Evidence of meeting #17 for Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was families.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bobby Morrissey
No. You can address it in a follow-up question, if you choose.
Mr. Genuis, you have five minutes.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Welcome, Minister.
Budget 2025 proposes to “generally limit...access to the Canada Student Grant for Full-time Students to students attending public educational institutions and not-for-profit private institutions”.
Could you please explain to us why the government is proposing to withdraw student grants from students attending most career colleges and other kinds of institutions that are private?
Liberal
Patty Hajdu Liberal Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON
In fact, most programs through career colleges are currently ineligible. Programs that are two years or less have been ineligible before. One, we want to make sure that public money goes to public institutions and, two, that we reduce the practice by some career colleges of extending programs from two years to four years so that students are eligible, yet it takes them longer to graduate, sometimes without any further accreditation.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Thank you for your response, Minister.
I would say back that this money doesn't go to the institutions; it goes to the students. There are programs, like to become a chiropractor or to study traditional Chinese medicine, where there simply aren't very many, if any, opportunities to study at public institutions. I don't think anyone's accusing those programs of being artificially extended. I mean, you can't become a chiropractor in one year of study, obviously.
What would you say to a student who comes from a lower-middle-income background who aspires to one of these careers, recognizes that there's demand for that career and is concerned about the budget measures that say that they will no longer have access to grants that students studying at any university would have access to?
Liberal
Patty Hajdu Liberal Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON
What I say is that we are ensuring that students who need financial support continue to be able to access it. We are making sure that Canada student grants are available to students who need that. The minister will have an exemption—
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
I'm sorry. Respectfully, Minister, you're not, though. I just gave you an example. You have a low-income young person who has always wanted to become a chiropractor. Through no fault of their own, the institutions that offer that course of study are organized in a certain way and, because of a change in this budget, they will no longer be eligible for student grants. You have people who rely on the services that are provided by folks in this area. What would you say to them? You're clearly making a change that makes that student no longer eligible for grants that anybody else would be eligible for if they went to a different kind of program of study.
Liberal
Patty Hajdu Liberal Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON
I would say that, if a profession is concerned about the changes in a circumstance where it's a very narrow circumstance like you're describing for chiropractic, the minister does have an exemption authority, and I'm happy to work with applicable programs.
I can say that we know that there is a higher default rate for student loans for career colleges. We have seen, in some cases, students graduating from four-year programs that used to be two-year programs. Ultimately, we believe that public funds should go to public institutions.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Respectfully, Minister, my mother was trained as an occupational therapist. When she did it, it was an undergraduate program; now it's a master's program. There are many university programs that used to be available for shorter durations of study or used to be available at the undergraduate level that are now master's programs. You're describing the phenomenon of an extension of the requirements to get certain credentials. I think that's an interesting issue to discuss, but it is clearly not an issue unique to the career college world. It's an issue that has been much discussed in the context of universities as well.
It seems to me that this budget has made a political choice to single out those students—and it's not a small number—pursuing particular vocational programs. You're saying that they will no longer be eligible for these programs, while anybody who studies at a university will still have access to those grants. Why are you singling out students pursuing programs that the government doesn't want to fund anymore for discrimination in the grant program?
Liberal
Patty Hajdu Liberal Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON
I think the political choice that was on display for all Canadians to see was your party voting against $1.5 billion in student and youth supports, a Canada student loan increase and interest forgiveness. The Conservative Party voted against students and voted against young people time and again.
Conservative
Liberal
Patty Hajdu Liberal Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON
I think that's the political choice on display here.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
I know we disagree, but can you answer the question? These are serious questions on behalf of students who will be discriminated against by this policy.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bobby Morrissey
Thank you, Mr. Genuis. Your time has gone by.
Ms. Fancy, you have five minutes.
Liberal
Jessica Fancy-Landry Liberal South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
Thank you very much, Chair.
Thank you, Minister, for joining us today.
In our previous line of questions, we were talking about bigger kiddos. As a former educator, I'd like to talk to you about littler kiddos, in regard to early learning and child care.
Minister, when I ran in the election, my platform was about the importance of community. How do you have a thriving community? My grandfather always used to say that you take care of the young and the old, and everyone in between will take care of themselves.
In terms of children, could talk to us about the impact of affordability on child care? There's also a broader economic benefit here. Could you speak about how the expansion of early learning and child care is supporting workforce participation, especially for moms like me, and what the long-term economic impact of these investments looks like?
Liberal
Patty Hajdu Liberal Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON
Thank you for a really great question about something that's quite historic in this country. Many economists have talked about affordable child care for a long time and talked about not only the value of this to young brains, young children, as you're talking about, but also the economic policy it represented. As I mentioned in my remarks, we have the highest workforce participation by women in the history of our country. That's generated in large part because of affordable child care.
