44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 16, 2024 10:00AM
- Feb/16/24 12:42:57 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I love how my colleague speaks about his wife and his children. Knowing him on a personal level, I know how valuable his children and family life are to him.
Going back to what he was talking about with the single moms, we have the stats here right now coming out of the child care program. I will reiterate what he was saying; 77% of high-income parents access child care, versus 41% of low-income families. Does he think we should be prioritizing those people who are most vulnerable and who need this most but who are not getting access to it fairly?
It is proven through the stats that the $10-a-day child care program by the Liberals and NDP is not equitable. What does the member have to say about that?
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- Feb/16/24 12:43:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, that is another excellent point, and I do need to thank the member for all of the time, effort and hard work she has put into this particular topic. I know it is something she is very passionate about, as a fantastic mother.
When the government is designing and developing programs, that is who they should be targeted to. The government should be looking after people who are the most vulnerable and people who are the most at risk. When we hear alarming statistics, such as that people whom this program should be geared toward are struggling to even find a space, let alone access to the program, that is very alarming.
There are other government policies out there that disproportionately affect and impact single mothers. One of them is the carbon tax, and there are also the clean fuel standards and the clean electricity standards the government is putting forward. Single mothers are listed as the most vulnerable to be impacted in a negative way by those standards, yet the government is plowing ahead with them anyway.
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- Feb/16/24 12:44:53 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will take this opportunity to highlight that, in my province of New Brunswick, advocates have been calling for decades for access to a public child care system. They are really excited to see the advances that our government has made. Of course, we need to be there to support providers as this transition occurs and moves us to where we really want to see access to $10-a-day child care.
Unfortunately, the member also decided to take a swipe at the most vulnerable and speak about the issue of the guise of parental rights. I would like to ask him that question with regard to what is happening in Alberta. In consideration of parental rights, what does the member say to the parents who want gender-affirming care for their children but can now no longer access it because of government imposition?
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- Feb/16/24 12:45:37 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is important to say that the member is misrepresenting what is going on. For parents who want gender-affirming care, the government will not be standing in the way. The Premier of Alberta has made that abundantly clear.
What people do not want to see is the government forcing, swaying or moving the conversation a certain way without parents being part of the conversation. This is because parents, not the state, are the first caregivers for our children. That is the most fundamental thing that people need to know understand. We know that parents need to always be at the table when it comes to decisions for their own children. My biggest point is that parents need to be number one as the caregivers for children. That is what we are focused on.
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Mr. Speaker, it looks like the Liberals have chosen to not continue speaking to this, so I am very proud to rise to speak on behalf of the residents of Kelowna—Lake Country. I will be splitting my time with the member for Sturgeon River—Parkland.
Amendments were brought forward from the Senate on Bill C-35, on child care, which is why we are here today. I would like to recognize the member for Peterborough—Kawartha and her team for all of their work on this bill, as well as for reaching out to parents and child care providers across the country. I would also like to recognize our Conservative members on the human resources committee. They brought forth common-sense amendments on this bill that were not accepted by the NDP-Liberal coalition. I will speak to that shortly.
Child care is an issue of great importance to many families in my community and the operators who run these centres, as they are taking care of our most important asset, our children. I want to thank them for the vital and important work that they do. As a working mom, I can say that child care was very important to me and our family. That was back when maternity leave was only six months.
I have unfortunately heard from many residents of Kelowna—Lake Country about the shortage of day care spaces, as well as the unaffordability of child care. I have also heard from operators, often young female entrepreneurs, of the challenges they are facing as well. If not resolved, these challenges may put them out of business for good, leaving families struggling to find a child care space that does not exist.
As the Conservative vice-chair of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, I am very familiar with Bill C-35, as it came before Conservative colleagues and me at that committee. We have to remember that this legislation is coming after agreements were already signed and implemented with the provinces.
