44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 31, 2023 02:00PM
- May/31/23 2:07:23 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to pay tribute to a pillar of Kelowna—Lake Country, Al Horning. It was not too long ago that I did the same for his powerhouse wife, Donna Horning.
Al was known for getting things done and was a fierce advocate of our community, in particular, Rutland, while he served on all three levels of government. He served several terms on Kelowna City Council, as an MLA and as a Progressive Conservative MP from 1988 to 1993.
Al was a mentor and friend. I met him one time at one of his coffee spots, the McDonald's on Highway 33, where he said, “Why don’t you come to Rutland?” I said, “Al, what are you talking about? I’ve been to Rutland many times this past week alone” and let him know the activities, and that there were pictures on my social media. He said, “I don’t look at that” in Al’s matter-of-fact, to-the-point way.
He contributed so many ways locally within agriculture, the Black Mountain Irrigation District, and sports and recreation organizations. Al was inducted into the Central Okanagan Sports Hall of Fame. The City of Kelowna recently presented Al with the naming of a future roadway, “Al Horning Way”.
My heart goes out to the Horning family. Al will always be remembered for setting the bar for community service.
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Madam Speaker, we are here tonight discussing Bill C-35. I would like to recognize the member of Parliament for Peterborough—Kawartha and her team for all their work on this bill, as well as for reaching out to parents and child care providers across the country.
I would like to thank the Conservative members of the HUMA committee for their work on this legislation, as well as all those who have spoken tonight at this very late hour. I would also like to thank all those who provide child care to our children for the very honourable work they do.
To be very clear, the government went ahead and signed agreements with the provinces before developing legislation. This is quite unusual, as legislation would most often be developed by government and go through all the parliamentary processes to ensure that it is as good as it can be. There would be committee testimony from those affected, industry experts and perhaps academia. Everyday Canadians could write in submissions to be considered. There may be amendments that receive full debate at committee; the legislation then goes back to the House of Commons for debate again, and the whole process is repeated at the Senate.
However, for this child care funding legislation we are discussing here today, the government has done it backward. There has been no parliamentary involvement, no oversight and no debate. We have not heard from those affected, from experts or from the general public. The government developed policies away from Parliament and signed provincial agreements, which have been implemented.
This is happening at a time when the government is pouring fuel on the inflationary fire, making it much tougher for families. Inflation is high, interest rates are high, housing has doubled, and taxes have increased and will continue to increase. There is carbon tax 2 coming soon to a family near us, all because of policies of the government that are squeezing families. One in five people is skipping meals, and food bank usage is up over 30% in my community. I know this is very consistent across the country. Affordable, quality child care is critical, but if people cannot access it, it does not exist.
Bill C-35 does nothing to address accessibility. It is not a child care strategy. In British Columbia, a 2019 survey found that, in the greater Vancouver area, there were only enough child care spaces for 18.6% of children in the metro Vancouver region. In many rural regions in Canada, large child care centres do not exist at all or may be very far apart. This bill offers rural parents, for those who need it, no flexibility; it really does not offer them anything. It chooses to ignore the simple fact that low-cost child care is not possible if child care resources are not accessible to begin with.
I spoke to many child care operators in my community of Kelowna—Lake Country, who said that there have been unintended consequences. As a reminder, this legislation is coming after agreements have been signed by the provinces. We are not talking about hypotheticals here, but results that have already been implemented.
Yes, some families are being helped and have some form of child care now. However, I have been told by providers in my community that there are many scenarios playing out. One, in particular, is where high-income families are paying for spaces while pregnant, because it is so inexpensive to hold the space for their family. The lower-income and middle-class families who need the spaces are not getting them, and the whole format of waiting lists has changed. There is serious concern about the lack of focus on ensuring that child care spaces go to those most in need instead of creating advantages for the already well off.
Conservatives recognize that Canadian families should have access to affordable, quality child care, and they should be able to choose the child care providers best suiting their family's needs. The government's focus in the child care bill on not-for-profit and government spaces, which is how it is worded in the legislation. Let me lay this out in a very practical way, on a very small scale.
For example, how would a large child care facility add 200 child care spots very quickly? Many times, these are large not-for-profits that do really good work taking care of our children. No one is disputing that. However, they are not the only kind of child care provider. They would need physical space and to have parking. They may perhaps need to move or expand. If they move, they have to ensure the local bylaws are met before building a new building. It is not that easy. Smaller, independent organizations are much more nimble. If anything, this is where the focus should be, or it should be on par with governments and not-for-profit providers, at the minimum.
