First of all, this is being tabled at the beginning of the meeting. We have witnesses who have been very generous with their time. They're not allowed here. It's unfortunate this wasn't done during a questioning time of the party that's bringing this forth.

First of all, I have a question to the clerk.

Do we have all the submissions that have been submitted all translated and sent to MPs?

6:45 p.m.

The Clerk

No, there are still some that are with translation at the moment.

6:45 p.m.

Conservative

Tracy Gray Conservative Kelowna—Lake Country, BC

Okay. Do you have an estimated timeline for when those might be coming in?

6:45 p.m.

The Clerk

No. I can request that.

6:45 p.m.

Conservative

Tracy Gray Conservative Kelowna—Lake Country, BC

That in itself means that we are asked to come up with amendments, potentially, on this very important piece of legislation without having all of the submissions from stakeholders across the country: from individual people, from organizations or from anyone who wants to speak on this.

Normally when we're dealing with this type of situation, we would wait until we have all of those submissions in. We've just heard that we don't know when we'll be getting all of those, so to bump up the timeline even sooner for potential amendments.... Those take time. We have to send them in. They have to be properly worded. That work takes time. We do have a timeline here that we're working towards.

This is a little bit of of déjà vu, like when we had Bill C-22. We had all of those people who were sending in submissions, and we didn't even have all of them by the time we were working on it. We didn't get all of them by the deadline for when we had to come up with potential amendments, and then we were working on the clause-by-clause. That was really unreasonable.

Here we are again. It's déjà vu. We're in a situation where we're being asked to rush things along. We don't want to delay this at all, but out of respect for all of the people who have sent in submissions, it's not appropriate and it's not respectful to them to not even have all of their information to us before we can come up with potential amendments here. That's just a really unreasonable request. I question why we're here.

We have a timeline that we're working towards. If anything, we should be bumping ahead on the clause-by-clause, because even the timeline itself is really tight for when we need to have the amendments in and then we're doing the clause-by-clause. It's really only a couple of days. Right now, we have to have the amendments in, and then the clerks have to do their work, get to us and then look at clause-by-clause. It's just really unreasonable that we don't even have all of the testimony in, and we're being asked to start making those decisions that do take time.

That just seems really unreasonable, and the clerk doesn't even have an idea, as we just heard. A few days so we can properly do this, so we can properly have all the information, would be appropriate. As well, we have to remember that the agreements with the provinces are signed, so it's not like there's a delay in anything. The agreements are already signed. It's not like they're waiting for this legislation to then have the government go and start negotiating agreements with the provinces. Here we are solidifying things, and we have our due diligence to do.

I'll leave it there. I might come back, but I'll leave it there, Mr. Chair.

6:50 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Bobby Morrissey

I have Madam Saks, Madam Ferreri and Mr. Long.

Go ahead, please, Madam Saks.

6:50 p.m.

Liberal

Ya'ara Saks Liberal York Centre, ON

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Having just arrived on the committee specifically for Bill C-35, I don't really have a point of reference on Bill C-22. I have noticed that chunks of testimonies and submissions are coming in. I'd like to ask the clerk if these submissions in translation were after the March 17 deadline date, the ones that are being submitted now.

6:50 p.m.

The Clerk

They were before the deadline.

6:50 p.m.

Liberal

Ya'ara Saks Liberal York Centre, ON

Okay. Are we only looking at submissions until the deadline that are being held up...?

6:50 p.m.

The Clerk

For the most part. There was some correspondence we were getting translated for you that did not qualify per se as—

6:50 p.m.

Liberal

Ya'ara Saks Liberal York Centre, ON

Would that be deemed inadmissible if it were after the March 17 deadline date?

6:50 p.m.

The Clerk

For the correspondence, people can write to the committee whenever they want, so....

March 30th, 2023 / 6:50 p.m.

Liberal

Ya'ara Saks Liberal York Centre, ON

Thank you for the clarification.

6:50 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Bobby Morrissey

Now we have Ms. Ferreri.

6:50 p.m.

Conservative

Michelle Ferreri Conservative Peterborough—Kawartha, ON

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.

