44th Parl. 1st Sess.
January 31, 2023 10:00AM
- Jan/31/23 10:13:47 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have a number of petitions I want to present to the House today.
The first petition deals with the ongoing national unity crisis. It is a particular concern for my constituents in Alberta. The petitioners note that the government, through rhetoric, policy, action and inaction, has caused a national unity crisis. They call on the government to take responsibility for the national unity crisis it has created and, as one important remedial measure, to ensure there are no bureaucratic or legislative roadblocks for provinces that wish to exercise their constitutionally allowed measures of autonomy.
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Mr. Speaker, if a couple, Fred and Martha let us say, living near Hoadley, Alberta in a rural area, have incomes that are close to or just above minimum wage, would they get the pleasure and privilege of paying for day care for millionaires in downtown Toronto or downtown Montreal while their taxes are not going to provide any benefit because there will be no government-sanctioned day care spaces in a community that only has a couple of hundred people?
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Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in this place and contribute to the debate on Bill C-35, an act respecting early learning and child care in Canada.
As a mom and a grandmother of 11, I understand the importance of having access to quality child care, and I join my colleagues in recognizing those who work in this sector and the very important work they do, and I thank them for it.
With all of the fanfare that this two-to-three-decade plan in the making to nationalize child care has been given, this bill falls flat when it comes to providing a solution for the issues that currently face families who need these programs. As part of their confidence and supply agreement that sees the New Democrats support the minority government through to 2025, the Liberals promised to introduce this legislation by the end of 2022.
With that deadline fast approaching, the Liberals introduced this bill last December. While the bill sets out to establish a vision for a Canada-wide community-based early learning and child care system, it lacks substance in charting a path to get there. Not only does it not address the problems that already exist, but it creates even more.
In declaring their goal to support the establishment and maintenance of a Canada-wide early learning and child care system, where families have access to affordable, inclusive and high-quality early learning and child care programs and services, regardless of where they live, the Liberals have included one proviso that has many families and child care providers concerned.
That condition is found in paragraph 7(1)(a), to "facilitate access to early learning and child care programs and services—in particular those that are provided by public and not for profit child care providers”.
To start, it favours or gives preferential treatment to public and not-for-profit providers over any other type of child care program that exists. Only public, non-profit child care spaces have open access for parents to utilize the supports of this program. If a family chose a new, privately owned centre or one that has recently expanded to meet the demand, it cannot access the subsidy it needs at that centre, therefore limiting the child's ability to access quality child care.
Families are diverse and so, too, are their circumstances. The federal government should not be dictating what child care is best for families. Conservatives recognize that Canadian families should have access to affordable and quality child care and believe they should be able to choose child care providers who best suit their families' needs.
Second, this bill does nothing to address the wait-lists of thousands of families needing child care. For example, the Financial Accountability Office of Ontario projects that, by 2026, there will be 602,000 children under six whose families will want $10-a-day care and the province will only be able to accommodate 375,000 of them, leaving 227,000, or 38% of those children, without access.
Third, it does not address the concerns of operators who do not have the staff or infrastructure to offer more spaces. Currently there are not enough qualified staff to keep all existing child care centres running at full capacity, let alone staff new spaces. Government estimates also suggest that, by 2026, there could be a shortage of 8,500 early childhood workers.
In British Columbia, 27% of child care centres turn away children due to lack of staff. One child care director who oversees 13 child care programs with 350 spaces says that, “In the past two years, we’ve had to close programs temporarily, whether it’s for a day or two, or shorten hours for the week…in order to meet the licensing regulations”.
There are also concerns of inflation increasing operating costs. Many child care centres that offer food programs are now considering seriously cutting back on the programs or eliminating them all together.
The cost of inflation is putting pressure on child care centres, and they need to lower costs because the funding they are receiving is not reflecting the drastic rise of inflation. They are now faced with cutting down costs in drastic ways.
In a Globe and Mail article, an owner of a child care centre in Calgary stated, “If we've got to start jettisoning expenses...do we start cutting back on our food program, or even eliminate it in its entirety over time?” Once again, the Liberal government is not taking into account the inflation crisis it has fuelled when implementing new policies.
While we would see the demand for child care increase as a result of this bill, it would not solve the problems of lack of access to more spaces, frontline burnout, staff shortages and rising costs. Affordable, quality child care is critical, but if people cannot access it, it does not exist, as I have already stated. Bill C-35 would do nothing to address accessibility.
