Status of Women committee  Certainly we live in a tremendous, varied federation that has really dense urban centres and vast, more rural areas. On your first question about a system model, of course, in any area of social policy, we want to have benchmarks. We want to have tracking. We want to be paying

Status of Women committee  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 legisl

Status of Women committee  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

Status of Women committee  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 measuri

Status of Women committee  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

Status of Women committee  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

Status of Women committee  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

Status of Women committee  Thank you for the question. If I may, I'll answer in English.

Status of Women committee  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 exp

Status of Women committee  Of course, it's always important to centre our conversation on unpaid care in a global context. We know, of course, that the work of care—the work of social reproduction and the daily and generational production and reproduction of the population—is the stuff that keeps everythin

Status of Women committee  Thank you so much. Good afternoon, and thanks to the committee for this opportunity. I bring greetings from Niagara, Ontario, the traditional territory of the Haudenosaunee and Anishinabe peoples. This territory is covered by the Upper Canada Treaties and is within the land pro