Human Resources Committee on June 4th, 2020

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Ms. Chabot, you have six minutes.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Thank you Mr. Chair.

I also thank our two witnesses.

I'd like to address my remarks to Ms. Armine Yalnizyan.

I'd like to comment on your analysis of women's work. I think you're joining one of your colleagues we had as a witness, Ms. Jennifer Robson. In fact, you wrote that, mathematically, women make up half of the population that makes up the labour market, but that we may not be able to include them in the recovery. I think those are concerns that we have as well.

You talked a lot about social infrastructure, the social economy and the importance of child care. I would like to say that in Quebec, we made that choice back in 1997. You are right to say that it has paid off, to put it simply. It has greatly improved women's access to the labour market. However, I must respectfully say that this is a provincial jurisdiction. Quebec has made a societal choice, and it is up to the other provinces to question themselves in this regard. That is our point of view.

That said, one day, containment will end, both in schools and in child care. Everything will start all over again. Do you think the economic recovery will be there for women? If not, what would it take to make that happen?

[Armine Yalnizyan]

I greatly appreciate the question. I recognize that my comment is controversial in the context of jurisdictions. I tried to make my case as to why I believe this is necessary in the pandemic period, because in most jurisdictions, schools are not open and child care centres are closing.... Consequently, to maintain critical social infrastructure that needs to exist across the country, my view is that the federal government needs to step up to the plate, not just on physical infrastructure but on social infrastructure as well. Of all the social infrastructure, this is the most critical to regaining recovery for men, for women, for households and for the entire superstructure of businesses that rely on household purchasing power.

I don't see how we're going to do it province by province. I think too many provinces are going to be cash-strapped in the wake of this jurisdictional.... Our ecosystem of child care support is...in some measure—and we don't even know which measure, because we count the system so poorly in Canada. It's delivered partly through not-for-profit private sector organizations and partly through for-profit private sector businesses. It's unclear which of these are going to survive. Without federal support, I do not believe it is going to be possible to sustain the infrastructure. As I mentioned, better measurement is done in the United States, and there they estimate they are going to lose 50% of their capacity.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Beyond social infrastructure and what we believe Canada should be doing, I would like to know what economic measures you have in mind. You say that some provinces are in bad shape, but they are making a social choice when they decide whether or not to invest in social infrastructure. I am quite proud of Quebec in this regard. I have done a lot of work on this.

Now everything will start up again. We set up the CERB. As you know, it saved a lot of women. In fact, if employment insurance had been used, many women would not have received support. One day, the CERB will no longer be offered, but we ask that it be maintained.

What support measures for women and families do you see in the context of economic recovery?

[Armine Yalnizyan]

This is precisely why I'm turning to child care as both a source of employment and a liberator, a liberator for women who do find work to be able to get work because without child care they can't return.

The schools are not opening until possibly next fall. Child care centres and camps are shut down. Unless we do something to permit women who do have jobs to return, we're going to see even more of a recession amongst women.

I just need to hammer away at this point. I don't think it is a provincial question alone. The CERB was really important to keep people at home during the contagion, 100%. I'm very proud both of the Government of Quebec and it's approach to child care and the Government of Canada and it's approach to helping people stay home safely to contain the contagion.

However, the CERB is precisely designed as a disincentive to work. That is what its purpose is. Extending it during a reopening makes no sense. We need different policies to get people back to work. In particular, to get women back to work, we need to stop putting up barriers to their getting back to work. Just because Quebec is more advanced doesn't mean that the rest of the country doesn't need help in catching up.

In fact, Quebec could be doing, as you know, an even more aggressive job of reaching into low income communities with very high-quality, subsidized care for early learning and development because so many immigrant families and low-income families send their kids to school not learning-ready. We could be doing more to help children in high school improve their ability to graduate.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

As I understand it, in your opinion, the CERB should be extended.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Ms. Chabot.

Thank you, Ms. Yalnizyan.

Next up we're going to go to Jenny Kwan for six minutes, please.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I thank our witnesses for their presentations.

I'd like to ask Ms. Yalnizyan my first question.

I appreciate your presentation of a feminist analysis of the impact of COVID on women particularly and of the post-COVID actions that need to be taken.

I'll focus on the child care piece because I've already heard from constituents in my riding who are very worried about it. Some of them are seeing their maternity leave coming to an end and, likewise, their paternity leave coming to an end. As you indicated, the child care services were inadequate to begin with before COVID. Now many of them are having to operate at half capacity because of social distancing requirements and so on.

In light of that, am I hearing correctly from you that what we need is a national child care strategy? I wonder also what your thoughts are on paternity and maternity leave. My constituents are asking for the government to extend the maternity and paternity leave period.

I'd just like to get your thoughts on that.

[Armine Yalnizyan]

Let's start with the inadequacy of child care, which is a market failure. The Royal Commission on the Status of Women report that came out in 1970 is going to mark its 50th anniversary in December. We've been talking about the need for child care as part of the early education system for 50 years, and for 50 years we have treated it as a market issue. It is a family choice. It is an individual choice. Let the market decide how it is delivered. We have seen systemic market failure. Now we are going to see a colossal wave of market failure as these centres close because people don't have the money to go there right now, and then when they do have the money to go there, they are not open anymore.

So yes, I think we need a national child care strategy. Yes, I believe it should be federally funded, especially in the post-pandemic period. We need to have national protocols for safe reopening. It's going to mean very different adult-to-child ratios, more physical distancing, absolutely guaranteed supply chains for PPE.

This is not an individual province's problem, just like the pandemic wasn't an individual province's problem. I believe very strongly that we need a national strategy that's federally funded to get us safely through to the recovery.

