Okay.
What we know is that these programs do not become widely accessible and have reliably high quality unless governments take the lead role in organizing, financing, and operating them. So keeping in mind the best interests of children and the need that parents have for early childhood programs so they can be employed, I just want to run through a list of policy characteristics that the federal government needs to begin to take leadership on in order to kick-start this program and get it off the ground.
First of all, I believe there's a key role for the federal government in ensuring that such a policy is developed. I think the federal government needs to be a key funder, a research and policy leader, and a convenor of the other levels of government in this process. It is certainly true that early childhood programs are clearly a provincial responsibility, but the federal government needs to ensure that the players work together to ensure that a strong policy framework is based on best practices in policy and program development.
The financing needs to be substantial. It needs to hit, fairly soon, 1% of GDP, which is the recommended international minimum benchmark for children zero to five years for ECEC programs, and the funding needs to be developed as core program funding, not subsidies, vouchers, or cheques to parents.
The system should be built as a universal service open to all families. I just want to reference the OECD here. It put forth the policy lesson that ECEC systems work best when they take a “universal approach to access, with particular attention to children in need of special support”. This means ensuring that the particular needs of disadvantaged families are front and centre when services are designed and that there are assurances that these families are fully included within a universal program.
Finally, ECEC needs to be one part of a broad, comprehensive poverty reduction strategy that includes income support, labour strategy, pensions, and affordable housing, the other things that we've had.
In summary, I think most people would agree it's hard to imagine that you could have an effective anti-poverty strategy without greatly improved early childhood education and care. It's not sufficient, but it's necessary.
Thanks for the extra time.