Evidence of meeting #59 for Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was quality.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:45 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bobby Morrissey
Thank you, Ms. Gosselin.
Mr. Van Bynen, your time is over.
Ms. Bérubé, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.
4:45 p.m.
Bloc
Sylvie Bérubé Bloc Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Ms. Gosselin and Ms. Ballantyne, do you think it would be a good idea to include a clause in Bill C‑35 that would allow Quebec to opt out of this program with full compensation and no strings attached, to avoid negotiations and bickering every five years between the federal and provincial governments?
4:45 p.m.
Chair, Board of Directors, Association québécoise des centres de la petite enfance
Since child care falls under provincial jurisdiction, it sort of goes without saying.
The Quebec network's independence has helped it respond more adequately to needs, so it's very important that service organization remain a provincial jurisdiction. This will ensure that enforcement aligns with each province's realities.
4:50 p.m.
Bloc
4:50 p.m.
Executive Director, Child Care Now
We support the asymmetrical nature of the agreement that was reached with the Province of Quebec. We see nothing in this bill that would prevent another asymmetrical agreement from being negotiated in the future.
4:50 p.m.
Bloc
Sylvie Bérubé Bloc Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC
Ms. Gosselin, I'd like you to further define the benefits of our child care in Quebec, which, as you know, stands as a model.
4:50 p.m.
Chair, Board of Directors, Association québécoise des centres de la petite enfance
Child care services in Quebec come in all shapes and sizes, because they were developed at random over the years. However, the quality of services provided by CPEs, which are subsidized non-profit organizations, has been proven over the years. When their services are evaluated, they must comply. They get very good results, much better results than for-profit child care centres.
Of course, when profit is not a concern, all the money is invested in services for the children, including highly specialized support services to ensure equal opportunity and that even the most vulnerable children can reach their full potential. So that's something that makes the Quebec model and CPEs stand out.
4:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bobby Morrissey
Thank you, Ms. Bérubé.
We now go to Ms. Gazan for two and a half minutes to conclude this round of questioning.
4:50 p.m.
NDP
Leah Gazan NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
Thank you so much.
I just want to follow up with you, Madam Bruske.
I asked whether for-profit child care hurts workers, and you provided an explanation as to why it does. We know that one of the biggest barriers to recruiting and retaining child care workers is wages that don't cover the bills. This is one of the biggest barriers. If we want to talk about wait-lists, we can't talk about wait-lists without talking about workers.
What should the federal government be doing to address this worker shortage?
4:50 p.m.
President, Canadian Labour Congress
As I noted earlier, we really need, as part of this planning, a robust workforce strategy that sets out prevailing wages in the various different areas across Canada, that sets out educational opportunities for workers to maintain their accreditation and to continuously have upgrading—which benefits children, of course, as well—and we need to really look at strategies to make sure we provide those spots in rural and northern communities. That might mean having some additional supports that workers might need to either relocate to those communities or to be able to stay in those communities and to find housing and to afford to live in those communities as well.
There has to be a broad-based approach. There are a number of nuances. We'd be happy to provide some additional details on what we believe would be contained within a very robust workforce strategy. We need the very workers who are providing that care to also be able to afford that care for their families.
4:50 p.m.
NDP
Leah Gazan NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
If you could provide that information to committee, that would be wonderful.
4:50 p.m.
NDP
4:50 p.m.
Executive Director, Child Care Now
On this question, the only thing I would add is that it would be very helpful to have a national workforce strategy with respect to early learning and child care—of course, it would be important for every province and every territory to have a strategy, but it would be one supported through federal funding—and also to ensure that best practices in one province can be applied to another, where appropriate.
4:50 p.m.
NDP
Leah Gazan NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
Building on that, are there any ways you feel the bill could be strengthened? I know I asked that before.
4:50 p.m.
Executive Director, Child Care Now
I'll just go back to what I said before.