Conservatives have also offered several other amendments at the committee stage to correct serious failures in this legislation. These are faults that have been apparent from the beginning of this NDP-Liberal government's approach to child care. Sadly, those amendments were voted down, and as a result, we are now seeing many of the consequences of their approach.
Parents are now facing wait-lists that have not gotten better. Child care centres are being forced to close their doors forever. The wealthy are getting access to $10-a-day child care spaces. The Liberal child care plan had no means testing. In fact, it does not even tie to whether the parent who is looking to access the $10-a-day child care even works or wants to work.
Let us look at the numbers. A Fraser Institute report, published just this month, showed that 77% of high-income parents access child care compared to 41% of low-income families. It should also be common sense that a high-income household does not need the government subsidy to access the same level to child care that a single working mother would need.
Accessible child care should be available to all working women, but many people are questioning how these government programs are good for working women and the families that need access to affordable child care. Despite the claims from the Liberals that their child care plans would allow more women to be in our workforce, that same Fraser Institute study found that labour force participation for women in September 2023 has dropped when compared to participation in September of 2015. This report also said, “There is also little evidence that the federal government is achieving its [second] goal of boosting the labour force participation of women with children.”
After eight years of high taxes, high inflation, high interest rates and more debt, we can add fewer women with children working to the NDP-Liberal government's list of accomplishments. Young women have also suffered. The Liberal's most recent labour force survey, published in January of 2024, showed that over the last year, the employment of young women has cumulatively declined by 4.2%. Outside of the pandemic, that is the lowest it has been since the year 2000, which was, interestingly, under the last Liberal government.
The young female entrepreneurs in the child care sector have been left behind. These are operators who are often working extended hours and days compared to the many large not-for-profit operators. Even if they are fully licensed from the provincial government, they operate within and follow all provincial regulations. The so-called feminist Liberals have not made them a priority to access the federal funding to bring down costs to the parents they serve. It is right in the Liberal legislation.
We have quickly discovered that these female entrepreneurs are not a priority in the NDP-Liberal government's child care plan. What they envisioned was that they could build something for themselves, a child care program that could be flexible for nighttime or weekend workers, better available to rural working families and cater exclusively to children with special needs. These are exactly the types of choices parents are asking for.
Ottawa has a role in helping build out child care in Canada, but it cannot do that if it only looks to work against the headwinds of what the real demands are and local situations are of working families.
The NDP-Liberal agreements have been opposed to the kinds of child care that often allow more flexibility, such as what women entrepreneurs provide. They may provide different availability and attainability to preferred government-run or not-for-profit centres. If these operations have challenges to staying open, the numbers of child care spaces will actually decline.
This is not the fault of any child care worker or any organization in the child care sector, whether it be private, public or not-for-profit. It is the fault of a badly designed government program.
I recently met with a well-run, not-for-profit child care centre in my community. This experienced operator was equally frustrated with the system. She talked about the bureaucracy that has been created that is making it very difficult for both her organization and parents to wade through.
The fact is that, since the Liberal government started its child care program, we have seen fewer children in child care in Canada. According to Statistics Canada, the number of children under the age of five in child care fell by 118,000 between 2019 and 2023, which is a decrease of 8.5% nationally. Statistics Canada also showed that 26% of parents of children under the age of five who were not using child care reported that their child was on a wait-list, which is 7% higher than it was in 2022. As well, 47% of infants younger than one year not in child care were on a wait-list, which is an increase of 38% compared to early 2022.
The Coalition of Child Care Advocates of BC said that there were 130,000 licensed child care spaces in the province and that 75% of children aged zero to 12 are not able to access them.
A common-sense Conservative government would bring common sense back to child care policy. Only Conservatives would fight for equal access to child care and choice for parents. We support all forms of child care, and this is something we tried to put in through amendments at the committee stage with this legislation, whether it be for traditional day care centres; centres with extended, part-time or overnight care; nurseries; flexible and drop-in care; before- and after-school care; preschools; 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; guardians who raise their own children or family members; or friends or neighbours who provide care.