In the time that I have left, I want to focus on the clause that will create a national advisory council, which has already been appointed. Clause 9 states, “A Council is established, to be known as the National Advisory Council on Early Learning and Child Care, consisting of no fewer than 10 but no more than 18 members, including the Chairperson and the ex officio member.” That ex officio member would be the deputy minister.
The chairperson, and up to 18 members, would be appointed by the minister for three-year terms. The members of this council would, of course, be paid with the remuneration to be set by the Governor in Council. These members would be entitled to reimbursements for travel, living and other expenses incurred for their work on the council, including the deputy minister.
They would also be deemed to be employees for the purpose of the Government Employees Compensation Act, and to be employed in the federal public administration.
Here is the thing. While this bill appears to put a focus on respecting and valuing the diversity of all children and families, and respond to their varying needs, the national council would have zero representation of entrepreneurial providers at the table.
In provinces like Alberta and New Brunswick, the majority of stakeholders are private, and there are a large number of them, in fact. It is 67% for Alberta and 80% for New Brunswick. There would be no one who will bring to the table the views of those female entrepreneurs who have stepped up and made investments to meet the need for child care in this country.
The government is not taking into account the realities of families who have access only to private child care providers. The national advisory council should have representation for the different options of child care offered across this country. Canadians need a solution that is flexible enough to fit their varying needs, not an Ottawa-centric, one-size-fits-all solution. That starts with representation on the national council for entrepreneurial child care providers.
In conclusion, I find that this bill is superfluous to the child care issue. It would do little but create a council of bureaucrats with full benefits and compensation to dictate to Canadians the Liberals' view of what the provision of child care should be across this country. This bill needs to be amended, and many of my colleagues have already noted that. It is flawed, narrow in its approach and does not address the issues facing this sector and the families who desperately need it.
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Madam Speaker, I am very happy to be back in the House of Commons debating legislation. I will be sharing my time today with my friend, the member for Calgary Midnapore.
When I heard the minister talk about Bill C-35, it was like it was the panacea of child care. One can imagine my surprise when I looked at it. The agreements have already been made with all the provinces and territories, and the $6 billion for the $10-a-day child care has gone out the door, so why do we need this bill?
The bill says it would do a few things. It sets a vision out, but if we look at the vision, it is all common-sense stuff, like we want an early childhood learning system that should be diverse, flexible, accessible and affordable. That is not visionary; it is pretty simple. Then it sets out the government's commitment to long-term funding, which it has already signed up in the contracts. Again, why?
Then it sets out the principles that guide the ongoing federal investments. If we look at the details, it says we are going to go with what the provinces have said. However, it would establish a national advisory council on early learning and child care. Why do we need a national advisory council on early learning and child care, when there is such a council in every one of the provinces that we just signed contracts with? Is this just another opportunity to hire a bunch of Liberal insiders to do work that is already being done?
I want to be clear for members opposite who are always saying that the Conservatives do not support this bill. The Conservatives support child care. Let me start with my own experience. One can appreciate, for a chemical engineer flying around the world, with flights out of Sarnia leaving at six in the morning, how easy it would be to find somebody to take the kids at 5 a.m. What if the plane gets delayed, which of course never happens with Air Canada? What if I do not show up until 11 o'clock at night to pick up my kids? Who is going to want to be that child care provider for any length of time?
I had some amazing child care, some at home and some more public in nature, but I also had those bad experiences. There was the one who had her boyfriend over all the time while she was watching my kids. There was the one who was smoking pot while she was watching my kids. There was one who let the kids go swimming with the guy next door without accompanying them because she was watching soap operas. Then there was the day I showed up and my kid was eating cat food sitting on the stairs because she had not had lunch. I would certainly like to emphasize in this House that I really support good-quality child care, and it is not easy to come by.
That said, it is clear that we are trying to echo the system that exists in Quebec. When I was on the status of women committee, we did many studies, and one of them was on unpaid care, with child care as a specific focus. We made recommendations to the government, and I will read what they said:
That the Government of Canada, in partnership with Quebec and the other provinces and territories, with the goal of ensuring that all families in Canada, regardless of geographic location or immigration status, have access to high-quality, affordable and inclusive childcare options, work to:
adequately and sustainably fund, through transfers to the provinces and territories with the rights to retraction with full compensation, an affordable and culturally appropriate national early learning and childcare system; and
ensure that this national system includes options for Canadians such as, sufficient public childcare spaces to meet demand, or sufficient financial support to Canadians who wish to care for their children at home.