There is a provision in the bill that requires the minister to report and make a public report on an annual basis. I think it's really important that the minister tables such a report with the Houses of Parliament. It's a democratic thing. Parliamentarians are the representatives of citizens. This is a national project of huge significance with large federal investments. It would be important for Parliament to keep a close eye on developments and hold whatever government is in place to account.
4:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bobby Morrissey
Thank you, Ms. Gazan.
That concludes the first hour.
I want to thank the witnesses for appearing today. We will suspend for a few moments while we transition to the next panel.
We'll suspend for three minutes.
4:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bobby Morrissey
Committee members, if we have your attention then we will resume the second hour of this meeting.
Welcome, Andrea Hannen, from the Association of Day Care Operators of Ontario; Martha Friendly from the Childcare Resource and Research Unit; and Maureen Farris from the Strath-MacLean Child Care Centre.
We'll start with Ms. Hannen, for five minutes, please.
4:55 p.m.
Andrea Hannen Executive Director, Association of Day Care Operators of Ontario
Thank you, and thanks for the honour of being with you today.
I'm Andrea Hannen from the Association of Day Care Operators of Ontario, or ADCO.
ADCO represents independent licensed child care programs, both commercial and not-for-profit. Most of our member centres are run as small businesses, the majority of which are owned by ECEs, early childhood educators. Others are owned by Ontario-certified teachers, Montessori teachers or internationally trained professionals in early education. We also have not-for-profit member centres run by churches, temples and community groups.
In Ontario, there are only enough licensed spaces to support about 25% of children under five, so ADCO shares your goals of expanding access, making care more affordable and ensuring it's of high quality.
So far, we've heard a lot about the aspirations the government has for the Canada-wide early learning and child care program, or CWELCC. We haven't heard much about the challenges facing it though. ADCO is suggesting amendments that could help prevent these challenges from becoming systemic barriers to the program's success.
We need to keep in mind that although the federal government helps fund it, child care is a provincial responsibility. All Canadian provinces have well-established, highly regulated child care systems supported in part by provincial tax revenues, and within each province there's an existing network of licensed spaces. Already half of Canadian provinces have had to amend their CWELCC agreements. Staffing shortages are a big part of this, and few provinces can run their existing systems at full capacity.
In Ontario, many centres have closed entire rooms or shortened their hours because there's not enough staff. It's not just about wages and working conditions, although both are really important. It's that we can't pull ECEs out of thin air. Provinces can expand ECE diploma programs or work with the federal government to recruit more child care professionals from abroad, but that can take years, and families can't wait that long.
Families are eager for $10-a-day child care, but there aren't enough spaces to accommodate them. Staffing shortages will make it hard to expand the sector fast enough to meet the needs of a growing population.
To address this, ADCO is suggesting changes to the bill to reflect the fact that families use a variety of child care solutions. Rather than trying to create a single funded solution that may not currently be available, the CWELCC could simply focus on supporting families. The bill could allow provinces to offer families more flexible funding that follows the child. This approach would not only help more families access care now but also reduce the administrative burden on licensees, giving them more time to focus on the children.
ADCO is deeply concerned that many of Canada's existing centres could be at risk of closure because they fall outside of the bill's preferred model. They aren't in the public or not-for-profit spheres, yet they're highly regulated for quality. While many of these centres are covered by the current CWELCC agreements, the language of the bill could make continuing to fund these centres difficult or impossible once the current agreements expire.
Paragraph 7(1)(a) of the bill needs to be amended to include all licensed child care. This is a matter of practicality, because the last thing anybody wants is for Canadians to wind up with fewer licensed spaces as a result of the government passing this bill.
The committee has heard a lot about the differences between not-for-profit care and care provided by centres run as small businesses or larger companies. However, within each province all licensed child care programs are bound by law to adhere to the same standards of quality, no matter what their incorporated auspice is. To suggest that there's a difference is to malign the hard work of the provincial inspection officials who devote themselves to ensuring that all regulated programs are delivering quality care.
