Human Resources Committee on April 18th, 2023

[Dr. Christa Japel]

Did that answer your question?

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Yes. I'll ask in the next round. Thanks.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Yes, we're well over six minutes.

We have Ms. Gray for five minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses for being here.

My first questions today are for Madame Denault.

First of all, you referenced some studies in your testimony today, and I'm wondering if you would be able to table those studies, in particular the one on stability, for this committee.

[Marilou Denault]

Yes, I'd be happy to.

Actually, it's a cross between two studies. Would you like me to explain?

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

That's fine. If you could table those studies, that would be really great. My time is limited, so I have a few questions to run through here. Thank you kindly.

You talked in your opening statement about families needing spaces in child care. I represent a community in British Columbia, and what I've heard from operators in my province is that presently they're really struggling to meet the demand from parents looking for spots for their children.

An operator in my community wrote recently and said, and I'll quote her here, “people who can afford it do not give up their spaces.” Then she went into a description of, for example, someone who has acquired a space who's on maternity leave. They want to keep their spaces, but in fact they're not being utilized. Do you hear similar situations in your province?

[Marilou Denault]

Dr. Japel, have you seen this happening?

[Dr. Christa Japel]

If I understood rightly, is it that parents don't give up spaces?

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

Yes, that's the question. When they're paying the fee, which is lower than they would have paid previously, they don't want to give up the space; therefore, they're holding the space and paying for it.

[Dr. Christa Japel]

Well, that happens; sure, that happens, yes, because if you lose that space, you're.... I mean, the child has to be there. We have monitoring for presence. You can't just pay for the space and not send your child to child care, because that would be really unjust for people who are waiting. There are people who pay in full and then the child isn't always there, but I think there's a tolerance level to how much children can be absent, because it could be an abuse of a low-contribution space.

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

Right, and these are children who may not even be there yet, but their number has come up, so they have the space and they're paying for it, but the child's not there.

[Dr. Christa Japel]

Oh, it's even before the child gets there. I would have to check into that. I'm not sure if that's a practice that is....

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

Thank you. There are other times when they are technically not there. That is what you're saying. I appreciate that.

I have a couple of questions for Ms. Bisnath.

You mentioned, of course, that there's such a need for child care. I'll give you a couple of quick examples.

I was talking to someone in my community. There are two doctors who are looking to move to Canada, and they're going through all the immigration processes and they're almost at the end, but they're considering not moving because they've realized that there are no child care spaces available when they move here. One other example I'll give is a child care operator in my riding expressing frustration on how governments have, and I'm going to quote her exactly here, “shown a total lack of responsibility for removing roadblocks in certifying educators, retraining them and licensing facilities”, causing further backlogs.

We know that the government has said that there's a need to hire 40,000 new child care workers across Canada in the next three years to meet their targets. To meet this demand, various streams will have to be used. There's schooling and training, and there's immigration, and all of those things take time.

Based on your experience, do you see this as being feasible to achieve with the current actions that are being taken?

[Julie Bisnath]

I'm sorry; are you asking if it's feasible that they come up with all of those—

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

Yes. Will there be 40,000 educators in less than three years from now?

[Julie Bisnath]

I can't speak from a place of evidence, but anecdotally from my own experience and our experience as an organization, it seems highly unlikely. There are staffing shortages across Ontario and across Canada as well. From our perspective with home child care, we have long been advocating direct licensing or individual licensing, or some sort of process that would make it easier and more likely for individuals to get licensed. I know that other provinces across the country do have that type of option, but for us here in Ontario, it is definitely a barrier. If that barrier were removed, it would open up access to educators and also access to child care spaces.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Ms. Gray, Ms. Denault and Ms. Bisnath.

Mr. Collins, you have five minutes.

[Chad Collins, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Thanks, Mr. Chair, and thanks to all the witnesses for attending this afternoon.

We've received some incredible testimony today, and it mirrors a lot of what we heard from other witnesses who've been before the committee on the same subject matter.

I want to start by saying that I've had the opportunity to tour many licensed child care facilities in my riding and my city of Hamilton. In the early days, I think we've seen some tremendous success. So far, I think we've had 96% buy-in from operators in terms of signing on to the system. Early numbers are—and this is from a staff report in Hamilton—that we've seen some big savings: $3,600 in child care fees in 2022 and an average savings of $9,100 for families in Hamilton this year. There's incredible success in the early days.

My fear in going through this is that we have some reluctant dance partners with some of our provincial partners. It speaks to some of what Ms. Denault talked about earlier in her opening comment in terms of standards, in that there has to be a high level of training. With that high level of training comes a high level of service. I think I'm using your words, Ms. Denault.

I want to speak to you about the advantages that we have with licensed child care facilities. We've heard a lot of testimony about the importance of non-profit providers in terms of having a licence. As a long-time municipal councillor, I know that those licences mean something. It's a minimum level for a standard of care. There are inspections that are tied to those licences.

For me, as a parent, when I had my children in a facility in Hamilton, which was non-profit and licensed, I knew they were getting quality care. I knew that the ECEs who were operating that facility went to school for that. They were highly trained.

You talked about the units that need to be completed, and how important they are for the child's development and to give the family a sense of safety that when they drop their child off, they are getting quality care.

Along those lines, I would ask you to elaborate on your first point. You talked about the high level of training.

Going back to the reluctant dance partner I talked about, I'm very concerned that the provinces, here in Ontario especially, may not be as committed to building capacity in the system and putting people through our colleges that offer these certificates and certification.

How do you see us building capacity, knowing that through COVID, there are thousands of vacant positions in the sector, and we're still recovering from that? We are offering a service and we know that we're going to need new positions on top of those that we lost prior to the pandemic or during the pandemic.

I'm sorry for that preamble. I had to get that out, just in terms of giving context to where I am in Hamilton and where we are in the province of Ontario.

How do we build capacity under a very strained system right now, when we may have provinces that aren't that committed to doing so?

[Marilou Denault]

I agree that it's a challenge.

In Quebec, the labour shortage is also an issue in early childhood education. We saw action taken to address the problem during the pandemic. Sadly, the hiring criteria were loosened and people began hiring staff who were not fully trained. Improving working conditions for educators and catching up on wages would certainly help make this profession more attractive—it has enormous value for human life—and alleviate the labour shortage.

To come back to your comment about for-profit day care versus not-for-profit CPEs, studies do show that in not-for-profit settings, 83% of educators are qualified on average, while only 45%, nearly half as many, are qualified in unsubsidized, for-profit day care settings. Therefore, non-profit settings appear to protect staff quality to some extent.

[Chad Collins, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

I'm running out of time here. To wrap up, I have one last question.

When you compare the two services that are offered, I think you've painted a picture today that parents and children would get a higher quality of care in a licensed non-profit facility than they would in an unlicensed facility or a for-profit facility. Is that a correct statement to make?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Give a short answer, please.

[Marilou Denault]

Yes, they do, absolutely. That's what the Quebec studies are showing.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mr. Collins.

Ms. Bérubé, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Sylvie Bérubé, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Racine and Mr. Dupuis, earlier, we spoke specifically and respectively about sections 8 and 11. In your opinion, what's the most important amendment you would like to see in Bill C‑35?

[Alain Dupuis]

I feel it's section 8, which covers funding. If there's no guaranteed funding in the framework law for francophone minority communities, we won't see any services on the ground.