Human Resources Committee on April 21st, 2023

[The Chair (Mr. Robert Morrissey (Egmont, Lib.)), Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

I call the meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 63 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the House order of June 23, 2022. Members will be attending in person in the room, as you can see, and virtually, online.

Before speaking, and to ensure an orderly meeting, please wait until I recognize you by name.

You have the option of speaking and participating in the official language of your choice. Interpretation services are available in the room, where you can use the interpretation earpiece. Online, at the bottom of your Surface, you can choose French or English audio. If there is a problem with interpretation, please get my attention, and we'll suspend while it's corrected.

Please, for your benefit, screenshots are not allowed of the meeting today, in the room or virtually.

Also, if you do not have a House of Commons-approved headset, you cannot participate in the meeting verbally. If you're a member of the committee, you can participate in the voting format by simply indicating, but I will not recognize you to participate verbally.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on Friday, February 3, 2023, the committee will continue its study of Bill C-35, an act respecting early learning and child care in Canada.

Everybody's equipment has been tested, so I would like to welcome our witnesses, beginning in the room with Mr. Peter Jon Mitchell, who is the program director at Cardus. From the College of Early Childhood Educators, we have Beth Deazeley. From the First Nations of Quebec and Labrador Health and Social Services Commission, we have Richard Gray, manager, and Patrice Lacasse, manager. Mr. Lacasse may be the one participating, because I believe we have an issue with Mr. Gray's audio.

Each of the witnesses will begin with five minutes this morning. We have one round of questions, so there will be six minutes for each of the parties.

We'll begin with Mr. Mitchell for five minutes.

I would ask the witnesses to please stay within the five-minute time allotment so that we can get our questions in.

Mr. Mitchell, you have the floor.

[Peter Jon Mitchell, Program Director, Family, Cardus]

Thank you for the invitation to appear this morning, and thank you for the work of this committee in support of families across Canada.

Cardus is a non-partisan think tank dedicated to clarifying and strengthening, through research and dialogue, the ways in which people, institutions and governments work together for the common good. I direct our family program at Cardus, which explores how to strengthen family stability.

Child care is the care of a child, regardless of who provides that care, whether a licensed provider, an in-home caregiver, a neighbour or relative, or a parent who forgoes income. Statistics Canada data shows that Canadians rely on diverse forms of care to meet their needs.

Bill C-35 supports only a limited number of care options. The bill enshrines inequitable treatment of families, based on the type of care they use. Canadian data and international examples show that higher-income families are more likely to access subsidized licensed care as compared with lower-income families. There are better and more equitable ways and options to support the care needs of Canadian families. However, should Bill C-35 proceed, I recommend three amendments.

First, paragraph 5(e) should reflect that parents and guardians have the primary responsibility for the upbringing and development of their children. Parents are best positioned to make the care choices for their children. In the brief that we submitted to the committee, we provide wording that reflects the phrasing found in article 18 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the same article from which clause 5 of the bill draws its inspiration.

Second, paragraph 7(1)(a) discriminates against licensed independent operators in favour of public and not-for-profit providers. This discrimination harms families and hampers the government's own goals. This discrimination contravenes an earlier statement in the bill supporting the importance of flexible early learning and child care programs. Many of the agreements prevent funding intended for space creation and growth from going to licensed independent providers who are currently serving Canadian families.

This discrimination hampers accessibility. Currently, there are only enough licensed spaces for about one-third of Canadian children under the age of six. The aggressive space creation targets within the Canada-wide agreements are proving difficult to achieve. In the first year of its agreement, Saskatchewan exceeded its space creation budget, only to achieve 37% of its space creation target. The Financial Accountability Office of Ontario estimates that in that province, 25% of families with children under the age of six who want a highly subsidized space will be unable to access one. It is very unlikely that space creation targets will be met without independent licensed providers.

Third, clause 16, regarding annual reporting, must be strengthened. The desire to report on progress within the bill should be applauded, but clause 16 should be more specific. The federal government collects detailed financial data and progress towards targets from the provinces annually. The agreements in most cases state that provinces “may” report progress to the public. To my knowledge, only two provinces have publicly reported on the progress made during the first year of their agreements within the timeline specified in their agreements. One way to remedy this is to strengthen the federal reporting requirements within the bill, requiring the federal government to release detailed expenditures and progress towards stated targets for each province. How well are families being served by the Canada-wide program?