That was in 2020, so it was not that long ago.
Absolutely, when it comes to wanting child care options, this is a place to start, but CUPE has said there is three times the need for spaces. Even if we look to the Quebec system, there is a two-year waiting list there. People who have family members who are already in the day care system in Quebec can get another kid in from their family, but new families cannot get in the door. What do they do?
In addition to what the government has put forward, there are going to be additional solutions needed. We have to have flexibility. When we think about this from a cost perspective, I have seen many studies that show that if we want more women in the workforce, we need to provide this kind of child care.
Let us say, according to the members who spoke previously, that we are giving $14,000 to each person as a subsidy for their child. After taxes, some of that goes back to the government. In addition to that, somebody is going out to work and they are paying taxes. There are ECE workers who are watching the children and they are paying taxes. Many studies have said this is a cost-neutral exercise that will result in more women in the workforce, and that is what we want.
However, we have to make sure we are flexible enough for those who work long hours, like nurses. My one daughter is a nurse and they have 12-hour shifts. Finding day care for that is not going to be covered by the current system the government has designed. There are many places where people prefer to have a grandmother or aunt watch the children. What is the financial incentive to make the system fairer there? I leave it to the government's creativity, but there is definitely something to be done there.
There was a promise a few years ago to make 42,000 child care spots available. I think that was a 2018 promise from the Liberals. I am not sure how many of those actually happened, but when I did the math and divided up 42,000 spots among 338 ridings, it sounded like fewer than 200 spaces per riding, which is nowhere near what was needed. Again, there is the problem of not having enough spaces.
There has been discussion about the labour shortages. There are definitely labour shortages in every business I am hearing from in my riding, but specifically with respect to ECE workers. I hired an ECE worker in 1989 or 1991, and I was paying $1,200 a month. Think about what that is in today's dollars and how much it would cost to pay them, but the pay for ECE workers is really not that good. A lot of them, although they get the training, do not end up staying in the business.
I think there is something to be done in terms of making the wage attractive enough to get those additional workers in the jobs. We see the same thing with PSWs in the health care system where the wages just are not good enough or the hours are not enough for somebody to live on. I definitely think there is something to be done there.
With respect to the actual bill, there are some suggested amendments that have come from associations. The Association of Alberta Childcare Entrepreneurs suggests it has a problem with the committee makeup of this national advisory committee, which I am not sure we really need. If we have one, we should have representation from both private child care centres and the not-for-profits in order to hear all the voices.
The Association of Day Care Operators of Ontario wants to make the bill more inclusive by deleting the reference in the bill to public and not-for-profit child care providers, so that we could have the flexibility that some of the members have indicated they would support. Different provinces are going to want to allow a combination of private and not-for-profit child care. I think that would be good.
Another thing missed in this bill is that not every day care is the same. Depending on the location, there are needs. For example, let us talk about food programs. There are some places where child care and day care are providing meals because that might be all the food these kids get. In the model that has been put forward, there is no allowance for that. Either those day care facilities are going to have to charge money on top of it, which goes against the whole point of this bill, or they are going to have to stop feeding the kids, which is the wrong answer.
At the same time, there is an administrative burden of applying for all of this funding, and people are already busy watching tiny, busy bodies, so they do not necessarily have the wherewithal for the complicated government applications. Something that could be looked at is to streamline those as well.
All in all, it is a step in the right direction. We need more child care so we can have more women in the workforce. This will certainly create a great number of spaces. I look forward to the government expanding in terms of flexibility and some of the other things I have outlined in my speech.
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Madam Speaker, I know we are all very excited to talk about child care in the House.
I would like to thank the member across the way for her comments. I, too, as a single mom, arrived here with my then two-year-old daughter and had to wait for a spot. It is a universal story for many families in this country, which is exactly why we have signed agreements with every province and territory in this country over the past year to ensure that we build more spaces.
