Mr. Speaker, previously in the House I raised a question around child and family poverty. Part of my question focused on the reality that most families needed to work two jobs just to make ends meet, yet nearly 3 million children did not have access to regulated child care. An affordable high quality child care program could pay for itself. Let us just look at Quebec.
I want to reference the Quebec model. This is from a paper by Pierre Fortin on “Economic Consequences of Quebec's Educational Childcare Policy” from June 22, 2011. There are a number of aspects to this policy, but the three I want to talk about are the fact that: full day kindergarten has been offered to all children age 5 since September, 1997; early childhood education and care, as of 2004, cost $7 a day; and before and after school programs for children age 5 to 12 have also been available at $7 and prior to that it was much cheaper.
The paper talks about three macroeconomic impacts of Quebec's early childhood education program: on women's labour force participation, on gross provincial income and on federal and provincial finances. The federal government might want to pay attention to the impact on taxes and transfers. It states that increased family income generates more tax revenues and lower government transfers and credits and that all types of tax revenues increase, not only income and payroll taxes, and all levels of government benefit, not only the provincial level.
The paper talks about the impact on gross provincial income. It states that adjusting for hours of work and productivity of the new participants, it was found that the program was adding 1.7% to Quebec's GDP in 2008. The paper also talks about the longer term effects. It states that on net, for every dollar spent on early childhood education, the provincial government harvests $1.05 and the federal government gets 44¢ for doing nothing.
In the province of Quebec, where there has been a very progressive child care program, the federal government directly benefits to the tune of 44 cents on every dollar and it does not invest directly in child care.
In summary, the paper states that by 2008 Quebec's early childhood education program: had increased women's employment by 70,000, an increase of 3.8%; had increased provincial GDP by $5.2 billion, an increase of 1.7%; it was entirely self-financing within the provincial budget; and it was procuring $717 million in additional revenue to the federal government.
New Democrats have consistently called on the government to invest in a national child care strategy, which would increase child care spaces in the country. I want to emphasize investment.
I know in my own riding of Nanaimo—Cowichan, several child care centres have had to close down because of the fact that people cannot afford them. I think part of that points to the failed policies of the $100 a month, which is less after tax, that simply does not create child care spaces. We need an early childhood education program that assists parents in going to work and contributing to the family incomes.
Often the government across the way talks about the best way out of poverty is a job, and we would agree, but it has to be a good paying job and there has to be child care available. Therefore, once again, I ask the minister this. When will the government invest in a national child care strategy?