44th Parl. 1st Sess.
January 30, 2023 11:00AM
Madam Speaker, I have been listening to the previous speaker and I thank her very much for bringing forward and talking about the importance of child care. As a mother, I know how important it was when I had my five children and needed that care. The biggest challenge I had was finding child care. We have talked about these proposals, but just last week, I spoke to a young woman who was coming back to work after maternity leave. She cannot find child care.
What is the government going to do about the lack of spaces? As the population increases, it is even more important to be building more spaces. I do not see the commitment to the number of spaces that are actually needed to make sure that children do have this care the Liberals are referring to.
140 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, I am thankful for the opportunity to speak on the bill before us, and I will be sharing my time with the member for Mégantic—L'Érable.
I recall when the national child care strategy was first discussed in 1993 because at that time I was pregnant with my first child. He is now the father of four children, so obviously we are still having this discussion. I recall back in 1994 putting my child on a wait-list.
Back in 1994 was the first time that I put my child on a wait-list for a child care space, which was not necessarily publicly funded, in the city of London. I was a brand new mother, 23 years old, with a job, and I was probably making between eight and nine dollars an hour working as a dental assistant. I knew that child care was going to be very critical for me to go back to work because my spouse and I were not making a lot of money and we did want to get ahead. We had student loans. We had bills we wanted to pay, and we did have a car. Therefore, it was very important, even back then, that we were both working at that, although not necessarily full time.
Now, in 2023, we are continuing to have the conversation on child care and what it looks like. As the government is putting forward this piece of legislation, I will reflect on the work I have done in Parliament as we have discussed child care and the discussions I have had with parents.
During my role from 2015 to 2019, I had the honour to work with families, children and social development, and look at the different things that we are discussing, especially child care. I recall, I believe it was in the 2016 budget, when the Canada child benefit was increased quite a bit so that it could include child care. However, we all know that today, with the exorbitant cost for families, the new child benefit does not even touch what this country is going through with inflationary costs. Although it was a program that was very important to do, I do not think the government was actually going in the right direction when it comes to the fact that it cannot keep its spending under control.
When we get to where we are today, we are talking about child care, and we need to talk about those spaces. I just had a young woman call me last week who could not return to work because she could not find a child care space. Her question to me was, “Can I get my employment insurance expanded?” She said that she needed to go to back to work. She cannot afford what is going on right now. She cannot afford her home. She cannot afford the price of groceries. She cannot afford life at this time, and she needs to go back to work because her EI maternity and parental benefits have run out.
I could not believe that I had to say to her, “I am really sorry.” I know that she has been trying for the last year to find a child care space as her child was just born, but there is not a space for that child. This is where we talk about looking at these programs and making sure that we have enough spaces.
I also recall back in 2018 one of the greatest challenges they were having in Langley, B.C. I was doing a tour there and I was at the YMCA, which was paying its child care providers $22 an hour. Now, I see in this piece of legislation talk about averages that people must make, but we have to also understand that $22 an hour in Langley, B.C. cannot keep a child care provider because of the cost of living is so outrageous. This is where we really need to focus on the labour market. We really need to focus on the cost of living. We really need to ask what is going on here.
This occupation is heavily oriented towards women. Many women choose to be child care providers. Many women also choose to educate small children, those in kindergarten through to grade eight, because of their love of children and wanting to be part of that. However, we are not getting to where we need to be because these child care spaces are not available.
In Langley, B.C. when a person making $22 an hour cannot afford to work in that profession, they are going to find another profession, which is what we have seen. We have seen an exodus from professions that may be lower paying. It is good that we are seeing a bit of an increase, but at the same time I am wondering what we are going to do to sustain this type of program, because the business model does not work when we look at this.
That is why I want to bring in the discussion of entrepreneurs, women entrepreneurs.
I like to have kids, it seems. Between my second and third child, I decided to stay home and bring in three other children. I did my very best because I am the type of person who wants to make sure that we are having the right food, that we are having the right playtimes and that we are doing some educational pieces. That was very important to me. I was able to offer child care to mothers who did not have regular work schedules, people who were working in restaurants, people who were not working a regular nine-to-five job. That is why I believe it is so important that we not only look at the public and not-for-profit but that we look at these women-led businesses that are providing child care.
