SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 282 - Feb/14/24

Feb/14/24 6:18:15 p.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, there will be agreements with the provinces. Now, there is Bill C‑35. Some say that the provinces will not get there. It may not have been their choice. Child care services are $10 a day. In Quebec, they cost less than $10 a day. When we brought in early childhood education services, the idea was to have a reduced contribution for parents. It was $5. Now, I have lost track, it may be around $9. My colleague says it is $9, $10. It is the principle of indexing. It is the principle of a single rate, because no matter the parents' income, it is accessible for children. It is a public program. It is a public network of early childhood education services. Federal interference in provincial programs is not what will make this happen. It is going to take the will, at the provincial level, to push for and implement social policies.

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Context: House Hansard - 282 - Feb/14/24

Ms. Bonita Zarrillo (Port Moody—Coquitlam, NDP)

Feb/14/24 6:19:29 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have enjoyed working with the hon. member at the HUMA committee on many issues, including right now the OAS and the differentiation between seniors under age 75 and seniors over age 75. That too is a gender equality issue. I have spoken in the House many times about how fortunate I was to live in Quebec in 1998 when my first child went through child care. It was $5 a day at that time. For my second child it was $7.50 a day. That allowed me to go back to school. I say that the reason I am standing in the House right now is that there was $5-a-day child care in Quebec. I also want to raise my hands to applaud the work that Quebec does around making sure that families have access to free swimming lessons, free diving lessons and free synchronized swimming lessons: all kinds of opportunities for kids. It is a great place to raise a family. My question to my colleague is this. There are many provinces in this country that are not taking care of child care, are not allowing women like me to be in elected roles because they do not have access to child care. Does she believe that this is a gender equity issue, and what should provincial governments be doing to pick up the ball to make sure that women and people who look after children can have affordable child care?

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Context: House Hansard - 282 - Feb/14/24

Ms. Louise Chabot

Feb/14/24 6:20:50 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is also always a pleasure to work with my colleague on things that we have in common, such as gender equality for women, social justice and many other issues related to our social policies. She is welcome in Quebec any time. I find it sad that other provinces have not made the same choices. Some provinces have gone further than others, but what I find sad is that we have to come to Ottawa to beg with respect to provincial jurisdictions. Quebec and each of the provinces must make their own choices about moving forward in a sensible way. As I was saying, I hope that everyone can get to where Quebec is when it comes to gender equality for women and equal opportunities for children. Perhaps this is a start that will help the provinces follow Quebec's lead. I would tell them that they really have to stand behind their social policies to move forward.

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Context: House Hansard - 282 - Feb/14/24

Ms. Leah Gazan (Winnipeg Centre, NDP)

Feb/14/24 6:22:54 p.m.
Watch
Re: Bill C-35

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today in support of the Senate amendment, which the Senate adopted to clarify that funding for official language minority child care would be delivered through bilateral agreements with provinces and indigenous governing bodies. We know, as I have learned from my meetings with different francophone groups, that there is a severe shortage of French-language child care serving francophone communities outside Quebec. This is a potential charter issue. In fact, in section 23, minority-language education is a right. It is also an amendment that francophone organizations like the FCFA and the CNPF have been pushing for, and the government motion would concur with this amendment. Therefore, I am very pleased to rise in support of it. Basically, the Senate amendment to Bill C-35 breaks down clause 8, on funding commitments, into two sections while adding an entitlement for official language minorities. It states that Bill C-35 be read a third time. With respect to clause 8(1), it states, “The Government of Canada commits to maintaining long-term funding for early learning and child care programs and services, including early learning and child care programs and services for Indigenous peoples [and adds] and for official language minority communities.” Adding “and for official language minority communities” is a critical amendment, so I look forward to supporting the amendment in the House along with my NDP colleagues. There is a national child care strategy. I have mentioned very often in the House that I am a very proud former early childhood educator. I can say that one of the reasons I left the field was that the respect this kind of noble profession deserves certainly was not given. In Canada in 2019, there were 300,000 individuals employed as child care workers. Child care workers are less likely than other workers to be unionized or covered by a collective agreement, and less likely to have a permanent job. They are 10 times more likely to be self-employed, and we know that the province of Quebec has the highest number of child care workers relative to its employed population. That is a very old statistic, but we can certainly say that Quebec is ahead of its time when it comes to providing early childhood education. A third of child care workers right now are immigrants or non-permanent residents. We know that since COVID, the employment among child care workers fell 21% between February 2020 and February 2021, compared to only a 3% overall drop in other fields. Why is there a drop in the number of people wanting to become early childhood educators? We know that 82% of child care providers had difficulty hiring staff with the necessary qualifications. In Alberta, staff turnover was in fact 25%, and according to the ESDC data, the average wage for an ECE in Alberta was $18.50 an hour in 2022. ECEs need higher wages, and benefits, personal leave and pensions. The median wage is so low; it was $21,000 a year in 2022, up from $20,000 in 2021. It is unacceptable that we are trying to lift off a national child care plan, yet somehow early childhood educators are supposed to act as martyrs to the system that exploits and underpays them. I note that the majority, once again, come from BIPOC communities and are primarily immigrants and non-permanent residents. I do not mean to age myself, but these are the same fights we were fighting over 30 years ago. When I saw the campaign in Manitoba fighting for $21,000 a year, the level of exploitation that child care workers currently have to endure was very apparent to me. The Liberal government calls itself a feminist government, yet in a field that we know primarily employs women, immigrants and individuals with non-permanent residency, workers are not even being paid a living wage. This is not just a workers' issue; this is also a gender and equality issue. We know that in occupations that predominantly employ women, people generally get paid less. This is an equity issue. A third of the licensed child care workforce has no health benefits, zero. I decided to leave my job as an ECE, a job that I loved. I loved the little ones. I had them all lined up for gym time. We would sing a song. We had a daily routine. I loved the two-and-a-half year olds, who took such pride in their accomplishments every single day. They were loving, tender and open. It was such an honour to work with minds that were not tarnished yet by the world. It was eye-opening and so inspiring to me. However, I left the field. I decided to become trained as a teacher, and I will say why. By 21 years old, I knew that one day I wanted health care benefits. I knew that one day I wanted to earn more than minimum wage so I could afford my rent at the time, never mind with the housing crisis we are in now and the fact that rents are high. At the time, I could barely afford to pay my bills. The current salaries for early childhood educators are not are not a living wage. As a result, people are either discouraged from joining the field or they leave the field so they can live in dignity. If the federal government is serious about making sure the national child care strategy gets off the ground, it needs to put in place a worker strategy that includes ensuring that funding is dependent on living wages, health care benefits and pensions for workers. Only then will we see a national child care strategy.

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