With respect to maternity and parental leave, we know the most expensive form of child care is infant care. We also know around the world, probably in 99% of cases, the best caregiver for infants is the parent. We could be saving money and providing better care by extending that care, and looking at what other jurisdictions do to help parents to be able to afford to stay at home, but I can guarantee if we're doing it at 50% income replacement....

Again, Quebec is the outlier. We need to learn from the best in this country, and we need to be mirroring this across the country. We have to do better than an EI-based 55% income replacement because low-income parents cannot afford 55% of their already low income.

Yes, longer periods, but the take-up will continue to be ridiculously low for people who can't afford to lose so much income to be able to stay at home with their kids.

This again is a market failure, and this is an issue of the public good. We need to have all hands on deck in 20 years. If we don't invest in these kids now, if we discount now, we will not have them to rely on in 15 to 20 years. I don't understand what's difficult to understand about this.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I will jump in here. Aside from the shortcomings you have identified, there is another aspect as well. Many people do not qualify for the EI system. That's why the government came in with the CERB. Even then, there are many holes in it that we're still trying to plug at this juncture.

To that end, some people have advocated for a universal direct payment, or guaranteed income if you will. Do you have any thoughts about that as we move beyond the post-COVID period?

[Armine Yalnizyan]

I have a lot of thoughts on it. I've been quite public about my position that I do not think the CERB is a portal to a basic income, and I don't think a basic income is the right approach, given the needs.

We need excellent basic services. We don't need money. We need to make sure everybody is.... Some people need more money. Social assistance rates across this country are appallingly low. They are inadequate. They are riddled with all sorts of precocious ways of kicking you off social assistance.

But that's a different conversation from a basic income. My position would be, particularly in the post-pandemic period, what COVID has revealed is care—elder care, health care, child care—are the preconditions for a functioning economy every bit as much as roads and bridges. We need excellent services we can all rely on. That will cost money, and that will yield higher returns than anything we could provide through basic income.

To your point that too many people are not even eligible to get maternal and parental benefits, I think for sure we will be reviewing our EI system on the other side of this. I have no doubt that part of this discussion will be how we support all parents better, and again, look to Quebec for models of how to do it. We are not without models of how to do it, and we need to suck it up and get going with how to do it right for most people.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Ms. Yalnizyan and Ms. Kwan.

Now we'll go to Mr. Vis, please, for five minutes.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Thank you, Chair. Thank you to both of our witnesses for some excellent testimony.

Ms. Yalnizyan, I appreciate your comments about the role of the federal government, but I also believe there are ways to uphold the constitutional jurisdictions of provinces and territories while responding to some of the very important economy of care, including child care, that you referenced in your remarks today.

First off, I am a father, I'm 35 years old and I was elected last year, so I know full well the cost of child care, being in a family of two working parents, both grinding it to get ahead and paying in excess of $1,000 a month for child care. That's my reality, before being elected and now.

I've heard from early childhood educators in my province of British Columbia, where I send my son, that they're choked because, while the Province of B.C. initially called them essential workers, it did not list them as eligible for the temporary pandemic pay top-up program.

In your opinion, should early childhood educators who work in day cares and Montessoris have been listed as essential workers?

[Armine Yalnizyan]

The short answer is yes. In Ontario, we had essential workers supported by free, around-the-clock child care for shift workers. That gives you a sense of how essential they were. They are essential workers, doing their essential work, so, yes, they should have been deemed essential workers. We should put them in the public education system; child care workers should be part of free education.

Can I just say something to the chair, please?

I have also been asked to provide testimony at FINA, which starts in a minute. I'm going to have to leave in one minute. I had no idea this was going to go on this long. I'm afraid I'm going to have to duck out.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Can I ask you one more quick question before you go?

[Armine Yalnizyan]

Sure.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

I believe when I did my taxes for last year I could deduct up to $8,500 for child care expenses, but my child care expenses far exceeded $8,500. Would changing the CRA tax credit to allow for the true cost of child care help professional mothers, and even low-wage mothers, to be able to participate in our economy in a more fulsome manner?

[Armine Yalnizyan]

It's an excellent question and I thank you for it, but I do believe it would help professional women far more than low-income women. What we have seen is that most of the people who lost their jobs, that were deemed not essential, are low-paid workers. We have to get them back into the workforce. Just mathematically, we need to get more people working and more people skilled up, doing better jobs.

Yes, it's possible, but to be completely honest with you, if we spend more money on tax expenditures to discount the full freight of child care, it would benefit people with nannies more than it would benefit people with kids in child care, so I'm not sure why we would skew our tax expenditure system that way.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Okay. Thank you for your testimony today.

I will turn Big Brothers now. Mr. Chater, thank you for being at this committee today as well.

I'm very concerned to hear about the $21-million shortfall that Big Brothers Big Sisters of Canada has. Like all Canadians, we really honour the work you do.

In my riding, in 2017, we had a flash flood and there was some federal matching involved in donations to the Red Cross. Would Big Brothers Big Sisters be open to the idea of a federal matching program to incentivize Canadians with the means to support charities such as yours and other similar charities?

[Matthew Chater]

I like that idea, and yes, we're certainly open to it.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Okay. Thank you.

I know Imagine Canada in the past has talked about increasing the tax benefits for charitable organizations. I do know that political parties all receive a more generous tax credit.

Given the circumstances now, would Big Brothers Big Sisters support an increase to the tax benefits for Canadians who donate?

[Matthew Chater]

Yes, we would support that. We stand behind many of the solutions that Imagine Canada has put forward.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Okay. Thank you.

From speaking with my local police officers, and you did touch on this a bit, and from other anecdotal encounters I've had with constituents, I've heard a lot of unfortunate accounts that domestic abuse has increased during COVID-19-related isolation measures.

Could you comment a little further about what you've seen and the challenges that our at-risk youth are facing during this time?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Give a short answer please, Mr. Chater.