I'm pretty dumbfounded, actually. I'll be honest. I can't believe we've brought these witnesses here, who are ready to testify and who are here to represent the welfare of the child, and now we're having this discussion when we could have easily done this in committee business. Now we have to make all these people who have waited to testify wait. It's quite embarrassing, if I'm going to be honest.

I'm the critic, as some people may or may not know, for families, children and social development. It has been a huge undertaking for me and my team to take all of the correspondence, because there are so many families, parents, child care workers and ECEs who are deeply impacted by this bill. If we're not listening to them and talking about this, I'm not sure we are doing what we were elected to do.

I know we have the Child Care Providers Resource Network here today. One of the things they have said is that the Child Care Providers Resource Network, CCPRN, is committed to and focused on the well-being and safety of all children. Isn't that the truth, Mr. Chair, that we should be focusing on all children when we look at a child care plan?

They are a non-profit charitable organization with a network reach of more than 4,800 parents and caregivers across the province and beyond. It is their mission to provide information, training, resources and support to those providing child care in a home setting. This part is really important, Mr. Chair. I want everyone to hear this, because this is what we should be listening to right now.

Child care is the care of a child, regardless of who provides the care: parents, grandparents, friends, relatives, in-home nannies and/or home care providers, both licensed and unlicensed. That's a lot of people.

There are two million children under six in Canada, and if we are not listening to all of these people, we cannot get this bill the way that it should be so that it doesn't collapse on itself and fail Canadians.

When we look at Bill C-35, it is supposed to be this universal child care bill, but there's nothing universal about it. In fact, it is set up for winners and losers right now the way it's currently written. We on this side of the House, the Conservatives, are fighting to ensure that everyone is a winner and that we have access for all Canadians so that all these families who are on wait-lists that are thousands of people long get access.

If this is legislation that, quite frankly, is already in place with the provinces and territories, as my colleague Mrs. Gray has pointed out, why are we rushing through if we need to listen to all voices to make sure all voices are included? What are we doing here?

I want to talk about this email that came in today. It says, “Thank you so much for speaking out for all Canadian parents of young children following the recent self-congratulatory announcement of $10-a-day child care in Newfoundland by the leader of the Liberal-NDP coalition government.

These are not my words. This is an email, Mr. Chair.

It continues, “As a retired systems analyst, it begs the question of whether anyone in the coalition spent more than five minutes developing this misguided debacle. Did no one ever consider the all-important impact on child care providers, when those services were clearly known to already be in short supply, or was this just another clumsy virtue-signalling attempt rushed to completion, hoping no one but those mothers requiring child care would understand how poorly thought out it was? I have a daughter in Newfoundland who began looking for a child care provider immediately after giving birth, 10 months ago, since she is or was planning to return to work in June and resume her engineering career. She's still looking.

“There are no doubt tens of thousands of other working mothers in the same position all across Canada, and even more women considering joining the workforce if the prospect of spending the greater portion of their income on child care expenses is no longer an issue. Did no one ever think of that? Help wanted signs abound all across Canada, but with the current inflation, minimum wage earners can hardly afford to drive to work, let alone pay for child care. How does the Liberal-NDP plan help those families?

“Think of how many women could return to the workforce, provide for the welfare of their families and contribute to the economy if only this government had been more diligent in developing a sensible child care plan. Instead, all the Liberal-NDP plan is offering mothers is a $10 coupon to shop at a store with empty shelves. If this Liberal-NDP coalition government sincerely intends to help young families, they need to address how to stock those shelves and not just hand the store keys to provincial governments and walk away congratulating themselves for a mission accomplished.”

6:55 p.m.

Liberal

Ya'ara Saks Liberal York Centre, ON

I have a point of order.

It seems that my colleague, Ms. Ferreri, is now reading text rather than talking about the actual amendment in front of us. I encourage debate on timelines and making sure we get through this work plan in an efficient way. There is an appropriate time to share the thoughts of stakeholders and it's not while we are debating the actual timeline for the work.

Can we actually hear from our witnesses today and get on with things?