We have, on average, a rate of about $16.50 per day. In some cases, provinces have reached $10 per day. In other cases, they're working to get there. We have families participating regardless of income level, although some people have criticized this.
Women lose a high degree of productivity capacity when they stay at home. It's a choice, for sure, and I respect it. In fact, I think I might have taken that choice had I been able to do so, but I was a single mom and relied on affordable child care to be able to pursue my ambition and support my family.
That's what we're hearing: Families say this is a game-changer. Fees have gone down in some cases. I was at a public event, and a woman came up to me—she was a professional—and said that they were saving $800 per month on each child. That's $1,600 a month back in their pockets as a result of affordable child care.
It's also a huge affordability measure. I've read quotes in the House of Commons. People have been able to pay down their mortgages, save for a house or go back to school. All the while, provinces and territories are doing a fantastic job keeping quality in the system. We've worked with a network of professionals, as you know, to make sure that the quality remains.
I really want to give all of the provinces and territories huge kudos for the work they're doing to get this all lifted off the ground.
Liberal
Jessica Fancy-Landry Liberal South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
I agree about the momentous occasion that this program has allowed for people from all walks of life throughout Canada.
Along the same theme of reducing fees for families, could you also talk about the creation of new child care spaces under the federal and provincial agreements? I was at one of the announcements about that program a little while ago for Small World Child Care Centre—that's a shout-out for South Shore—St. Margarets—as it was one of the recipients. Could you speak to that?
Liberal
Patty Hajdu Liberal Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON
Yes, you're right. The lift for some provinces and territories, particularly in rural areas, has been difficult. Obviously, rural areas don't have as much capacity. That's why we've sufficiently funded spot creation in public systems, and we've also had a blend of public and private care, in cases where there was no public option. We understand the need to protect that public system, but we also understand the need for flexibility for small regions that may not have other options. We've been working really collaboratively with our provinces and territories to get that done.
We've also funded physical infrastructure for spot creation, as sometimes it's been a matter of having actual hard spaces. We've also supported the development of early learning and child care students. I was able to visit one of the programs in my own riding and meet some of the students coming into the program, because labour and jobs are huge inputs into the program.
In Saskatchewan, for example, the education minister said that they've had some asks, from Saskatchewan's perspective, and they have been grateful for the collaboration so far. That was our intent—to collaborate with provinces to really understand what their needs were.
Liberal
Conservative
Colin Reynolds Conservative Elmwood—Transcona, MB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister, for being here today.
This government's actions have been speaking much louder than its words when it comes to supporting unionized labour and its use of section 107. Traditionally, Parliament would convene to end a strike and, through that process, would provide a rationale to Canadians as to why they're sending employees and employers to binding arbitration.
During the Air Canada flight attendants' strike, you noted on Twitter that you would be invoking section 107 to send Air Canada flight attendants, represented by CUPE, and Air Canada to binding arbitration. Personally, I would be willing to vote in a special sitting of Parliament to ensure that Canadians are informed about why strike action is being ended. This was a very drastic step.
Why does this government choose to use section 107 repeatedly instead of bringing these labour disputes to Parliament?
Liberal
Patty Hajdu Liberal Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON
First of all, I'll just note that 97% of the disputes that come to the federal mediation service are solved without any work stoppage at all, and I want to give a huge congratulations to the FMCS. They're incredible individuals who are doing this work every single day with bargaining parties.
In terms of support for labour, I would note that, although I understand your question, what we have done since we took office in 2015 is actually strengthen the rights for unions. In fact, one of the first acts I had the privilege of passing, although others had done some work on it as well, was a bill that reversed the harmful Harper-era legislation that made it harder for people to bargain and organize—Bill C-377 and Bill C-525.
It was a huge ask of the labour movement. We immediately got to work, and it was the first piece of legislation we actually passed in the House of Commons in 2015; it was to protect unions' right to organize.
Conservative
Colin Reynolds Conservative Elmwood—Transcona, MB
Thank you, Minister.
We recently saw Stellantis use foreign labour for the construction of the NextStar battery plant in Windsor. It shut out Canadian tradespeople. Stellantis has recently hinted that they're planning to move Canadian jobs in the auto sector down to the United States.
This government gave them billions of dollars of taxpayer money and Canadian market access, and all we've gotten in return are jobs for other countries. What is this government doing to protect Canadian tradespeople?
Liberal
Patty Hajdu Liberal Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON
I think Canada's Building Trades Unions' support both of our budget and of the Major Projects Office and approach is really an indication of how building trades are seeing this government act in their interest.
Building trades in particular and unions across the country know it's important that we protect Canadian industry and workers. In fact, the buy Canadian announcement was celebrated by a number of unions, including Unifor and LiUNA. The union movement knows that we will continue to have their back.
We're working with the building trades union—