The member said a lot about flexibility for shift workers, and I would like to share something with the member and the House directly from the text of the agreement between the Government of Alberta and the Government of Canada. It says, “[A]n additional grant for those operating flexible and overnight child care will also be provided under the operational grant. These spaces are necessary for those in various industries and for frontline shift-working parents.”
Has the member read the agreement? Perhaps if she would like some briefings on it, we would be more than happy to share them.
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Madam Speaker, clearly the member does not know that I was the campaign co-chair for the former minister of children in Alberta during the time that she negotiated this agreement.
If the member wants to talk really big about what is in the agreement, I will note that I was communicating with the minister of children at the time on a pretty regular basis, and I think I have the inside track as to what is going on. I think the line that I was left with was that no one wanted money to be left on the table. What that says to me is many of these provinces felt pushed into these agreements. They felt they were left with a lack of flexibility and no other options.
Let us figure out who knows whom first and who is talking to whom, and then after that we can talk about the finalities of the agreement, which, again, I do not think anyone was excited about. Everyone felt pushed into it, forced into it, and—
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Quite frankly, Madam Speaker, I do not think that.
I am from Alberta, so what Ottawa does with the money we send it is not our problem at the moment, but I hope it will be someday.
My colleague also talked about the number of child care spaces. That is a problem. I think this program will result in more problems with spaces. Lots of parents are going to want a space, but there will not be enough workers for all those spaces. I think there is a problem with the money and how it is distributed as well as with the number of child care spaces.
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Madam Speaker, vis-à-vis the exchange that the member had with the parliamentary secretary, I would like some clarity.
Would the member agree with me that the bill does not tie down child care to any particular hours, that everything is to be negotiated province by province and that, regardless of the status of her insider knowledge of the Alberta agreement, it would be up to the Alberta government, just as it is for the Ontario government, to negotiate with the federal government to ensure early childhood education is available to as many parents as possible right across the country?
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Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise in this House today to speak to Bill C-35, which is an important and crucial piece of legislation that would make a real difference in making sure that our kids get the best start in life.
I am the dad of a beautiful young boy who will hopefully go to day care in about a year or a year and a half. As we think about our circumstances and the circumstances of many of the other folks in my riding of Vancouver Granville, making sure they have access to quality, affordable child care is critical. We know that affordable, universal and inclusive early learning and child care is absolutely essential. It is essential for families, it ensures women's participation in the workforce and it helps grow our economy.
Do members know who said this best? It is the Hon. Rebecca Schulz, the former Alberta minister of children's services. She said, when Alberta signed its child care agreement:
Today is a good day for parents and families in Alberta. We've listened to families, child care operators, and business leaders to develop an agreement that gives us flexibility to truly meet the needs of and make life a little easier for even more families in Alberta.
This certainly sounds like somebody in government who was quite excited about signing a child care agreement, as were many of the other governments, and indeed all provincial governments, across this country. The reason they were excited is that, at a time when the global economy is facing serious challenges, Canadian families are feeling the impact, and this is one immediate way that Canadian families can look forward to a better future.
Affordability and the rising cost of living are top of mind for families in my riding of Vancouver Granville and across the country when it comes to groceries and buying staples. Over the past few months, we have introduced critical supports to ensure that families have what they need to survive and thrive. However, when it comes to early childhood education and child care, this is an investment in the future. This is an investment in the future of young people. It is an investment in the future of Canadian families. It is an investment in the future of communities. It lays the groundwork for making sure that young people have the start they need. It also makes sure that caregivers, primarily women, have the option, if they wish, to return to the workforce without having to worry about quality child care for their kids.
For far too many families across B.C. and across Canada, the lack of crucial access to high-quality early learning and child care has been a problem for many years. I am proud to say that as of December of last year, licensed child care fees for families with children five and under in B.C. have been reduced by an average of 50% across the province. Parents across B.C. can now save an average of $550 more per month for every child they have in licensed care. That is about $6,600 in annual savings.
These types of savings make a real difference to the average family from an income perspective and from a family budgeting perspective. These results mean something to people. They make it easier for caregivers to work outside the home if they choose, as I said. The fact that B.C. just announced yesterday that more than 725 new spots are joining the $10-a-day ChildCareBC program starting in February is a huge step. It is great progress. It is the type of progress that must be enshrined into law. Progress only works if we know that the system is going to be in place long into the future.
