have seven minutes.

[Josée Beaudin, Bloc, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you for being here today.

You mentioned the Quebec model a few times. I would like you to talk about its advantages in terms of child care and poverty reduction programs.

[Jody Dallaire]

Child care services have made a real difference in people’s lives. Some data on the Quebec model shows, among other things, that there is an incredible return on the investment: more and more women are entering the labour market and accepting positions with greater responsibilities. Each year, every $1 spent by the Quebec government generates $0.40 in economic benefits.

There has been a reduction in the level of poverty in Quebec as a result of the establishment of the family policy, which contains many more measures than just child care. Canada could learn much from this model.

[Josée Beaudin, Bloc, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Thank you.

Do you have something to add, Mr. Lynk?

[Dr. Andrew Lynk]

Yes, Madame Beaudin.

The Canadian Paediatric Society, when we were reviewing the literature on poverty in Canada, was also very impressed with Quebec being the only province to have reduced child poverty rates during the 10- to 15-year period of recent economic prosperity. So something is working well in Quebec, and we need to pay attention to it.

Thank you.

[Josée Beaudin, Bloc, Saint-Lambert, QC]

You emphasize the fact that child care services make it possible for women to enter the labour market. Is it also a means of ensuring that very young children up to the age of five can escape the cycle of poverty?

[Jody Dallaire]

Research clearly shows that when these children have access to quality early childhood services, they are better equipped socially. Quality is important because services of poor quality can hinder the development of children. In terms of cognitive skills, they arrive at school ready to learn, which can break the cycle of poverty for children. Education begins in early childhood. there is an incredible return on the investment.

The economist Eckman showed that investing in early childhood education results in incredible returns.

[Dr. Andrew Lynk]

I agree.

[Josée Beaudin, Bloc, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Do you have something to add?

[Dr. Andrew Lynk]

No.

[Josée Beaudin, Bloc, Saint-Lambert, QC]

You have spoken a great deal about provincial spending power. A number of provinces already have poverty reduction programs. You also spoke about social housing, among other things, as a means of helping families escape poverty. Housing is a large expense for a family. Please talk about your views on the federal government’s contribution in this area.

[Dr. Andrew Lynk]

Madame, I'm not an expert in the social policy areas. As I said in my report, if you were giving money to the provinces for things like housing and other poverty reduction strategies, you have to ask the provinces to be accountable for that money and to have targets and timelines. I really think that's one thing the federal government should do and can do.

We know that probably about 70%, at least in Atlantic Canada, of low-income families live in unaffordable housing. They pay too much for their housing. That has direct effects on food insecurity. Like the family I mentioned in my report, there are many families living on corn flakes the last few days of the month before the welfare cheque comes out. So housing is critical to this whole problem.

[Josée Beaudin, Bloc, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Go ahead.

[Leilani Farha]

I sit on the steering committee of CFAIA, but I actually am the executive director of a housing organization in Ontario and I run a national women's housing network, so I can speak directly to the issue of how the federal government is faring with respect to housing.

It is true that under the most recent economic action plan there were dollars for social housing. Obviously social housing is a very important part of dealing with poverty, but it's not the only way the federal government should be looking at housing to alleviate poverty. If you're a woman right now and you're in receipt of social assistance, and you live in Toronto and you don't have public housing or access to social housing, there is a seven- to nine-year wait. With these new dollars you're still going to have to wait, because it takes a long time to build social housing. So the federal government hasn't been as good at looking at other creative means of ensuring that low-income women can access units that are actually out there.

There are vacancy rates in many cities and smaller cities across Canada. If women and other low-income people were given other options besides social housing to access those available units, that would go some distance. I'm talking about things like rent supplements, we call them, or portable shelter allowances, or portable housing allowances, where you top up a person's income so that they can afford the available market value unit. The criticism of that is normally, “Well, we don't want to line the pockets of landlords.” There is no empirical evidence that landlords will increase rents based on rent supplement programs. It just hasn't happened, for whatever reason. I am not an economist, but for whatever reason, it just doesn't happen.

