Evidence of meeting #18 for Status of Women in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was employers.
A video is available from Parliament.
12:20 p.m.
Associate Professor and Associate Dean, Brock University, As an Individual
Thank you for the question.
If I may, I'll answer in English.
12:20 p.m.
Associate Professor and Associate Dean, Brock University, As an Individual
There has been some really important progress at the federal level in terms of changes to the parental and maternity leave regime. Since 2018, there has been the introduction of an additional “use it or lose it” second caregiver leave that was made available. Drawing from the experience of Quebec, that can be a really important incentive at the very early stages of couples becoming parents in thinking about how we distribute the work of care. We know that up until the point when couples become parents the distribution of unpaid work tends to be more equal in households. This completely changes when couples become parents and when people get locked into gender roles and gendered responsibilities. Therefore, that has been an important step.
There are some challenges with that. One of them is that both parents have to qualify for EI leave to be able to take advantage of that, so it's not a stand-alone second caregiver or paternity leave. If I was to say what changes we could make to the parental and maternity leave regime in Canada, we only need to look to the Quebec parental insurance plan. It covers far more people, it's much more generous, it has much greater uptake, and it has also transformed the gender division in caregiver leave.
For lots of reasons, including being more generous and including many more mothers, especially, in leave programs, I think we can look to Quebec in both child care and parental leave for some good examples.
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
Marc Serré Liberal Nickel Belt, ON
Excellent. That leads to my second question, Ms. Bezanson. I was a school board trustee in the early 2000s when French school boards set up day cares, especially for second language. It was really important for that.
The system we have in Ontario, with the quality of the education versus what we've heard in Quebec, when you look at the affordability... you have two elements here. Some opposition parties are looking at universality for affordability, but they're not necessarily focused on the quality.
How does that tie into the consultation we're doing for the pan-Canada secretariat, to ensure we move forward on both of these elements in co-operation with the provinces? Can you expand, please?
12:25 p.m.
Associate Professor and Associate Dean, Brock University, As an Individual
I would say that there are three elements. We think about it as a three-legged stool in child care. You have to attend to affordability, quality and access all at the same time. If you push too hard on one, you sacrifice the others. We focus a lot of affordability, and there are good reasons. It's ridiculously expensive. In Ontario, an infant spot in Toronto costs about $1,700 a month. If you compare, if you were to go across the bridge—if you're in Ottawa, you would go to Gatineau—it's about $180 a month. We see a real variation.
I understand the real focus on affordability, but a hyper focus on affordability denudes those other two legs of their heft. I'll give you one way to understand this that I find helpful. If we just focus on affordability, I could give you $6,000 and you could go out and try to find care. What you would probably have to do is find the cheapest care available. It doesn't build a system and it would stimulate low-wage female employment. The emphasis on affordability is good but it doesn't build the system, it doesn't attend to quality and it doesn't deal with access. I can give you $6,000, but you can't buy something that doesn't exist.
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
Marc Serré Liberal Nickel Belt, ON
When you look at the role that the federal government should play...because you mentioned earlier that the federal government should give money to the provinces. Can you expand on that? What kinds of standards should we have linked to that?
12:25 p.m.
Associate Professor and Associate Dean, Brock University, As an Individual
As you know, we live in a vexingly wonderful, decentralized federation and one of the huge benefits of Canada's decentralized federation is that we have the opportunity for experimentation at the subnational level, at the provincial and territorial level. We have a huge amount to draw from in terms of excellence and challenges in delivery.
The federal government has indicated it would like to take a substantial role in increasing the amount of spending to provinces and territories to build a system. What we need to do, therefore, at the very first instance, is work with the provinces and territories to scale and talk about the best practices that we have seen. We have some very good examples. Quebec is one that is very often pointed to, for very good reasons. B.C. is doing some incredible work with its $10-a-day child care pilot. Newfoundland has been doing some great work, as have P.E.I. and Nova Scotia. We have great experience in the country. What we need to be doing when we're talking about building a system to address that unevenness is to be scaling that up, but also thinking about it as a model where, as I said, we fund the services in child care. That bypasses a lot of the conversation in the policy nexus—
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
February 25th, 2021 / 12:30 p.m.
Bloc
Andréanne Larouche Bloc Shefford, QC
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
To begin, I'd like to thank both the witnesses, Dr. Bezanson and Ms. Robert, for their very informative testimony on invisible work.
Dr. Bezanson, thank you for highlighting Quebec's unique situation with regard to parental leave and child care services.
We have clearly understood that there is a direct link between the assistance provided to women and their access to the labour market. Better division of labour also means better sharing of parental leave. We may have an opportunity to come back to that.
My first question is for you, Ms. Robert.