My last point is about the costs associated with the bill being so specific about the types of care to be funded. It takes a tremendous amount of new government bureaucracy to try to transition Canada's existing systems to the single model proposed in the bill. While some people worry that taxpayer dollars could wind up funding undue profits, the bigger risk may be the creation of a program that delivers more government bureaucracy than actual child care.
In closing, I'd like to thank the committee for its work. I would also ask that you consider the amendments that ADCO and others have put forward to broaden the focus of the bill to support all families and all child care programs. Families are and always will be in the best position to know what will work best for their children.
Thanks.
5 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bobby Morrissey
Thank you, Ms. Hannen.
Now, Ms. Friendly, go ahead for five minutes, please.
March 21st, 2023 / 5 p.m.
Martha Friendly Executive Director, Childcare Resource and Research Unit
Hello, I'm Martha Friendly. I'm the executive director of the Childcare Resource and Research Unit, CRRU. I think you have my written brief, which I submitted to the clerk. I'm just going to speak for five minutes, and it's going to be a small summary of that.
CRRU is a small child care and family policy research institute. It began at the University of Toronto in 1982, and it's been an independent non-profit organization since 2007.
I have been a policy researcher in child care for almost 50 years. I've written many papers, reports, popular articles and several books. I've worked on child care internationally. I've been a member of various government expert groups.
One of the main ideas that has guided CRRU's work is the idea that good policy-making needs a solid foundation of good evidence. That's been one of our guiding principles.
Since the earliest days, CRRU has urged governments at all levels to work together to establish an early learning and child care system based on the premise that child care is a public good. Thus, we've applauded the introduction of the Canada-wide early learning and child care plan, CWELCC, but we continue to point out ways that it's implementation can be strengthened.
We all know that quality child care for all is essential in a 21st century society, but how it's set up and designed is especially and critically important. Why? It's because a well-designed child care system can meet multiple goals at the same time. However, a child care market with child care deserts or poor-quality services does not deliver the same results.
Bill C‑35 is a key component as Canada begins to build its child care system. Legislation is important for setting out the high-level goals, aspirations, principles and objectives that we need to transform Canada's piecemeal child care market into a high-quality system, that is, a public good and part of our community infrastructure.
As a dedicated researcher, I find that the federal government's overall policy approach to child care is generally consistent with the best available evidence. That being said, though, I want to make several recommendations aimed at strengthening Bill C‑35, and the rest of my comments are going to be about the recommendations that I'm going to make.
The first thing that I want to recommend is strengthening the language that sets out the division. The importance of early learning and child care for children, women, gender equality, families and the economy is quite well represented in the legislation's preamble. However, the Government of Canada's vision in paragraph 5(a) is inconsistently tentative. Thus, I suggest amending paragraph 5(a) to read, “the Government of Canada's vision for a Canada-wide universal, high-quality early learning and child care system that is envisioned as a public good,” which, I think, would strengthen and make it more consistent with the principles in the preamble.
The second recommendation I want to make is to strengthen the rights-based language, which I was very pleased to see in the preamble, linking the new system to international human rights conventions, such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, CEDAW and the social development goals. Therefore, I suggest amending paragraph 6(a) slightly to declare the Government of Canada's obligation “to support and ensure establishment and maintenance of a Canada-wide child care system”. This would be consistent with the federal government's role as the responsible state party identified in the Convention on the Rights of the Child and in the comments of UN committees reviewing Canada's compliance.
The third recommendation I want to make has already had a lot of discussion. I want to support the federal approach limiting for-profit care with regard to expansion while permitting existing for-profit child care to receive public funding on the same basis as not-for-profits, which is the government's approach at this particular point.
The legislation touches on this in paragraph 7(1)(a). I suggest strengthening this clause for at least two reasons. The first reason is that, as we've already discussed, there is abundant research showing negative associations between for-profit ownership and key quality indicators, including the number of qualified staff, their wages, working conditions and support, staff turnover and morale, and that observed what we call “process quality”.
I actually—