Human Resources Committee on Feb. 10th, 2022

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

I call the meeting to order.

I want to welcome to the committee Mr. René Arseneault from the government side, as well as Madam Laila Goodridge. They are joining the committee today.

Welcome to meeting to number eight 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 November 25, 2021.

Given the ongoing pandemic situation and in light of the recommendations from health authorities, as well as the directive of the Board of Internal Economy on October 19, 2021, to remain healthy and safe, all those attending the meeting in person are asked to maintain two-metre physical distancing. They must wear a non-medical mask when circulating in the room, and it's highly recommended that the mask be worn at all times, including when seated. They must maintain proper hand hygiene by using the provided hand sanitizer. As the chair, I will enforce these measures for the duration of the meeting. I thank you for your co-operation.

To ensure an orderly meeting, I would like to outline a few rules to follow. Members and witnesses may speak in the official language of their choice. Interpretation services are available for this meeting. You have the choice, at the bottom of your screen, of “floor”, “English” or “French”. If interpretation is lost, please inform me immediately, and we will ensure that proper interpretation is restored before resuming the proceedings. The “raise hand” feature at the bottom of the screen can be used at any time if you wish to speak or to alert the chair.

For members participating in person, proceed as you usually would when the whole committee is meeting in person in a committee room. Keep in mind the Board of Internal Economy's protocols.

Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name. If you are on the video conference, please click on the microphone icon to unmute yourself. For those in the room, your microphone will be controlled as normal by the proceedings and verification officer.

When speaking, please speak slowly and clearly. When you are not speaking, your mike should be on mute. I will remind you that all comments by members and witnesses should be addressed through the chair.

With regard to a speaking list, the committee clerk and I will do the best we can to keep the consolidated order, which I have been provided with.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on Monday, January 31, 2022, the committee will commence a briefing on the ministerial mandate letters. Our witnesses will begin the discussion with five-minute opening remarks, followed by members' questions.

Welcome to Minister Gould, Minister of Families, Children and Social Development, and departmental officials, including Cliff Groen, senior assistant deputy minister; Catherine Adam, senior assistant deputy minister; Janet Goulding, associate assistant deputy minister; Lori MacDonald, senior associate deputy minister; and Annette Gibbons, associate deputy minister.

We will start with Minister Gould for five minutes, please.

Minister Gould, you have the floor.

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Minister of Families]

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon to you and honourable colleagues. It is an honour to serve Canadians as the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development. I won't go through and list all of the officials, since you did that already. I'm delighted to be joined by senior officials from ESDC, who will be supporting me today.

This is my first meeting with your committee. I look forward to working with all members and fellow parliamentarians in delivering on the priorities set out in my mandate letter.

I begin with our government's commitment to support families with young children. For those families, access to high-quality, affordable, flexible, and inclusive child care is not a luxury—it's a necessity.

That is why we have signed bilateral agreements with nine provinces and three territories to cut average fees for regulated early learning and child care spaces by 50% by the end of 2022.

In addition to making child care more affordable, these agreements aim to create new child care spaces and wage grids for early childhood educators. We are also working collaboratively with first nations, Inuit and the Métis nation to ensure that indigenous children will have access to affordable, high-quality and culturally appropriate early learning and child care.

In the coming months, we will be tabling legislation to enshrine in law the principles of the Canada-wide early learning and child care system.

In addition, we will be establishing a new National Advisory Council on Early Learning and Child Care to provide advice and serve as a forum for consultation on issues and challenges facing the sector.

This historic initiative will help drive economic growth, increase parents'—especially women's—participation in the workforce, build a more resilient economy and ensure all children in Canada have the best possible start in life.

Moving to social purpose organizations, we have made significant progress in advancing Canada's social innovation and social finance strategy. Specifically, we are making it easier for organizations to access affordable financing through the social finance fund. We are now assessing proposals submitted by potential wholesalers, who will invest the fund's capital into intermediaries such as credit unions, community loan funds and private equity firms. Additionally, we are helping social purpose organizations build their capacity to access social finance through the investment readiness program.

Six months ago, my department launched a call for proposals to identify readiness support partners to provide funding to social purpose organizations. This will allow them to build skills and capacity to access social finance investment.

We are currently finalizing agreements. Together, these initiatives will provide social purpose organizations with a greater capacity to make a difference in the lives of Canadians.

We are also moving forward with the community services recovery fund to help charities and not-for-profits adapt to the challenges they face from the pandemic.

Last month the department launched a call seeking national funders to efficiently distribute this fund to diverse organizations across Canada. The call is open until February 22, and the department will select the best projects in the coming months.

Now, as we celebrate Black History Month, I am so proud of our efforts to recognize the contributions of Black Canadians. Through the Supporting Black Canadian Communities Initiative, we're working to identify and address the significant and unique challenges and the systemic barriers faced by Black communities in Canada. Budget 2021 provided an additional $100 million in this fiscal year to help grassroots organizations build capacity.