The NDP-Liberal government has only brought costs, crime and crisis to families. After eight years of the Liberal Prime Minister, housing prices have doubled, food bank usage is at its highest, violent crime is up 32% and inflation is creating financial anxiety. There are 22 people dying each day by the opioid crisis, and our health care system is in shambles.
On top of this, in B.C., with the federal Liberals supporting B.C. drug policies, people taking their children to parks have to deal with open drug use. I spoke with a child care provider recently who told me that they often walk the kids to a local park to play, and though they scan the park before the children play, they are often terrified that they may have missed something because they often find drug paraphernalia.
I do have quite a number of articles from over the last month. I will just reference a couple because I know I am running out of time. First of all, Castanet said that the Kelowna child care crisis is being “amplified” and “not helped by government fee program.” Another headline reads “Edmonton daycares closed” due to protest. Another reads, “Child-care costs are dropping across Canada. But some families are still waiting years for spaces.” These headlines goes on on, and these are headlines from just over the last month.
Conservatives will honour the existing provincial child care agreements. However, we will work toward fixing what the government has broken, so parents will have the choice and flexibility that the NDP-Liberal costly coalition has not allowed.
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- Feb/16/24 12:56:53 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives change their tone from one speech to the next. Earlier today, we were treated to an episode of Father Knows Best, where the woman stays at home and the man goes to work. There are lots of different approaches, mentalities and ways of doing things. I do not think that we should judge other people's choices.
That being said, the early childhood education program has proven its worth in Quebec. It has allowed many mothers, often single mothers, to pursue their careers and professional goals. It is also a choice that deserves respect. We should consider extending the same opportunity to all women and parents outside Quebec, so that they can enjoy the same benefits as women and parents in Quebec.
Would my colleague not agree that we can let people choose to have one parent stay home and care for the children while the other goes to work, but also offer everyone the option, to the extent possible, of allowing both parents to go to work while their children receive proper care from specialized educators doing an excellent job?
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- Feb/16/24 12:58:07 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, certainly it is all about what is best for families. Every family will be different, whatever its choice is going to be and whatever its situation is.
I know there have been a lot of references to Quebec's system being the model. In fact Quebec has a different system than other provinces have, but I do recall hearing testimony at committee that said there are still a lot of children on wait-lists, even in Quebec. Therefore we need to work toward having the maximum amount of availability and flexibility, not only within the child care system but also for families.
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- Feb/16/24 12:58:53 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for her work on this file. I have a couple of questions regarding contradictions I have heard coming from the other side on the topic of child care.
The Conservatives will acknowledge a worker shortage and will acknowledge the need for choice, but they will skip over, gloss over or perhaps just not acknowledge the fact that the program is directly responsible for a couple of things: It is filling the gap for a lot of sectors that were looking for workers, and it has also led to the highest-ever female participation in the economy, which is something worth celebrating because it is all about choice and affordability for families.
Therefore, will the member opposite not acknowledge that our changes to the Canada child benefit have benefited families greatly from an affordability perspective, and that the early learning and child care program right across the country, which was negotiated with each province for individual differences, has led to great affordability changes for families right across this country?
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- Feb/16/24 12:59:55 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, first of all, what the member is referencing is not factually correct. Statistics Canada actually shows that female participation is down, so I am not sure what old statistics he might be looking at.
We just have to look at the headlines over the last month. What we have seen is that the child care system is in crisis and that the policies the government has put together have not made a substantial difference. In many ways, when we look at the numbers, we see they are actually worse.
I will also note that I just find it incredibly interesting that the spokesperson whom the government has speaking to this very important child care bill today, which basically affects families and especially women in the workforce, is someone who does not have children himself.
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- Feb/16/24 1:00:56 p.m.