Caring for vulnerable populations, such as children, is complex and expensive. We should be striving for higher levels of accountability. Child care is the care of a child, regardless of who provides that care. We should strive for policy options that treat families fairly and offer true flexibility to families as they select the care that best meets their needs.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mr. Mitchell.

Next, we have Ms. Deazeley for five minutes.

[Beth Deazeley, Registrar and Chief Executive Officer, College of Early Childhood Educators]

Thank you. Good morning.

As the registrar and CEO of the Ontario College of Early Childhood Educators, I'm honoured to join today's panel and to provide our insights on the proposed legislation.

Our college is responsible for regulating the profession of early childhood education in Ontario, with a mandate to establish registration requirements, ethical standards, requirements for continuous professional learning, and a complaints process to ensure that the interests of children and families are prioritized and protected. Our work also includes maintaining a comprehensive public register of our members. This scope of regulatory activity is unique, and it does not currently occur in any other jurisdiction in Canada.

In recent years, we've helped raise the profession's standards by implementing a mandatory sexual abuse prevention program for educators, by providing guidance on the inclusion of children with disabilities, and by recognizing that acts of racism and discrimination by educators constitute professional misconduct.

Our membership data report shows over 60,000 early childhood educators currently in Ontario, with nearly an additional 30,000 registered at one time during the past 15 years, but who have now left the profession. This kind of data is valuable when considering workforce challenges, and isn't collected by any other organization.

While we acknowledge the importance of all the principles in Bill C-35, we wish to emphasize that measures intended to support the affordability and expansion of child care spaces should not compromise the quality of early learning in child care. We believe it's vital to safeguard against policy solutions that may focus on increasing access in the short term but exacerbate longer-term systemic problems that impact quality.

While there's no universally accepted definition of quality, what research has demonstrated is that qualified and well-supported educators are the most significant contributors to early years programs, resulting in better outcomes for children and families.

We're concerned that the proposed legislation does not sufficiently reflect the importance of ensuring a qualified and well-supported workforce. The concept of professional educators includes not just minimum standards of qualification but also an ongoing obligation to practice in accordance with standards, to put the interests of children and families first, and to continue development opportunities throughout a professional's career.

Our first request is for the inclusion in the legislation of a fifth guiding principle that clearly articulates the need for a workforce composed of qualified, professional, well-supported educators. This would help to ensure that funding and policy initiatives focus on supporting and developing the workforce.

Ontario, like many other provinces, is facing a workforce crisis in child care. While high numbers of educators enter the field each year, people leave at nearly the same rate. To address this, it's necessary to focus first on retention by addressing systemic issues—including working conditions, program resourcing, compensation and lack of opportunities for professional growth, which are contributing to attrition—rather than overemphasizing mechanisms to increase recruitment of new educators.

Our second request is for the opportunity to participate in the work of the national advisory council. As a unique organization with data-informed insights about the profession, the college's inclusion on the advisory council would help to maintain standards for professional educators, ensure that data inform decisions, prioritize the public interest and help maintain quality in the Canada-wide early learning and child care program as it's implemented across jurisdictions.

Thank you for the opportunity to join you today to provide our perspective. We look forward to collaborating on this critical work, and I'm happy to answer any questions from the committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Ms. Deazeley.

We'll now go to Mr. Lacasse for five minutes.

[Patrice Lacasse, Manager, Early Childhood Services, First Nations of Quebec and Labrador Health and Social Services Commission]

Good morning, everyone. I'd like to thank the committee chair and members for having invited us to come and speak about the realities of indigenous first nations.

I acknowledge that we are in Wendat territory. In fact the commission's offices are located in the community of Wendake. As for me, I'm an Innu from the community of Uashat Mak Mani-utenam.

