Can she answer?
Evidence of meeting #50 for Status of Women in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was children.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #50 for Status of Women in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was children.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:15 p.m.
Bloc
Johanne Deschamps Bloc Laurentides—Labelle, QC
Are these cuts having a negative impact on the advances or the efforts that women's groups are making in the struggle for women's rights?
4:15 p.m.
As an Individual
Absolutely. However, it must be admitted that the funds were not always correctly invested because they only met a few of women's desires and needs.
However, you have to meet all needs. So the analysis of the situation of women who work at home was very well done, but we didn't do enough to acknowledge that of other women. Funds have to be given to everyone.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
Nina Grewal Conservative Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you to all the witnesses for taking time to come here. Thank you for your presentations.
My question goes to Madam Smith.
Beverley, during your testimony before the Senate human rights committee in September, you said, “current policy massively favours one care style, institutional daycare, by non-blood relatives of the child”. Could you please elaborate a bit on this statement and explain why such a policy may be shortsighted?
4:15 p.m.
As an Individual
Well, Canada has signed the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which has some articles in it that say a child has the right to the care of the parents wherever possible or to those people whom the parents have chosen; that the parents are in the best position to know the best interests of the child. There's nothing in that convention that is against day care. As a matter of fact, it supports finding third-party care when you need it, but the one to make the biggest decisions, to be trusted the most, is the parent. I think Ms. Lysack also actually says that.
I'm just saying what she doesn't quite say. I'm just saying that the most efficient way to do that is to fund the parent and let them make those choices. I'm not going to argue that it's bad to have day care, because I don't buy into that anti-day care sentiment. We do know that bad care happens everywhere and good care happens everywhere, so let's go to where there's good care and let the parents decide where there's good care. I am for parents having those rights.
You can't put love into legislation. Put the kid where someone loves him, and believe me, that's the first thing the kid cares about. I don't know how we can write that into the law, but we have to make it so that the funding flows to where the kid will be loved.
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
Nina Grewal Conservative Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Caregivers care for children, the sick, the disabled, and seniors. Could you identify challenges that are common to people engaged in all these types of caregiving? This question goes to all. Anyone can answer this question.
Just identify the challenges that are unique to specific groups of caregivers.
4:20 p.m.
As an Individual
All people in life at some point are care receivers and most end up caregivers. During the care receiving, we're usually in a position of vulnerability—we can't do it for ourselves. That's a universal state from time to time in our lives. That's what they have in common.
Most seniors and handicapped people still want some autonomy about, “Okay, so I can't walk and I can't feed myself, but I sure want to have some choice in my life, so could you let me at least choose my caregiver?” In B.C. they had a Human Rights Tribunal case, the Hutchinson case, a few years ago. The government there would fund anybody but the dad to take care of her. The Human Rights Tribunal said, “Excuse me, we have to fund the dad if that's who she wants.” What they have in common are the rights of the care receiver.
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
4:20 p.m.
Executive Director, Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada
I just want to respond.
Yes, of course, I think all of us would recognize that parents always are the first and primary caregivers for their children. No one questions that, no one doubts that, and certainly when my children are in school during the day, I'm still their primary caregiver. As we share care for other responsibilities, in some cases I might care for a family member or parent, but I might not always be able to do that. So of course there is a community approach to that, and we've organized ourselves as a society to be able to do that.
But what I think is really important to acknowledge here is that there needs to be choice. In order for that choice to be available, certainly from the child care perspective, we have to make sure that the services are available for people to access. That means having a system, and right now we don't have a system. We have a patchwork of things that people can put together, but there is really not a system like there is in Quebec that families can access.
If I were to make an analogy, it might be a bit like saying to university students, post-secondary students, “Here's $10,000 a year; organize yourselves and see if you can find somebody who knows something about health sciences and maybe you could have the lady down the block coordinate that.” We don't do that.
When we talk about institutions, institutions aren't bad things. They're things that we've organized to help us support our work as citizens.
Anyway, I'll stop there.
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
Patricia Davidson Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
Okay. I guess I'm taking the remainder of her time.
First of all, I'd just like to thank each of you for your presentations. I think they've been very good today, and I think we've heard some excellent suggestions. It's great to hear the suggestions and not just the problems reiterated, so I thank each of you for that.
I just want to share a little bit of information with you before I ask you the first question.
We talk about child care and the federal involvement, and I think, Monica and Emily, you particularly addressed it and categorized it as the federal abandonment of child care.
My municipality was one of the pilot projects for rural child care under the Best Start program in Ontario, a very, very successful program. I took the time to speak with the director of that program for two counties, and he's just so pleased with it, so very pleased.
I was concerned that there would be a stop in that pilot project and that things would not be continuing as they were. They took the initiative to deal with the province, knowing that there was still federal money coming to the provinces, and they've been very successful. That project has continued on the way it was planned initially.
He also went on to say that with the money in the 2007 federal budget, they don't feel that there will be any problem implementing the entire program.
So I just want you to know that, that everything isn't doom and gloom. Some people have managed to make things work. They've made partnerships and they've carried on.
4:25 p.m.
Conservative
Patricia Davidson Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
I was planning on using my five minutes for questions, so—
April 24th, 2007 / 4:25 p.m.
Executive Director, Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada
Should I reply to this?
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