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Uqaqtittiji, from what I understood, the member was saying that the bill would discriminate against a certain type of care. I wonder whether she could point to where in the bill it talks about this discrimination. What I understand is that the bill states there needs to be a prioritization for public over private child care, and that it would not prevent any other care from being addressed by the bill.
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- Feb/16/24 1:01:30 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, there are a lot of regions in the country, especially in rural areas, that may not have government-run or large not-for-profit centres, and in fact a lot of care providers are in smaller entrepreneurial-type situations and focus on cultural needs. Therefore there is a huge gap that this would not address.
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Mr. Speaker, I am proud to rise to speak on Bill C-35. I want to start by addressing some of the amendments that were put forward by the other place.
In the initial part of this bill, there was no reference to official language minority communities, and it was Conservative amendments, made during the clause-by-clause review at the Standing Committee on Human Rights, that introduced these safeguards for our very important minority-language communities. We know that early child care is a crucial period for language learning and for the identity development of children. Access to French language early child care services is so necessary as a condition for the transmission of languages that have been transmitted by families over generations.
Several examples demonstrate the necessity of including these provisions in the bill. In Alberta, out of the so-called 1,500 new day care spaces announced by the government, only 19 were being allocated for francophones. That constitutes only 0.013% of all spaces, despite francophones representing 2% of the population of Alberta. It is important to protect these communities and their part in Canadian heritage that helped to build this nation, whether they be francophones in Alberta or anglophones in Quebec.
I want to talk about the great francophone heritage of my community. A gentleman, Ben Van De Walle, who is the son of the late, great member of Parliament from my area, Walter Van De Walle, who represented the great francophone communities of Morinville, Rivière Qui Barre and Legal. We have a very strong francophone identity in Sturgeon River—Parkland, and the Conservative amendments would go a long way to preserving our French-language heritage in our region.
Now that I have addressed these amendments, I want to talk about what I see as the unravelling disaster we are seeing because of the Liberal government's failed approach to child care. The proposed legislation and the current agreements made by the government with the provinces are failing to provide universal access to affordable child care and would cost far more than the government has estimated.
Small businesses are the backbone of our society, and the predominantly female entrepreneurs who are courageously trying to build businesses and build their livelihoods through providing child care are under attack by the Liberal government. The excessive red tape and regulations of the Liberal government are preventing day care entrepreneurs from opening new spaces and expanding their businesses. They cannot get the funding because the government will not fund new spaces.
This is making child care less accessible, and it is all because of the Liberal government imposing a one-size-fits-all model on a very complex sector of our economy. In the words of some child care operators, the Liberal government is essentially expropriating and nationalizing their businesses. I will use the words of one operator from Fort McMurray who said that, basically, they will “have no business” under the Liberal plan.
One of the government's tired talking points is its insistence that it has evidence-based policies. A more appropriate term would be evidence that is selective that corresponds with its ideological agenda. Let us go over some of the facts. As of the statistics published on February 6, just a short time ago, 77% of high-income parents have access to child care, and this compares to only 41% of low-income parents who have access to child care. It is a yawning gap.
I find it somewhat comedic that a Bloc MP earlier talked about how great this program is for single mothers. The University of British Columbia did a study in that province, in which it contacted all the child care centres to find out how many low-income single mothers were benefiting from this program. Across the entire province of British Columbia, it found 17 who were benefiting. There were only 17 single mothers benefiting, in the province of British Columbia, from the Liberals' failed day care policy.
Since 2019, the number of children under the age of five in child care has fallen under the Liberal government by 118,000 spaces. This is a decrease of 8.5% nationally. There was 46.4% of parents who reported difficulty in finding child care in 2023, which is up from 36.4% of parents in 2019. This is a problem that existed before the government's policy, but it is a problem that is only getting worse under the government's failed policy.
In fact, I personally know people who can only get one of their two children in child care, and they have to stay home to take care of the other children. These people are nurses and other skilled workers who cannot pursue their careers because the current government has made it more difficult for them to access any child care. It does not matter if it says it is affordable. If I could get 50¢ gas at the gas station, that would be great, but if there was never any gas at the gas station, it would not matter how affordable the price was.