I represent the First Nations of Quebec and Labrador Health and Social Services Commission. The organization's mission is to help the communities meet their health, well-being, cultural and self-determination objectives. The commission is covers several sectors, including health and social services, research, social development, and child care. Needless to say, all these sectors contribute to the well-being of children. The commission was established in 1994 by the Assembly of First Nations Quebec-Labrador. This body gives it mandates, whether for the secretariat or policy matters. The commission also receives mandates from its board of directors, whose members are the directors of health and social services in the various communities.

With respect to Bill C-35, the main recommendation in the brief submitted last month was about developing a distinct act for indigenous early learning and child care. In this presentation, we will discuss elements that could considerably improve what has been put forward in Bill C-35. The goal is to better address the specific needs and realities of the communities. Even though the bill recognizes the needs and realities of each community, we feel that these are underestimated, whether in terms of access to services, geographical realities or the importance of language and culture.

As for indigenous self-determination, one of the basic principles is the decision-making authority of the first nations. This authority should rest with the first nations. Employment and Social Development Canada's indigenous early learning and child care programs, IELCCs, affirm the right to self-determination and the right to control, conceive, execute and administer an IELCC system that reflects our needs, priorities and aspirations.

There is nevertheless a paradox. The former Bill C-92, An Act respecting First Nations, Inuit and Métis children, youth and families, acknowledged the jurisdiction of first nations and indigenous people with respect to child services. We are therefore asking why Bill C-35 or some other act specifically for indigenous people, might not acknowledge this jurisdiction. Canada also recognizes the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and has been working to implement it in its statutes. The government acknowledges the self-determination principle in the IELCC programs. However, the jurisdiction of the first nations and the Inuit over child care is required to implement these programs as effectively as possible. These powers need to be restored to the first nations.

For the implementation of the IELCC programs, the communities recently distanced themselves from the usual methods. Indeed, it was only last year that the organization signed an agreement with Employment and Social Development Canada. In order to show consideration for the powers of the communities, we recommend local coordination and mobilization. Early childhood is everybody's business, and not the preserve of a single sector. We would like to promote decompartmentalization. We have been straitjacketed for too long by certain programs. We would therefore like a development plan based not only on conditions, but also needs. The idea is to make sure that the measures introduced are aligned with children's needs, and also their environment, by which we mean the family and the community.

I'll stop there, because I've run out of speaking time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mr. Lacasse.

We will now open the floor to questions, beginning with Madam Ferreri for six minutes.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to all of our witnesses for being here today to discuss Bill C-35, a valuable conversation to ensure we are helping as many Canadian families as possible and putting the child first, at the nucleus of this discussion.

I'll start with you, Mr. Mitchell.

One of the things you said is a major concern to a lot of parents who are experiencing this. It is that currently only a third of all children have spaces. In the data you've provided, you are predicting that will get worse.

Do you have the research on the numbers that the wait-lists are expected to grow to?

[Peter Jon Mitchell]

Is that in terms of wait-lists?

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

That's in terms of accessibility to spaces.

[Peter Jon Mitchell]

I don't know that we can predict what those wait-lists will be. We know that early on, provinces have been missing their targets. For instance, I quoted that Saskatchewan only met 37% of its space creation target by the end of the first year of its agreements. Certainly we would know more if more data were available from the provinces, collected and sent to the federal government. This is why we support increasing this and strengthening the bill in terms of reporting requirements in clause 16.

Also, I think you mentioned low-income families. We know from Canadian data over the last 10 years that low-income families are less likely to access licensed care, maybe as much as 20% less likely, according to Statistics Canada. This is a concern, because we are rapidly reducing the cost of these existing spaces, which are more likely to be used by middle- and higher-income families. We're certainly not creating enough spaces fast enough to accommodate.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

That will deeply impact our rural communities.

One of the things that's really interesting in the brief you submitted to the committee is that you said, “All public, not for profit and private licensed providers are bound by the same provincial licensing standards, yet Bill C-35 discriminates against private licensed providers and the families that rely on them.”

You spoke a lot about discrimination in this bill, intended or unintended. Can you expand on the discrimination you see and the quickest way to fix that?

I don't mean to rush you, but I have only a certain amount of time.