Once again, the Liberal government has not considered small businesses as a priority. This legislation lists what the government's priorities are.
Small, independent businesses are once again an afterthought of the government. They are not included in the national advisory council being created by the government.
It is really a shame that, as part of this child care legislation, small business owners have really been demonized. This is how many of them feel. We saw this at committee with the way the Liberals and NDP representatives spoke about small business child care providers. One local independent small business child care provider in my riding told me how awful they thought it was that the government was making it sound like they were printing money. Those are their words. She said that they would not have opened if they were not-for-profit. She considered this years ago, however, looking into it, banks would not provide a loan to get her started. She had to open a company.
Most of these small business child care providers are women. Most of them are looking after their own children while helping other families.
What quality child care is for a child should be defined by the parents, not by the government. As a working mom myself, I knew the importance of quality child care. As well, I know kids who have not done well in large child care settings. Their parents had to pull them out due to their child's personality, anxiety or special learning needs. It is not that larger facilities could not provide good care. The kids, just like adults, are all different. Many feel more comfortable in a smaller, intimate environment. There is no right or wrong.
Instead of giving parents freedom to determine what child care works best for their children and their work schedules and their lives, the government has opened the door for a two-tiered framework of child care. We heard testimony on this at committee.
This legislation does not treat all kinds of child care equally. Conservatives brought forth a motion at committee, which was not supported. It was voted down. It was to be truly inclusive and accessible and would have allowed parents to make the best decision for their family.
The amendment read, “facilitate access to all types of early learning and child care programs and services regardless of the provider—such as those that are provided through traditional day care centres, centres with extended, part-time or overnight care, nurseries, flexible and drop-in care, before- and after-school care, preschools and co-op child care, faith-based care, unique programming to support children with disabilities, home-based child care, nannies and shared nannies, au pairs, stay-at-home parents or guardians who raise their own children, or family members, friends or neighbours who provide care—that meet or exceed standards set by provincial governments or Indigenous governing bodies and respond to the varying needs of children and families while respecting the jurisdiction and unique needs of the provinces and Indigenous peoples".
As I said, it was not supported. It would have addressed the argument between licensed and unlicensed, because it refers to meeting standards of provincial governments or governing bodies, which is quality care.
Bill C-35 is good for families who already have child care space but it does not help the tens of thousands of families on child care wait-lists or the operators who do not have the staff or infrastructure to offer more spaces.
Bill C-35 increases demand for child care but does not solve the problem of frontline burnout, staff shortages, staff training or access to more spaces. The Canadian Union of Public Employees currently reports, “in many communities there is only one child care space available for every three children who need it, and waitlists are long.”
In British Columbia, 27% of child care centres turn away children due to lack of staff. We have had centres in my community reduce spaces due to staffing. This child care legislation does not address staffing or training in this legislation to meet the 40,000 workers needed now.
It is unfortunate that the government signed provincial agreements without Parliament's involvement and without hearing from the public, as we did at committee, and was so close-minded when looking at amendments that would have provided better access to child care for families across Canada.
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Madam Speaker, this is exactly what we saw at committee. At committee, we had a lot of testimony but also a lot of written submissions, an extensive number of written submissions. They were not all by the large groups that are quite often represented. We heard from individual child care providers from across the country. We also heard from parents. We heard about very specific, real situations that are playing out in families' lives. That is the type of input we need when we are developing legislation so we can develop the best legislation possible, try to capture the different situations and maybe try to mitigate unintended consequences.
This is a gap that happened before the government signed all of these agreements. It went ahead and signed the agreements without all of this input from parliamentarians and the public.
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Madam Speaker, yes, and we supported that at committee. In addition to that, as I mentioned during my intervention, we put forth a motion that would have captured all different types of child care providers, but unfortunately that was not accepted. Part of that did include different cultural and indigenous-type providers, but unfortunately our motion was not accepted by the other members of the committee.
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Madam Speaker, I will give one example. During one of our last constituency weeks about a month ago, someone from my riding of Kelowna—Lake Country met with me. She was taking about a family she is familiar with that wanted to immigrate to the area. Both parents are doctors. They have actually gone through the process and it is all working really well. However, they are having a tough time deciding whether they are going to come to Canada and come to my region, because they realize that they cannot access child care. Here we have two potential doctors who might come into my area in Canada, and they may chose not to come because they have realized there is no child care available for them.
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