Why is child care so expensive? We know that the key costs for child care, according to the operators, in order of magnitude, are labour costs, the cost of the facilities and the cost of food and other supplies.
Child care is a labour-intensive operation. The cost to create a space that is appropriate for children and the accompanying mortgage, rental costs, insurance costs and maintenance costs are extremely significant. Finally, the cost of food and other supplies has increased dramatically under this inflationary government.
What is a factor in all three of these costs? It is high inflation, which has increased the cost of labour, rent, mortgages, insurance and food at the local store. The price of food has gone up by 12%. Child care operators are not immune from these costs. They do not get some special discount at the store because they are child care operators.
The fact is that the Liberal government, through its inflationary policies, is driving up the costs to care for children in Canada. At the same time that it is driving up all of these costs, it is shortchanging child care operators by only giving them a 3% annual increase in their funding. They cannot support children when food prices are going up 12%, when wage costs are going up, and when mortgage costs are doubling and tripling, and rental costs are tripling. They cannot support these children with only a 3% increase from the government.
The Liberal government is expecting these predominantly female business owners to eat these costs. Consequently, it is causing them to shut down their business, to reduce spaces and restrict access to child care for Canadians.
In the child care sector in Alberta, we are already seeing the consequences of this inflationary agenda. Last month, parents in my riding were unable to get child care, because of closures in protest of these Liberal policies. Operators have described these agreements as underfunded and inflexible, and say that they threaten the financial viability of operators by placing fee caps and other restrictions on facilities that are struggling with these increased costs.
The owner of My Happy Place Daycare, in Stony Plain, Alberta said:
Right now, we are stuck between a rock and a hard place...Just being closed for the day has a huge impact. Imagine what would happen if day care centres across the province started closing their doors because they're going bankrupt.
I fear that because of these Liberals' ideological approach to child care, that is a future that we are seeing coming very quickly.
The proposed solution for inflation by proponents of even more government intervention in early child care is, no surprise, more inflationary spending. The government has tried to raise the wages of child care workers, but this is putting us into a wage spiral, because other groups that are competing for child care workers, such as school boards, are also raising their wages in order to compete for these workers.
In one case I spoke to a mother who worked in child care previously, before the government's policies were in place. She worked in child care because she received a significant discount for her own child's care at that facility. Once the government brought in its policies, her day care operator got rid of the discount, as it was not necessary anymore. She lost her incentive to work in child care. She has left that sector. Now there is one less child care worker.
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 are skyrocketing after eight years of the NDP-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 only charge families a fixed price, there is no way these operators can make up the difference other than by reducing other costs. What are these costs? It is food and craft supplies. Do we really want to talk about reducing the quality of the food and the quality of the programming for our children, just so these day care operators could make up the costs of skyrocketing mortgages and rents, because the Liberal government will not support them?
What is actually happening now is that they are just choosing to shut down instead. They do not want to provide subpar care for children under the Liberal policies, so they are just shutting down altogether. It is terrible 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 has already promised. The first option is unfair. We cannot prevent people from accessing child care. Yet, what we are seeing is that it is predominantly middle- and high-income families that are getting access, and low-income families are being left out. This is backed up by research from the Parliamentary Budget Officer, which reported that the Liberal plan is not sufficient to meet the demand for child care. In fact, it will fall short in providing spaces for 182,000 children.
I said earlier that we have lost 118,000 spaces since 2019. The Liberal government is well on its way to meeting at least one of its goals, which is the reduction of child care spaces. It has reduced this number by 118,000, and the Parliamentary Budget Officer says it is going to 182,000 under the Liberal policies.
That is what we are already seeing in Alberta. Operators are struggling to stay open. They are closing down. They are reducing spaces. It is lowering accessibility for families.