[Peter Jon Mitchell]

Actually, a lot of the agreements limit the amount of money that can go towards space creation for for-profit or independent providers. When we speak with them, they say this is creating significant stress among these providers. Facing cost control frameworks, it's hard for them to look at future planning. This puts in jeopardy the spaces they're providing, if they can't sustain that. That hurts Canadian families who use those spaces. It's difficult to expand and to grow and to achieve the spaces the federal government would like to achieve without the help of these providers. I think that hurts future families who will be looking for licensed care in a licensed sector.

We know from a briefing note from British Columbia that for-profit providers tend to be a little quicker in terms of being able to action space creation and being able to create those spaces. I've spoken to providers across the country, and they're quite concerned about the future. I know in some cases they've put plans for expansion on hold.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

There's a section in your brief that says, “Costs will balloon at the expense of quality”. Do you have research you could table with the committee on what those costs will be and what you're projecting, or where you obtained that data?

[Peter Jon Mitchell]

Previous to the federal announcement—in 2021, I believe—we did a costing estimate looking at what a national program might cost. Our high-end estimate suggested that it would be $36 billion over budget. I can certainly make the report, “Look Before You Leap”, available if you would like.

Unfortunately, we have seen that Quebec has the lowest ratios, which affects quality. We've seen costs go up in Quebec. It's difficult to lower the cost of child care and to build these programs without sacrificing quality. We've seen that in Quebec, unfortunately, and I'm worried that we're going to entrench a low-quality system in Canada.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Quickly, if I may....

Mr. Mitchell, these provincial and territorial agreements have already been signed, and in your submission you talk about how these were put forth in 2017-18. Why do you think the bill has been brought forward now, when it's already done? What would be the benefit, from the Liberal government's perspective, to all of a sudden putting forth a bill, when all of these agreements have already been done?

[Peter Jon Mitchell]

Bilateral agreements have been put forward, and then the new Canada-wide program layers on top of that. In a sense, I believe the agreements do the heavy lifting already, so it does make it somewhat curious that the bill is necessary. The provinces and federal government have agreed to the terms in those bills, so it's already being enacted.

In our submission, we said that we find it curious that the legislation would even be necessary, as it's really the agreements that do the heavy lifting, and that's actually where it should happen.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Thank you so much.

I'm just going to ask Ms. Deazeley about tabling some data about her workforce, as well, if she could, to the committee. I think it's valuable in recruitment and retainment to keep these spaces available for parents who are waiting.

Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Ms. Ferreri.

Ms. Saks, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Ya'ara Saks, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to all the witnesses who have joined us this morning.

Mr. Mitchell, I'd like to start with one of your recommendations: that the bill be amended to no longer prioritize investment in the non-profit sector.

I'm curious as to why your organization is looking for the government to fund care that, according to a specific study that you quoted.... Christa Japel was actually here recently. You used her report to support your evidence, but her testimony three days ago was contradictory to that. She said that non-profit care provides higher-quality care, either very good or excellent quality, compared to for-profit or unlicensed care, which was about 10% of poor-quality care.

Could you lean in on that briefly?

[Peter Jon Mitchell]

Thank you.

When we look at quality, we look at structural dimensions—which include staff-child ratios, group size and staff qualifications, as I said—and then processed dimensions, which look more at the experience that the child has with a caregiver. We know, as I think was said earlier by another witness, that we don't necessarily have a consistent definition of “quality”, but I would say those are the two measures.

A well-known report, issued some years ago, called “You Bet I Care!”, focusing largely on staffing and working conditions, concluded that the majority of licensed care in Canada is of minimal to mediocre quality.

I acknowledge that there have been reports suggesting that for-profit care may be of lower quality, but we don't want to assume that all care across Canada is necessarily high quality. I think the same researchers are saying—

[Ya'ara Saks, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

I understand. However, we've had numerous witnesses here who have spoken to the contrary on that, so I'm just trying to understand that.

I'd like to move on. Your organization has also advocated for income splitting for Canadian families as a means of providing care. Is that still your position?

[Peter Jon Mitchell]

I've advocated for income splitting in the past, yes.

[Ya'ara Saks, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

Do you have concerns about the fact that this policy would benefit the wealthiest Canadians?

We've talked about access for low-income families through a non-profit, nationwide system. Your recommendation would not impact them.

[Peter Jon Mitchell]

I'm sorry....