What Bill C-35 would do is make sure that families in this country can count on quality, affordable child care for generations to come. They would not have to worry about who the government of the day is. They would not have to worry about whether or not someone is going to rip back a benefit that is important. It is something they know they can count on for the future, and that is a really important step.
However, it is not a step that comes carte blanche. It is a step that comes with structure. It is a step that comes with a meaningful strategy. It is a step that allows us as parliamentarians and as Canadians to look at this with a sense of confidence knowing that it will be well executed.
First, what the legislation would do is reinforce a long-term commitment to early learning and child care by articulating a goal, a vision and principles for a Canada-wide system. It builds on the investments that were made in the 2020 fall economic statement and budget 2021, which made building such a national child care system a reality. The vision itself reflects an early learning and child care system that enriches children's cognitive, emotional and social development. It is a system that will leave a positive imprint on all of our kids while giving vital assistance to caregivers present in a child's life.
Most importantly, it underlines the necessity of culturally appropriate early learning and child care for indigenous people, which is an important step on the path to reconciliation. It acknowledges that first nations, Inuit and Métis families and children are best supported by ELCC services and programs led by indigenous peoples.
Second, it enshrines our dedication to maintaining sustainable, ongoing funding to the provinces, territories and indigenous communities, because making sure that provinces and territories can plan for the future is important. This is where that sustainable funding comes into play, because making a real difference in the lives of children and in the lives of families has to be sustainable change.
Third, we are enhancing accountability through federal public reporting on our progress toward a sustainable and effective early learning and child care system. This is important. It would make sure that the minister could report to Canadians every year on how our progress is going and making sure that Canadians could have a clear vision and a clear understanding as to whether we have been achieving our goals with respect to early learning and child care. Those are accountable and measurable results in action.
Fourth, to make sure that we are always at the forefront of best practice, we are establishing a national advisory council on early learning and child care. An advisory council like this would provide the government the advice it needs to make sure we understand what is the best practice, what the challenges are that are being faced in this sector and to make sure we are always doing our best to serve children and families.
We know that investments in early learning and child care make good economic sense. Studies that have been quoted in the House before show that for every dollar invested in early childhood education, the broader economy receives between $1.50 and $2.80 in return. There are Nobel prize-winning economists who say that it goes up as high as $15, $16 or $19 in some cases. There is not a study out there that says if one invests in early learning and child care, that one would not have a positive return on one's investment.
That is because people who understand the importance of early childhood education know that giving children the best start they possibly can has an important, positive outcome for the future of any country. It would make sure that caregivers, particularly moms, who are disproportionately impacted by the burden of child care, have the ability to use their skills if they choose to go back into the workforce and to do that in a way that gives them confidence and security.
Child care is good for the economy. It is good for families. It is good for the future of the children of this country. It is just the right thing to do. We need to be able to look at one another and say we have done the best possible work that we could to ensure that everyone in society has the ability to use the skills that they want in order to be able to contribute to building this country.
Thinking about constituents in my riding, I knocked on doors before this was something that was a reality. I knocked on a door and a young man, about my age at that time, answered the door. He asked me why I was there and we chatted a little bit. I heard a child crying in the background. I asked if was he was taking care of his child, if she was home from day care and what was going on. He said that his wife had a great job at the bank, so she went to work every day. He had to quit his job because he could not afford child care. He said he stays home every day with his daughter and it is a great blessing, but he had to give up what he used to do as a landscaper. He said he could not make enough money to afford child care.
That stayed with me, because I realized that those are the people we need to help. I fast-forward to 2021. I was knocking on doors and I came across a constituent who said to me that they were so glad we are doing child care, because after they had had their child they had to have a discussion as a family about what was going to happen. She was proud to say that her husband could keep running his small business, and she could go back to work at UBC as a researcher.
Think about the impact on families like that. It is important and it is essential that everybody in the House gets behind this legislation. It is going to set the foundation for the future that our kids need, that our families need and that the economy of this country needs.
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Madam Speaker, one of the things about this legislation is that it requires us to work with the provinces to ensure implementation is done in a way that addresses many of these needs. It would make sure provinces are part of the conversation and would make sure when we are talking about implementation the federal government is not only imposing a solution but working with others. That is the way to get to the outcome I know the hon. member and many of us would like.