The whole idea of not-for-profit seems to be the problem here. It is a business, and we should be supporting this, because even CUPE has come out and said that there will not be enough spaces if we are putting all of our eggs into one basket and expecting it to be not-for-profit or publicly funded. There needs to be space for this private care.
I also bring this up because I am a girl from Sparta, population 300. If my parents, or any family in Sparta, needed to take their child to child care, it would be a 25-minute drive. That is why we need flexibility for families.
For instance, a young woman, or a new mom, which was my case, may choose to become a child care provider within her own home. That would be seen, perhaps, as private. That is a job. The way I look at it is that it is a job and it is a way for the woman and the family to have more flexibility. She is helping out other women and helping out herself in the meantime.
When we are looking at a program that is really focused at a national scale, we need to recognize that we live in Canada. We live in a country where it is hard for us to get to Ottawa some days. It is hard for us to get to the grocery store on certain days.
When we are talking about that, I live in a very populated place, St. Thomas. I live with about 45,000 other people in my community. If we are talking about smaller populations, how are we going to ensure that they are having the same accessible, quality child care that people in urban centres are going to have? How are we ensuring that this is going to happen? How are we ensuring that every family has access to $10-a-day child care?
Let us be real and say that this is not the way it is going to work out perfectly. Yes, we need to ensure that there is child care, because child care helps our economy. It puts families and women back to work and it gives them that opportunity. For me, child care was very important, but I did not do it with public child care. It was not an option. There were no spaces. I did it through not-for-profit and through women entrepreneur-based businesses, where women were able to do this.
I am really hoping that when the government looks at this legislation, it is very focused on these types of businesses. I really hope that it recognizes that we need to be looking at all types of child care when we are looking at this. There are approximately five different types of child care that we have here in Ontario. We need to make sure that all of those are on the plate and that all of those are part of that basket, if we really want to have something available for families and children.
Before I finish, I want to switch to labour, because, as we have said, labour is an issue. I have talked about the cost of living. I have talked about how it was $22 an hour, in 2018, to be a child care provider out in Langley, B.C.
We are at a critical issue. Just as we are seeing in our health care professions and just as we are seeing with many of our frontline workers, we are seeing burnout. I must say that the people who are working in child care are doing an exceptional job, but there is burnout as well. We need to ensure that there are supports for them and that there is education for them.
However, there is a labour market issue here right now that is not going to help fulfill what the government is putting forward, and that is why we need to look at everything else. We need to look at things. PSWs, labour force issues, this is what we are seeing from the government, because people cannot afford to have certain types of jobs so people are leaving those types of jobs, which are really important. They are leaving those jobs to try to find higher-earning jobs because the government does not really have that love for jobs. Many people who are working in ECE are doing it because they love children.
I do not think the government recognizes that it should not just be one way. We should make sure that child care is accessible for all.
1777 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, perhaps the member did not listen to me, because I said we need the entire bouquet, the entire plate of different options, because not-for-profit and public just do not meet the need. Rather than making this political, rather than calling Conservatives out, rather than talking about what we have done, let us talk about the children first here, because it is the children who are missing out in all of this political crap that people are talking about. That is where we are going here.
I listened to the question. It was a political attack. It was not about children. If we are talking about for-profit versus this, what we need is a system that works for parents. It is not just one type; it needs to be all of these different systems working together to ensure that we have child care across this nation.
150 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, I think the member hit the nail on the head when talking about needing agreements with the provinces, because at the end of the day the people who are providing child care are the provinces. The federal government is supposed to be there trying to create a strategy, an approach to this. I think as we are talking about this we are so keyed in on “This is what we are trying to do.” It does not work. One type of thing just does not work for everybody. We need to make these agreements, but 67% of child care in the province of Alberta is done by entrepreneurs. It is not public and it is not not-for-profit, because that is what works in that area. Therefore, when we are talking about this, I am really hoping the government understands that spaces and private can still work together very well.
155 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, I forgot about that part of my speech. Absolutely, for me it has to be for those people who really need a hand up. That is what the government should be doing, giving a hand up. Making it so that millionaires can take the spaces of the people who are trying to get into the workforce should not be happening. Absolutely, it should be income-tested for sure.
70 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- menumenu
- notificationsnotifications
- home
- mailmail
- searchsearch
