Human Resources committee  Thank you for having me. I sent a written brief, and I thought you would have it, but you don't. You will. Today I'm speaking as the executive director of the Childcare Resource and Research Unit. It and I have been active in the social policy field for about 30 years, and I'm

Human Resources committee  Okay. What we know is that these programs do not become widely accessible and have reliably high quality unless governments take the lead role in organizing, financing, and operating them. So keeping in mind the best interests of children and the need that parents have for earl

Human Resources committee  Okay. Most of the European countries that have universal accessible early childhood education and care programs charge parents a fee, but the fee doesn't support the whole program. In answer to your question, I think all the evidence is that what you call demand-side money does

Human Resources committee  No, I thought I should just stop for a minute, that's all.

Human Resources committee  I think all the evidence is that the best way to use.... First of all, you need to have quite a lot of public money if you want to have good-quality and accessible early childhood education and child care. There's no doubt about it. So then the question is this: how do you use y

Human Resources committee  The two things are different. I guess the best thing I can say is that we do allow people in Canada to have the kids at home even after compulsory schooling starts, but we don't give them the money to do it. I just want to say that I understand that argument. I have never advoc

Finance committee  Thank you. I'm the executive director of the Childcare Resource and Research Unit. I'm talking about the other end of the age spectrum compared to what Dr. Simpson was talking about, but there are actually a lot of policy similarities. I'm really pleased that you asked me here

Finance committee  The Premier of Ontario has actually said this publicly. I think it was in her throne speech. She mentioned the poverty reduction strategy that they just released and said that we need a national child care program and that Ontario would welcome it. I haven't asked them, but I thi

Finance committee  Let me put it another way. One of the main arguments against having publicly funded child care across the country is that we can't afford it. What I would like to point out is that money is being spent without evaluation or assessment of whether it actually does what it's intend

Finance committee  Thank you very much for having me here today. I'm going to keep this as brief as I can. You already have my brief. I think the main point I want to make is that the government has already made some commitments to a national policy framework for early childhood education and car

Finance committee  I think the easiest way to think about that is to think about health care. The federal government played a role, successively, in ultimately bringing in the Canada Health Act. The federal government plays a major role, although with setting the broad brush strokes, wielding the

Status of Women committee  Thank you very much committee members and Madam Chair. I very much appreciate the opportunity to speak with you today. In a way, maybe you don't need to hear from me, because I think Professor Fortin has made a number of the points I wanted to make. I think I'll be making them

Status of Women committee  Before I conclude with a couple of concrete recommendations, I want to take a minute to comment personally. I've been a policy researcher on early childhood education and child care even before I immigrated to Canada in 1971, and I'm very familiar with child care issues not only

Status of Women committee  That's okay.

Status of Women committee  I urge you to do all you can to ensure that Canadian women don't have to wait. Thank you.