Also, the federal-provincial agreements in housing that exist at this point in time are a patchwork. Some provinces are very slow at rolling out the dollars, and Ontario is a very good example.

First of all, we don't have a national housing strategy. The United Nations has been clear that Canada is one of the only developed countries that does not have a national housing strategy and that this would go some distance to addressing that issue, particularly for low-income people. But it's also clear that we need some kind of accountability mechanism to see where those dollars are going, what the provinces and territories are doing with those dollars, and who is benefiting from those dollars.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you. You are right on time.

Ms. Chow, welcome. You have seven minutes. The floor is yours.

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

Thank you. It's nice to be visiting.

We know that in 1995 the cap on the Canada assistance plan began the downward spiral all across this country. Whether it's the cancellation of the national housing program or the welfare rates plummeting, you don't need me to go on about the destruction that occurred.

Also during that period we saw the beginning of block funding, the social transfer and the college and universities grants being lumped together and cut by a dramatic percentage. I've often thought that if we are to move forward to talk about having conditions on the various funding transfers, even if is a national housing strategy, an anti-poverty strategy, early childhood education and care, somehow there needs to be a recreation of some kind of plan. For argument's sake, we can call it the Canada prosperity plan or Canada anti-poverty plan. Whatever we call it, it would bring back or recreate the kind of structure that we had many years ago when the federal government first created social transfers. It's really about dealing with the social safety net.

With the social safety net now mostly gone, we have no conditions attached to any of these transfers. It's close to impossible to have a discussion about any of these issues, given that it's a direct transfer and the federal government has no role to play, other than occasionally receiving a report here or there.

Is that the direction we are talking about? Minus Quebec, because Quebec is different; Quebec has no problem with block transfers. They are miles ahead on their housing, their early childhood education and care, and their anti-poverty plan. Is that what we are talking about?

Is there a proposal on housing, child care, poverty, child benefits, minimum wage, welfare rates? Have you gotten together to say, here is the kind of proposal we are looking for? It's in different pieces out there, and unless we bring them together.... We can say the national housing program needs to build affordable housing, and then the housing allowance and the rent supplements.... We know all that. How do we do it?

It's a bigger question. Does anyone care to comment?

[Leilani Farha]

It's not an easy thing to comment on, but I will try.

I mentioned in my presentation this process called the universal periodic review of Canada, which happened at the United Nations. But before the United Nations review of Canada, there was a mobilization of human rights and other social service organizations across the country that were interested in grappling with the human rights reality in Canada. There were five meetings across the country and there was a mobilization of over 125 organizations from all different realms—people dealing with housing, employment, education, security issues, the whole realm. One consistent message that came out of those meetings was that we need implementation mechanisms in this country to implement all rights--social and economic rights, as well as civil and political rights. I think this goes to your question.

People are starting to see that the different sectors and stakeholders need to come together to try to develop, in a very complicated federalist system, some mechanism that will be accountable to all stakeholders, that will take all of these silo areas—housing, day care, child care, etc.—and bring them together under one implementation mechanism.

That's where we really need federal government leadership. I have yet to see that kind of leadership in my work. I have yet to hear federal government representatives saying this is the implementation mechanism we are going to use and this is how we're going to interact with the provinces and territories, and this is how rights holders will be able to claim their rights. I've not seen that on the political landscape. There are people agitating, but I'm not seeing that yet.

[Jody Dallaire]

We did a study about the accountability in the previous child care agreements that were signed. We found that when you required the provincial governments to be accountable to their publics, because that was the requirement under the previous agreements that were signed, there was no accountability from the provinces to the federal government. The provinces needed to account to their publics.

We found there were inconsistencies. Sometimes there was a baseline established, it was reported on, and then the following year there was a report done, but it didn't report on the progress on specific programs and how they were meeting children's needs. What we need are specific targets and timelines, such as how many child care spaces are in a province to date, as a baseline. In year one, how many additional spaces have we created? Has the provincial government capped fees as they're making funding available to the program? We need clear benchmarks and timelines that the provincial governments do report back to the federal government. Ideally, that would be enshrined in legislation.