You opened the door to three issues: wages, socialization and government reform. You said that you would come back to these points, so I'd like to hear more about them.
12:30 p.m.
Historian, As an Individual
These issues were discussed extensively in the 1970s and 1980s.
All of these debates were somewhat put aside, but the idea of a wage for housework was also of interest to researcher Louise Toupin, who wrote a book in French that has been translated into English, on the demand for pay for housework. This claim is extremely interesting because it provided for a salary to be paid to the homemaker, male or female.
This claim has been somewhat set aside, but measures such as CERB have nevertheless given us a glimpse of what it might look like to pay people for [Technical Difficulties]. Although this measure was intended to replace a salary, staying home still gave many families and many women a boost, in particular.
The issue of socialization concerns all the services that have been set up independently by users. For example, in Quebec, in the 1970s, before the early childhood centres were created, there were popular day cares. The idea was to give resources to the communities so that they could take charge of care services themselves. I think that’s a very interesting idea.
Finally, there were several suggestions on the issue of reforms, such as including homemakers in the labour force and providing old age benefits to people who have been at home in an attempt to reduce poverty at the end of life or in the event of divorce, for example. It was also suggested to facilitate the recognition of women’s job skills when they re-enter the labour market after having children.
In the 1970s and 1980s, a number of ideas were proposed by organizations, unions and women's groups.
12:30 p.m.
Bloc
Andréanne Larouche Bloc Shefford, QC
These are inspiring measures.
You also talked about the disparity between women. In order to try to overcome some of the care that is difficult to provide as a woman, because there are too many tasks, women have to seek help themselves, which creates even more disparity.
How could you measure this? Are there statistics or data on this for Quebec and Canada?
12:30 p.m.
Historian, As an Individual
I think this manifests itself in several different ways. For example, I am getting ready to go back to work, but there's no room at the early childhood centre. The Quebec child care system is highly idealized, but in reality there is very little room. You may never even get one, even if you sign up for the waiting lists.
Here’s another example. The woman who's going to look after my daughter at the day care is a racialized woman, an immigrant. She lost her job as a math teacher because of Bill 21 in Quebec. When we look at the divisions between women, we see that it also shows up in home care, residential care, child care, and education.
I don’t have specific data, but it's a growing trend that we're seeing and that we need to keep in mind. In fact, I believe that the simple approach of allowing women to enter the labour market is aimed at women who are particularly privileged, and this must not be done by delegating this work to other women. On the contrary, I think that this must be done through greater government support, public services, and the re-funding of home care and child care. It's important to keep this in mind.
I'd like to conclude my remarks by inviting you to take a gender-based approach from an intersectional perspective, and therefore always keep in mind that this care work should not be delegated to other women so that only some women can be empowered.
12:35 p.m.
Bloc
Andréanne Larouche Bloc Shefford, QC
You talk about the gender-based analysis plus—or GBA+—approach that could help the government get a better sense of the impact of the measures it's putting in place. In your opinion, this hasn't been sufficiently advanced at this time.
I'd like to hear from Dr. Bezanson or Ms. Robert about GBA+.
How important is it to apply this approach when implementing a new measure, a new law or a new standard, in order to be able to measure the impact that this may have on women?
12:35 p.m.
Associate Professor and Associate Dean, Brock University, As an Individual
I am a huge proponent of GBA+. I think that the kind of gender results framework that Canada has now implemented is a really important way of benchmarking and looking at our progress and our regression over time. Canada was a real world leader, especially in the 1990s, in measuring, valuing and tracking unpaid care, certainly in gender-based analysis. We have sort of returned to that place of prominence.
I think that using the GBA+ lens is important at all stages. It's obviously really important when we're thinking about a new legislative schema or a new statutory approach. We're thinking about policy rollout. It's also really—
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Marilyn Gladu
I'm sorry. That's end of the time for that question.
We're going now to Ms. Mathyssen for six minutes.
12:35 p.m.
NDP
Lindsay Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
This is something we've discussed a lot in this committee, as child care is obviously such a huge part of women's work and women's lives.
I was interested to go back to the idea of the three-pronged approach that you were speaking about, Ms. Bezanson.
We've seen that the government has announced a commitment to the national child care secretariat—we haven't seen the actual dollars yet; I think it was just announced—which is what child care advocates and stakeholders have been asking for, absolutely, in terms of that one piece. However, there are the other two. The piecemeal approach that has been continued has a lot to do with consistency of funding.
Could you comment on the impacts of that underfunding of a piecemeal system and what that has done? I know that the national advocacy groups have called for $2.5 billion immediately just to stabilize the child care sector and then an additional $10 billion over the next four years to be able to do the work and provide those spaces.
That money hasn't appeared. Could you talk about the impacts of that?
12:35 p.m.