The quote I read from the minister in Alberta is a clear example that it gives the flexibility to the provinces to find the right solutions. We are there to be supportive, as the federal government. However, when the implementation is happening on the ground, that is when these types of answers become critically important. We are going to keep pushing to make sure those questions are answered.
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Mr. Speaker, today we are debating Bill C-35, an act respecting early learning and child care in Canada. The purpose of this legislation is to try to solve the issue of high child care costs in Canada.
This legislation does not address the serious economic challenges of implementing a Canada-wide early learning and child care agreement. I believe that this proposed legislation and the current agreements made by the Liberal government with the provinces will fail to provide universal access to affordable child care and will cost far more than what the government has estimated. In fact, I found it quite shocking that the Liberal speaker who came just before me admitted that this is not a universal program. He is right and he admitted the truth: It is going to be a two-tiered program where families who are lucky enough to get a child care space will benefit immensely while an estimated 182,000 families, according to the PBO, will be excluded and not have access to an affordable child care space.
Child care in Canada is provided by several mechanisms, including for-profit and non-profit models, parental care and care by other relatives. For the past several decades, the wages of average working families have not increased significantly while the demands on family finances through taxes, housing, food and child care have increased substantially. In the last few years alone, the costs for families have significantly outstripped wage growth.
The cost to provide child care varies based on age but is a minimum of $1,000 per child. Lower-income families have traditionally had access to subsidies, but these benefits vary across the provinces. Having one parent stay at home with a child is becoming unaffordable for many families and is far easier for families with higher incomes. Access to day care is already limited in Canada, with wait-lists. According to reports out of Quebec, there are an estimated 50,000 children waiting for access to an affordable care space. The price of child care in Canada is too high for most families, and access to affordable care is limited.
Why is child care so expensive? The key costs for child care according to operators, in order of magnitude, are labour, the cost of the facilities and the cost of food and supplies. Child care is a labour-intensive operation and wages vary. The cost to create a space that is child appropriate and the accompanying rental, mortgage, insurance and maintenance costs are significant. Finally, the cost of food and other supplies has increased dramatically.
What is the common factor of all three of these costs? They have all been severely impacted by high inflation. Inflation has increased the cost of labour and the cost of rent and mortgages dramatically, and as everyone can see at their local grocery store, the price of food has gone up by 12%. Child care operators are not immune from these costs. The fact is that the Liberal government, through its inflationary policies, is driving up the cost of child care in Canada.
The government's solution to this problem, a problem that it created, has been to sign agreements with the provinces to subsidize the cost of child care and to implement cost controls on wages, facilities and food in order to regulate a price for families that will eventually reach $10 a day. Unfortunately, this is unsustainable because since it is government spending that caused the inflation in the first place, more spending will only increase inflation further. The result will be an inflationary spiral that will further increase the costs of child care and the costs to maintain this program. Given our current deficit, the government will either have to raise taxes on Canadians or take on more debt to sustain this program.
What are some examples of this inflationary spiral? Speaking to child care operators in Alberta, I have already heard a number of significant challenges that the government has failed to address. Child care workers in Alberta can be paid up to around $23 an hour, but due to regulations under these agreements, operators cannot raise their costs by more than 3% annually. According to Statistics Canada, private sector wages rose by over 5% last year. Government regulations prevent child care operators from paying their staff even enough to keep up with the rate of inflation.
There is also intense competition for child care workers. School districts can often afford to pay $30 an hour with benefits. I have been told that schools are even poaching staff from day cares because they are in desperate need of these workers as well. Under the government's agreements, day cares have been put at an economic disadvantage in attracting workers, which will lead to a significant loss in day care capacity, meaning less access to child care.
The proposed solution for this inflation by proponents of even more government intervention in early child care is, no surprise, more inflationary spending. By raising wages even further for child care workers, school boards and others will also try to compete by raising their wages even further. This will result in an inflationary cycle where taxpayers will need to pay much higher taxes as schools and early childhood care centres compete for limited workers.
I have spoken with child care operators who have had to pay increased rents and mortgages on their facilities. As everyone knows, mortgages and rental rates have skyrocketed under eight years of the Liberal government, particularly in the last year. Under agreements the government has signed, child care operators are limited in the costs they can bill the government toward their rent and mortgage. Since they are mandated to charge families a fixed price for child care, there is no way for these operators to make up the difference other than by reducing other costs, such as food for children; shutting down their capacity by letting go of workers; or shutting down altogether, which we have started to see.
