Human Resources Committee on March 7th, 2023

[Michelle Lattimore]

Again, having not been here at the time that decisions may have been made about this, I can't speak around whether or not direction was provided. What I can tell you is that there certainly is a body of research that links not-for-profit care with the provision of high-quality care. What the legislation and the bilateral agreements reflect, or certainly the bilateral agreements, is that for-profit and private care do play a role in the provision of high-quality child care in Canada. The bilateral agreements provide space for that.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Can you table the research that you're referencing for this committee, then?

[Michelle Lattimore]

We'd be happy to provide research that supports that.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

I understand from your presentation slides that the goal of this department is to create 250,000 new child care spaces within three years. Where did this 250,000 number come from?

[Michelle Lattimore]

The goal of the provinces and territories together will be creating 250,000 spaces. Space creation itself is not something that the federal government can do. What we can do is provide—

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Thank you. I understand that, but where did the number of 250,000 come from? Where's the calculation for that? What are the metrics for that? Where did that number come from? Was it also a direction from the minister? Do you have analysis? Do you have a report that you can table? What's the breakdown for that?

[Michelle Lattimore]

As I think I mentioned earlier, some of the work that was done to support space creation numbers in the Canada-wide agreements comes from experience with the Province of Quebec and the determination that there is a coverage rate with respect to early learning and child care availability that ensures that families who have access to a licensed space can get access to that space.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Well, that wasn't the question, though. The question was, where did the 250,000 number come from? It sounds like you don't know where the number came from, and yet it's right in your presentation that it is the goal of the federal government to work with the provincial governments.

I'll move on.

What percentage of child care spaces presently are run by private operators?

[Michelle Lattimore]

I don't have a number for the percentage of child care spaces that are run by private operators. That would be a number that is collected potentially at the municipal or territorial level, or potentially by municipalities—

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Through this legislation, there will be funding that will be going to government and not-for-profit organizations, and yet what you're saying is that you don't know how many private operators there are. Is that correct? You don't know how many will be left out of this.

[Michelle Lattimore]

Private operators are not left out of the Canada-wide agreement. Private operators are recognized as being—

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

My question is, how many are there? What does this represent?

[Michelle Lattimore]

What private operators.... I'm sorry; I'm not understanding your question.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

How many private operators are there in the country?

[Michelle Lattimore]

I don't have a number in front of me that I can speak to right now with respect to the number of private operators in the country.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Ask a short question, please.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

You've got in here that you're going to be primarily focusing on the not-for-profit child care and just a reference to “recognizing and respecting”, so does that mean that right out of the gate, private operators won't receive any funding?

[Michelle Lattimore]

Private operators are already receiving funding under the Canada-wide agreements.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Ms. Gray. You went over quite a bit, but I did not want to interfere with your line of questioning.

We'll now move to Mr. Van Bynen for five minutes.

[Tony Van Bynen, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I appreciate you coming forward outlining the parameters of this program.

Having just recently crossed over the age of 40, I thought maybe it's just a little too late for me to get any benefit out of this, but the reality is that for every dollar invested, it's $1.51 to $2.80 that's being returned to the economy. My point here is that you don't need to have children to benefit from this program. It strengthens the economy overall. I'm glad to see this bill go forward. I'm eager to see this go forward and I'm eager to see this embedded in legislation. I'm glad that this bill is before this committee.

During debate, some members criticized this bill for lacking detail on implementation. Our understanding is that the conditions and the targets are set in the bilateral agreements, which this legislation reinforces. Could you please confirm whether this is correct and explain how exactly the system is being operationalized?

[Michelle Lattimore]

The system is being operationalized by provinces and territories with the support of the federal government.

One of the things that I think people tend to point to in the bilateral agreements is the requirement for bilateral implementation committees. These are committees that exist at the working level between public servants in the federal government within our secretariat and the provinces and territories. They are mandated to meet at least twice a year to monitor ongoing progress of implementation of the agreements.

Importantly, implementation committees also include regional and national stakeholders to ensure that those views, the actual experience of what implementation feels like on the ground, are reflected at those committees.

What I will say, though, is that although we do spend a lot of time thinking about and tracking the work of implementation committees, it is really the relationships that this team builds with provincial and territorial colleagues in working with them on a day-to-day basis that are at the core of ongoing positive implementation. Those relationships are built from engaging over the little challenges that are faced day to day in planning for investments and in doing some of that course correction that I mentioned earlier. For example, a province like Saskatchewan may think that it's going to reach $10 a day much later in the agreement and then actually be in a position to announce $10 a day yesterday.

That's how we monitor and manage implementation. It's by maintaining those relationships, along with some formality along the way that you see reflected in the agreements themselves.

[Tony Van Bynen, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

You say on page 10 that there are penalties if you don't receive your information on time from the provinces or the territories. What information are you requesting and what are you going to do with it?

[Michelle Lattimore]

Thanks. That's a great question.

There are a few different pieces of information that we require. For each fiscal year, we require from provinces and territories audited financial statements that are a reflection of where funding is spent. That, for us, is just a key function of ensuring the sound use of public funds and that federal funding is going where it is intended.

Provinces and territories also provide to us annual reports that outline their accomplishments under those key principles that are reflected in the agreements. Some provinces and territories publish those annual reports and others don't. The federal government's intention, once we have all of those reports, is to put together a federal report that makes public to Canadian families the progress of the system.

I will say that there have been challenges for many provinces and territories over the last number of years in putting together some of that annual reporting, but we're getting into a bit of a groove with them right now, and this is certainly a very busy time of year for us as a number of those reports are coming in.

[Tony Van Bynen, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Why does the bill not mention the early childhood education workforce?

[Michelle Lattimore]

The early childhood education workforce does have mention in 7(1)(d) of the legislation, where we speak to the importance of the workforce in contributing to high-quality child care in Canada.

Where we do not go further on the workforce is a reflection of our intention to keep this legislation focused purely on the federal aspect so as not to impose conditions on provinces, territories or indigenous partners and to respect fully their jurisdiction in this space.