We cannot continue going down this road. We need a new way to move forward. We need to support all child care operators, regardless of the model that they choose. We need to provide not only affordability for families but accessibility for families, and we are not getting it under this failed NDP-Liberal policy.
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- Feb/16/24 1:12:21 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I noticed that the member brought up grocery prices.
I am curious as to how surprised he was when he found out that a paid lobbyist regularly attends his caucus meetings in order to provide strategy to the Leader of the Opposition, somebody who is directly profiting from the crisis that people are faced with, the inflation as it relates to groceries.
If he would rather not answer that question, then I would just encourage him to pivot to something else.
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- Feb/16/24 1:12:54 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am not afraid to answer that question, because, after eight years of this Liberal-NDP government, I am surprised that Loblaws even needs lobbyists, considering how much this government has given them: free refrigerators paid for by taxpayers and skyrocketing increases to grocery prices. This government has been in the pocket of big grocery stores.
As I said in my speech, it is the children who are suffering. The child care operators cannot afford to provide quality food for our children under the Liberals' failed policies.
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- Feb/16/24 1:13:43 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my question is very simple.
Did I understand correctly? Will the Conservatives vote against the bill on the pretext that a program like this is not perfect? They will not bother to enshrine in law something that has worked for Quebec for 25 years and that could be good for others. Is that correct?
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- Feb/16/24 1:14:12 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, let me be clear. Conservatives are not against the principle of affordable and accessible child care for children. There is no issue with that.
The question is, how do we provide affordable and accessible child care?
There needs to be a balance. Clearly, under this government's policy of so-called $10-a-day child care, which nobody can access, particularly low-income families, accessibility has become a real problem that it is not dealing with.
We know from the province of Quebec that there are hundreds of thousands of children who are not able to access subsidized child care. It is a real problem in the province of Quebec. It is a problem across the country, and we need to deal with this accessibility problem.
Without accessibility, affordability does not matter.
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- Feb/16/24 1:15:03 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague spoke to the issues that still surround this day care program from the perspective of the people who are trying to use it.
I know that in my riding we have one community, as an example, that is rural, with a lot of people who work shift work. There are three businesses there, run by women, that do not have the opportunity to get the provisions that other organizations do.
Can he explain, possibly, to the House why it is that the Liberal government is against day cares in which women have the opportunity not only to care for children, which we are innately good at overall, but also to run a very profitable and successful business doing that?
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- Feb/16/24 1:15:51 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, dealing with the challenges in rural communities and raising children in rural communities is very important. I think it has been left out by the government. I want to be clear. It is predominantly small and medium-sized enterprises that are suffering under the Liberals' day care policies. The big box day cares, the Starbucks of day cares, are not suffering.
In fact, they are actually benefiting, because when the small and medium-sized players are going bankrupt under these government policies, it is the bigger businesses with the deeper pockets that are able to make the biggest gains.
What we see is that, in rural communities, these big box day cares do not want to set up.
We are not only seeing an accessibility problem in the cities, where people cannot access care; we are seeing a complete child care desert in our rural areas. That is clearly not acceptable in a country that values its rural regions.
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- Feb/16/24 1:16:58 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have heard the arguments from our Conservative counterparts, always talking about the state of women-owned businesses. What they seem to fail to recognize is that this sector of the care economy also depends on many female workers, yet this member of the Conservative Party talked about a wage spiral, as though inflating wages, increasing the wages of workers, is somehow a bad thing.
Is it his economic theory that this sector depends on the exploitation of women workers in order to provide affordable child care?
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- Feb/16/24 1:17:25 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I think some of the member's outrage is somewhat misplaced. I am not against people getting the best possible wage they can negotiate to do the job they want to do, but we have to recognize that we are in an economy where there is high demand for care workers. We have demand for early childhood educators in the school sector and in the day care sector, and when wages go up in one sector, they need to go up in the other sector. What we are doing is creating a spiral, but we are not addressing—
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