The laws of supply and demand mean that the government must either restrict the capacity of day cares or dramatically increase funding beyond what it promised. The first option is unfair, as it is going to leave many families out, and the second option is financially unsustainable. This argument is backed up by research from the parliamentary budget office, which reported in February of last year that the Liberals' plan is not sufficient to meet the demand for child care. In fact, it estimates that it will fall short in providing spaces for 182,000 children. That is 182,000 children who are being left behind by the Liberal government, with no plan in this legislation to provide their families with an affordable child care space.
What we are talking about here is essentially a more focused application of the wage and price controls implemented under the Anti-Inflation Act passed by former prime minister Pierre Trudeau in 1975. In seeking to combat high inflation at the time, the government passed legislation to control increases in prices and wages. The results were economically disastrous and the policy was rescinded shortly thereafter.
Today, the Liberals are trying to implement wage and price controls through their early learning and child care agreements. Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman put it better than I ever could by comparing this kind of policy to putting a kettle full of water on a hot stove. When the boiling water begins to push off the kettle lid, the appropriate thing to do is take the lid off and turn down the heat. Well, what the government is doing is putting a brick on top of the lid and letting the kettle explode. The result is that the pot will explode and this policy will collapse on itself. It is true for this child care policy.
The Liberals claim that this policy will reduce the effects of inflation on families, but the reality is that it is only meant to cover up, to mask, to hide the symptoms of inflation while doing nothing to solve the underlying issue of inflation. It is not a cure for inflation, because as the government continues to spend more, it will drive up inflation, and the cost of this program will continue to rise dramatically in order to maintain the fixed price of $10 a day. Demand from families will build up and eventually the program will collapse on itself.
Universal access to affordable child care is the stated goal of this legislation and the early learning and child care agreements, but the current plan fails to meet objectives. I believe that this plan will lead to a further loss in child care capacity as operators close down from unsustainable cost increases and the inability to find labour to fill their positions. The result will be a two-tiered day care system where those who are lucky enough to get their child into a regulated, affordable child care space will reap the benefits and save tens of thousands of dollars a year, while many families will continue to have to use expensive, unregulated child care or make arrangements with family.
The families that will benefit the most from this system are those with the highest incomes. Research from the OECD indicates that the vast majority of children in regulated child care come from those with the highest incomes. Children from low-income families are disproportionally under-represented in child care spaces. In its efforts to implement an absolute, across-the-board, no matter what one's income is price of $10 a day for all families, the government has failed to take into account the need to provide equity for low-income families. Consequently, the benefits of this Liberal program will disproportionately benefit those with higher incomes, who often already have and can afford a regulated child care space.
Ironically, it was the Liberals who ran attacks against Conservatives claiming that our universal child care benefit gave benefits to millionaires. The fact is that the Liberal plan benefits those with the highest incomes, including millionaires, far more than it does low-income families.
In conclusion, making child care more affordable is an important economic and political goal, but the current plan by the Liberals will fail to do that. It is unacceptable to leave 182,000 children out of the system, and it is unacceptable to put this debt burden on Canadians.
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Mr. Speaker, this is difficult for me because I understand why the member from Quebec does not like everything about this bill. However, I am a member from Alberta, where we have a Conservative government. That is very important. I would like the member for Lac-Saint-Jean to understand why I want conditions imposed on the Government of Alberta, particularly when it comes to language.
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Mr. Speaker, I am not sure I understand the question.
One thing is certain. Quebec did not sign the Constitution. Even though I am a sovereignist, I am going to defend the Canadian Constitution. That is not something that happens very often. The Canadian Constitution is clear about jurisdictions. Unfortunately, the Bloc Québécois always has to be the one to make sure that the Liberals understand their own Constitution. They cannot understand that the Canadian Constitution clearly sets out separate areas of jurisdiction. The federal government is always infringing on provincial jurisdictions because it does not like the provincial governments that are in power.
I understand why my colleague is unhappy about the government that is in office in Alberta, but the work that needs to be done must be done at the provincial level in keeping with the Canadian Constitution. If the government does not want to abide by Canada's Constitution, then all it has to do is reopen it. Then maybe Quebeckers will want to get involved in the whole debate around the Constitution.
