Madam Speaker, I acknowledge the land that we are on. It is the unceded and unsurrendered territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people. Since today we are debating Bill C-35, the Canada early learning and child care act, as we acknowledge the land we are on, it is important that we acknowledge the ongoing injustice that indigenous people face.
We pause not only to remember and honour the indigenous survivors who were impacted by residential schools and the children who never made it home, but also we must collectively commit to a future where there is justice for indigenous people and where every child matters. A piece of this is supporting indigenous-led child care programming, committing to a future where every child matters and where indigenous children have the opportunity to experience high-quality, culturally rooted early learning and child care programming.
Bill C-35, the Canada early learning and child care act, has been a long time coming. I thank the child care advocates who have worked tirelessly for decades to make this happen. I say tirelessly because their advocacy has continued despite decades of broken promises. However, it is also important to note that so many of the people who have been pushing for national child care, who are parents, grandparents and educators, are tired.
Parents have been struggling to afford the unbelievably high costs of child care, paying monthly child care fees that are as much as or more than their monthly rent payments. They have been struggling to find child care spaces. They are struggling, and many parents, especially moms, have told me they would like to return to work. However, because of the impossibly high costs or because they cannot find a space, it is impossible for them to return to their careers.
I have spoken with grandparents who are generously stepping in to provide care, but who have worked hard their whole lives. While they are stepping up as much as they can, they are tired and they do not want to be full-time caregivers. I have spoken to educators, who give so much to our children, yet for decades have been underpaid and undervalued. There are educators who are leaving the field, because they cannot afford to make ends meet without a living wage.
Their stories highlight some of the reasons this piece of legislation is so important. I am glad the government is committing to funding. We are beginning to see that funding make an impact in my home province of B.C. The B.C. government has been reducing child care costs, creating more spaces and recruiting more early child care educators. Every parent and every child deserves access to high-quality affordable child care.
The bill would enshrine this vision into law and commit the federal government to long-term funding for provinces and indigenous peoples.
New Democrats pushed the government for this legislation. It is one of the 27 commitments outlined in the supply and confidence agreement. We were able to successfully push the government for the prioritization of public non-profit care, which would mean affordable, high-quality and accessible day cares for families who need them. That would ultimately mean better wages and working conditions for staff.
We also pushed to make sure the bill would contribute to the implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and for the inclusion of a commitment to the right to child care, as recognized in the Convention on the Rights of the Child. I want to give a shout-out to my colleague, the member for Winnipeg Centre, for her tireless work on this file.
There are also ways the bill could be further improved, and as New Democrats we will not only be supporting the bill but also working alongside child care advocates, educators, unions and other experts in the field to strengthen it at committee.
We know that one of the major barriers to the expansion of affordable child care is staffing. We have been echoing the calls of unions representing child care workers that call for a workforce strategy that addresses staffing shortages in the sector. Early childhood educators in Canada continue to leave their profession due to the low pay, the lack of benefits, the lack of supports and the lack of decent working conditions.
Enticing new people into a field when they are facing these conditions is extremely challenging. The federal government must take a leadership role, commit to a workforce strategy and support amendments to this bill that outline explicit commitments to fair pay and decent working conditions for staff.
CUPE, which was my union before I became an MP, and also the union that represents over 12,000 workers in the child care sector, has stated clearly, “Until the child care staffing crisis is resolved, the promise of affordable and high quality child care for every family in Canada who needs it will remain unfulfilled.” It is constantly advocating for its members, reminding us that child care workers are highly skilled, trained individuals whose work is important. These are the people who are caring for and educating our children. They deserve respect and fair wages.
We will continue to push for a more unequivocal commitment in this bill for decent work for child care staff. We need clear language that explicitly mentions fair wages and working conditions.
We are also going to be pushing for stronger reporting requirements. The current language in the bill has a vague promise that the minister will report on progress, but there should be requirements to report on the number of new spaces built, the number of new child care workers being hired, and a detailed breakdown of federal spending.
We will also be pushing for stronger accountability mechanisms to ensure the provinces are spending child care money for its intended purpose. This is particularly relevant when we see in Manitoba the average cost of child care not going down, and when we see Ontario opening the door to and prioritizing the expansion of for-profit care.
Our New Democrat team is putting forward constructive proposals to improve the accountability and reporting mechanisms in the bill to ensure costs are reduced, child care spaces are created and child care workers are being hired, but we are also pushing for a workforce strategy and a clear commitment to decent working conditions and fair pay for staff.
A study that was released last year by the Childcare Resource and Research Unit provided the dos and don'ts when building a universal child care program. The researchers drew from studies both in Canada and internationally and concluded that, based on the best available evidence and on all we know about building the foundations for a publicly funded universal child care system, the best way for Canada to build an affordable, accessible, inclusive, flexible, equitable and quality early child learning and child care system is to use our public funds to prioritize non-profit and public child care.
That is not to say that we ignore or exclude the current for-profit child care providers. Instead, it argues that the most constructive way forward is a three-point plan. The first point is to maintain funding and the existing supply of regulated public, non-profit and for-profit child care. The second is to ensure more vigorous, publicly managed regulation, including affordable provincial parent fees and wage scales that ensure decent staff compensation. The third is that any future public funds aimed at the expansion of the supply of child care should prioritize public and non-profit providers, while simultaneously pursuing new public strategies for developing early learning and child care services for when, where and for whom they are needed. This is the road map to a national child care system that provides parents, children and educators with the support they need.
I want to end with a few comments about the gendered impacts of our policy decisions. We know that a national system of affordable child care helps advance gender equality by making it easier for women to re-enter the workforce after having children on their own terms. Unpaid household and family child care responsibilities disproportionately fall on women, and investing in affordable, accessible and inclusive child care is essential if we want women to have equal opportunities.
It is important to note that there is little data on the particular challenges faced by racialized women in accessing child care. If we want to ensure that the most marginalized women do not slip through the cracks of a new child care system, it is essential that we bring the voices of under-represented women and gender-diverse people to the forefront of these policy discussions.
It is also important to remember that, professionally, the child care sector is one of the most feminized job sectors in Canada, and early childhood educators are some of the most undervalued workers, with low pay, low retention rates, low levels of job satisfaction and, unsurprisingly, labour shortages. Investing in affordable, accessible, high-quality child care, where child care providers are paid a fair wage, is good for gender equality, good for the economy and good for our children. Let us make a more prosperous, equitable, affordable and inclusive Canada for all.