Associate Professor and Associate Dean, Brock University, As an Individual
Sure. That's a really good question.
I am among those who have been speaking quite loudly about the need for a federal secretariat, in part because child care needs a home in order for the policy area to be executed and for us to reach the kinds of aspirations that many in this conversation have around the equity and the gender equality outcomes that a child care system can deliver.
You're absolutely right in your diagnosis that the last year has been devastating for the child care sector. We've seen centres close across the country for lots of reasons, including because child care is not really a system across Canada. It's rather sort of a patchwork market.
We know that, for example, education is going be there next year for our kids because education is a right of every child and a responsibility of every province and territory. Because child care is a market it enjoys no such protection, so we've seen in the pandemic that the sector itself has been really fragile.
There have been some investments. I'm thinking about the safe restart monies that went to a number of sectors in various provinces, including to child care. In my conversations with the child care sector, they reported that things like the wage subsidy, as with other small employers, have been really important in keeping them afloat, but those are going to end and this pandemic is going to continue.
If the stock of child care is not available and if we are coming out of the pandemic with less than we had going into it, we're putting ourselves in all of the kinds of disadvantages that have been well canvassed at this committee.
12:40 p.m.
NDP
Lindsay Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
One thing that the stakeholders and the sector have also been calling for is the enshrinement into law by legislation, for the universality and the affordability of an act, much like the Canada Health Act. When you were talking about postal code social policy, ultimately the enshrinement of a piece of legislation to ensure that child care is provided universally is key.
When we talk about those monies like safe restart agreements and so on, I was talking to a lot of folks in my riding who provide child care. They thought they could use the wage subsidy or some of the monies that were provided by the federal government through the provinces to pay their employees, but a lot of it was so project-based that they actually had to pay that money back. Now they're in desperate need because they don't know how...and they've had to have such cuts. They're in worse circumstances than they were before.
What would that enactment look like? How would that benefit?
12:40 p.m.
Associate Professor and Associate Dean, Brock University, As an Individual
These are very good questions.
I would say that I am aware that the NDP, I believe in the mid- or late 2000s, proposed a private member's bill that essentially speaks to this, creating a child care act with a similarity to the principles of the Canada Health Act.
I think legislation is a really important expression of how we protect and value particular policy areas. I know that Quebec also has a legislative enshrinement and it also speaks about the rights of children to particular kinds of care. There are a lot of reasons to do that.
I also have wondered about the kind of invisibility of child care in our federal spending packages. We have the Canada social transfer. We have the Canada health transfer. Child care, historically, was delivered through the social transfer, and it now comes through bilateral negotiations with provinces.
Would it make a difference, also, to give it that kind of visibility and have a Canada child care transfer in addition to a legislative schema that could give it the kind of visibility that would also protect it, at least symbolically? That's something to think about.
I know that so many child care deliverers in regulated home bases and in centres have struggled mightily in the pandemic. I think that, moving forward, we need to look at those three legs of the stool and think about how we fund services so that we can address areas like fee caps so that parents aren't paying as much; so that we can address funding of the workforce, which is wages, one of the key drivers of costs in child care; and also—
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Marilyn Gladu
I feel so bad about continually cutting you off when you're saying wonderful things, but it's my job as chair.
Right now we're going into our second round of questions, with Ms. Shin for five minutes.
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
Nelly Shin Conservative Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC
Thank you so much.
I'd like to thank all the witnesses for speaking with us today. You shared some very valuable information and thoughts.
Historically, the caregiving role that women have had has obviously impacted their accessibility to more options for employment. We've heard that female jobs are devalued and a lot of women's work is unpaid and invisible. Publicly funded child care was an option that you have both presented, and we've heard it often.
We've also heard often that there are some cultures that don't want to send their children to publicly funded care centres. What kinds of ways could the federal government assist in providing those kinds of options for families where culturally they would rather have family members, like grandparents, take care of their children?
12:40 p.m.
Associate Professor and Associate Dean, Brock University, As an Individual
That's an interesting question. That was not one of the ones I've prepared for, so I appreciate it.
Certainly I think that when we're thinking about family policy, it's one of the hardest areas to navigate because we all live it very intimately. It's very personal. When we think about policy design we have to think about how we create policies that give people great options between equally excellent choices.
My view would be, if we're thinking about how we support caregivers, the biggest impact is in building a system that is accessible and affordable to those who wish to use it. Absolutely, nobody is speaking about any kind of compulsory child care.
For many families, a grandparent, an aunt or a family member providing care is absolutely important, viable and the best choice for that family. We want to support that.
I think in some ways we do bolster that through other means, especially by enhancing things like the Canada child benefit, which has been a dramatic anti-poverty strategy, but has also been put to significant use in caregiving.
I feel that Camille is here, and I am talking too much.