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Mr. Speaker, it is always a great pleasure to stand in this place to represent the constituents of Edmonton Strathcona. It is my first time standing this session, so I want to wish everyone a late happy new and welcome them back to the House of Commons.
I am quite delighted that I get an opportunity to stand today to contribute to this debate. It is one of the most fundamental pieces of legislation that we could be looking at. Providing affordable, accessible, high-quality child care for families across this country is so very important. Many people here have talked about their own personal experiences. I am a mother. I have two children, Maclean and Keltie, and they are perfect, as all our children are. They are 15 and 17 now, so they no longer need child care. I will have even more to say when the debate is on post-secondary tuition.
I remember the challenges of trying to find child care, and trying to ensure the child care we had found was adequate. We were so lucky that we found spots for our children at Fulton Child Care Centre in Edmonton Strathcona. It has fabulous staff, and they worked incredibly hard to provide a learning environment for my children. We were very lucky. However, well before I was involved in politics, I recognized the challenges that faced families, and disproportionately faced women, as they looked for child care spaces.
There was one child care centre I had applied to for my children when they were young, and I got a phone message when one was eight years old to tell me that there was a space available. That is how long the waiting list had been for that child care centre. Of course, we need to make sure that child care is accessible. This is such an important piece of work for this Parliament to do.
We have to look back over the 52 years since the 1970 Royal Commission on the Status of Women to see how long people have been fighting for child care in this country. We need to take time today to acknowledge those advocates who worked tirelessly to ensure that this became a reality. We have to look at the labour movement, the champions like those in the CLC, the Canadian Union of Public Employees, and the Alberta Federation of Labour. So many of our labour movements have been calling for child care for a very long time.
I also want to thank the leaders within the New Democratic Party because we, as New Democrats, have also been calling for child care for decades. Ed Broadbent was one of the very first members of Parliament to bring this forward. Jack Layton spoke extensively on the need for child care and how it would fundamentally change the lives of families, particularly women, across this country. More recently, the member for London—Fanshawe and Olivia Chow both brought forward legislation, in the 41st Parliament and the 40th Parliament respectively, to bring forward child care. This legislation is built on the extraordinary and hard work that has been done by advocates within the NDP and throughout the country.
This was a recommendation in the 1970 Royal Commission on the Status of Women. It should never have taken so long to make this law. It should not have taken a pandemic. It should not have taken the corporate sector to say that there would be no recovery from COVID without child care. We should have been able to hear why this was so important for gender equality much sooner than this.
I want to talk about the Alberta context as well. Some of the information is coming from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives on child care costs. Before $10-a-day child care, in Edmonton the median monthly child care fee for preschool-aged children was $925, while the median monthly fee for infants was $1,050 a month and $950 for toddlers.
This is important to keep in mind, because in my riding of Edmonton Strathcona, parents were paying, on average, over $1,000 a month. Then the UCP in our province decided to cut what Rachel Notley had put in place, which was a program that had reduced child poverty in half: the $25 child care. That pilot program was cut.
In Alberta, we have a desperate need for child care. We have a desperate need for investment in child care. In fact, I will read a very important quote from Bradley Lafortune from Public Interest Alberta. He said, “This is a once-in-a-generation chance to make a massive difference in the lives of so many of Alberta's citizens. We need to work together to ensure that this agreement is a step towards a universal system of child care that truly works for everyone.”
I do not have quite enough time to tell members all of the ways that I think this would impact women and families across this country, but I will say that we will work within committee. Our party is very interested in improving the reporting and accountability, improving the working conditions for workers and making sure that there is a workforce strategy to make sure that we do have enough people who can take that spot.
There is a lot of work we can do, and I do not think this is legislation is perfect, but I am so happy that it has come forward. I am so happy that we are going to have a universal child care program in this country. It is vitally important, and it is very overdue.
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Mr. Speaker, that question was something that I tried to ask one of her colleagues in my very clunky French, so I understand why maybe it was not understood adequately.
I actually do believe that there is a role for the federal government to have strings attached to ensure that there is equitable quality of care across the country. Something she might be particularly interested in is that I think there should be linguistic ties to our child care agreements. I think we have a charter obligation to ensure that French child care is available across the country, including in Alberta, and that this is something that is possible, because 15% of my population is francophone. They have every right to have child care in French.
I think there should be some strings attached to the funding coming from the federal government to the provinces for things like that.
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