The pandemic has helped us realize just how vital our programs and benefits are to Canadians, no matter where they live. This is why Service Canada will continue to improve by modernizing its delivery model and upgrade its IT systems.

I want to thank the dedicated public servants who have been at the forefront of the Government of Canada's response to the COVID‑19 pandemic. They have worked tirelessly to deliver much-needed benefits to Canadians.

Mr. Chair, I'm pleased to highlight the progress we've made in advancing our priorities and I will be happy to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Madam Minister.

I will now open the floor to questions, beginning with Madame Goodridge for six minutes.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the minister for her remarks earlier, and to all of the officials for being here. I know a lot of work goes into this.

I will start out with this. You touched on the 3,300 spaces for indigenous child care. What work has actually been done, and have any agreements been signed?

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

Thank you, Ms. Goodridge, for that question.

Beginning in 2017, our government signed agreements with the three national indigenous organizations—the ITK for the Inuit, the the Assembly of First Nations and the Métis National Council. We have since signed agreements with them and have been working with them to support their efforts in delivering indigenous early learning and child care. It is distinctions-based. It is managed and run by indigenous communities with funding through the federal government. In budget 2021, we made this funding permanent on an ongoing basis and have also included an important increase based on inflation.

We continue to remain in close contact and we work to support the efforts of our national indigenous organizations, as this initiative will be led by them.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

How many spaces have been created since these agreements were signed?

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

We are looking toward creating 3,300 spaces. As you will know, that is—

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

You said 3,300, but how many have been created as of today?

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

I'll turn to Catherine Adam to take that question.

[Catherine Adam, Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic and Service Policy Branch, Department of Employment and Social Development]

The number of spaces is slightly different in the context of indigenous early learning and child care. There are three current federal programs that indigenous communities are using to deliver indigenous early learning and child care.

There are an on-reserve aboriginal head start program and an off-reserve aboriginal head start program that serve urban and northern communities, as well as early learning and child care programming that supports labour market participation, and also training skills and training for indigenous parents. In this context, quite often the programming is not full time, five days a week, or full day, and it's not universal, but the number of spaces is—

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

In the mandate letter it says, “3,300 new child care spaces”. I'm curious. How many of those new child care spaces have been created to date?

If you don't know the answer, if you could table it with the committee, that would be spectacular.

[Catherine Adam]

I'd have to get back to you. Absolutely, we will endeavour to get that response back to the committee and we'll work with our partner departments on that.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

That's fantastic.

One other question I have is this: How many spaces have been created today in the child care deals across the provinces?

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

Well, Ms. Goodridge, as you'll know, 12 of these agreements have been signed within the last six months, which is quite significant. This is a program that was just announced a little less than a year ago and has come into fruition. We're working with our partners in the provinces and territories on their plans, but what has happened, including in your province already, is a reduction in fees.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

When will the agreements be made public?

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

Many of the agreements are already public. They are found on our website, and we'd be happy to share that with you and the committee members.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

That's spectacular.

One of the questions I frequently hear from constituents is, what's going to happen after the five-year mark? We're spending money creating these spaces, but that's only for the first five years. What's going to happen on year six?

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

You can reassure constituents that there is ongoing funding in the federal fiscal framework beyond year five.

What's important to note is that we're signing five-year agreements because we have very specific objectives in place and we want to work with our counterparts in provinces and territories to ensure that they can meet those objectives. Then we will renegotiate agreements after the five-year mark. However, there is money earmarked within the fiscal framework on an ongoing basis.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

That's fantastic.

Furthermore, the mandate letter states that your aim is to have 40,000 new child care educators. What is being done to train these educators, and how many have been trained to date?

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

Again, we have just signed 12 agreements within the last six months. We're supporting our provincial and territorial counterparts as they work to do this.

We know the only way we can create more spaces is if we hire more ECEs. Depending on the province or territory, they might be providing funding for training, for qualifications, for professional development. They might be increasing wages.

For example, New Brunswick and Nunavut put forward quite an aggressive increase in wages so that they can not only attract but retain ECEs. We're working with all our partners at the provincial and territorial level to support them in these efforts.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

My big thing, and you've heard this before, is that a lot of people are concerned about the day care deals because this is a promise that has been made and broken for decades by Liberal governments. How can we be assured that this will actually come into play?

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

Well, I think that's so long as we don't elect a Conservative government. We had actually had this agreement in place back in 2005. Unfortunately, when Stephen Harper came into government—

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

He trusted families to spend the money.

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

—it was one of the first things he stopped doing.

Well, $120 a month does not make up for $1,200 a month in day care fees. We heard in the last federal election that the federal Conservatives would have done the same.

We believe in this. We have signed agreements with 12 provinces and territories. We hope to have the 13th signed soon. We're delivering, and families across the country are already seeing a reduction in fees, including in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Nova Scotia and many others.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Thank you, Minister.