44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 29, 2024 10:00AM
Mr. Speaker, today is the day we were supposed to be talking about the Senate amendments to Bill C-35, and the Conservatives have brought forward a concurrence debate with respect to food security in the north, which of course is an extraordinarily important topic. The issue, though, is that the Conservatives are using this as a tactic to delay a very important debate with respect to child care. The way I know this is that the Conservatives have had 10 opposition days when they could have brought forward the issue of nutrition in the north, and they have never chosen to do that.
In fact, when Stephen Harper was our prime minister, I believe that Pam Palmater, one of the indigenous experts, said that the Conservative government had actually set back indigenous relations 100 years in the 10 years that it had been there.
Why is the Conservative Party of Canada so eager to stop women from coast to coast to coast from being able to access child care, something that we know we need for women, for families and, frankly, for our economy?
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Mr. Speaker, it is always very difficult to speak after the member for Nunavut because she is such a force within our caucus and such a champion for the people she represents. It is an honour to be in a caucus with her.
Today, we are talking about Bill C-35 and the amendments that have been brought forward. I want to start by talking about just how vital child care is in our country and what a fundamental thing it is to provide real child care across the country in an affordable way that women and families can access.
During COVID-19, I worked with the member for Timmins—James Bay to look at ways that we could have an economic recovery after the slowdown that happened during COVID. One of the things we heard constantly, whether it be from financial institutions, chambers of commerce, or labour groups, was the need for child care and the importance of it, that child care was the best thing we could do for economic recovery.
That is one piece of it, but I am a woman and I have children. I remember the struggle of finding child care. I remember how difficult it was to find quality child care, to be able to afford quality child care, to ensure that my children were cared for so I could return to the work force. I know for so many women across the country that this was not possible.
Having child care come forward after so many years makes me think of people like Irene Mathyssen, who pushed so hard for child care. I think about the member for Winnipeg Centre who has been absolutely tireless in this fight for child care for women. I think about these champions within the labour movement who have moved this forward over decades and decades. The fact that we now are here and have this program in place is fundamental.
I am not going to lie. This is not a perfect program. We have heard from labour leaders who say we need a workforce strategy to go along with this program. We need to ensure that the workers who are working in child care centres are adequately paid, are adequately trained and are given the resources they need so that child care spaces are available. There is a lot of work to continue to do. The idea of getting child care to people is fundamental.
The New Democrats have always known how important child care is. It is why, in my province of Alberta, Rachel Notley was the first premier to pilot a $25-a-day child care. It was wildly successful, but, of course, the Conservatives were elected under Jason Kenney and they cut that. Right now, the premiers of B.C. and Manitoba, again, New Democratic premiers, are championing and prioritizing the $10-a-day child care. Therefore, Canadians in those provinces will have that program in place.
Of course, the Conservatives in my province have, once again, fumbled the ball. As we all know, Danielle Smith would rather pick a fight with the federal government—
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- Feb/29/24 1:46:46 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the relevance of course is that I am a representative for the people of Edmonton, which is in the province of Alberta, and I am speaking about the delivery of child care in Alberta, so it is very relevant to what we are talking about.
I understand why the Conservatives do not want to talk about this. They do not want me to bring up the fact that Danielle Smith dropped the ball on child care, that she took the money and refused to give it to the child care workers, and, in fact, that child care centres had to do a one-day strike in January to actually get the money that was owed to them because the Premier of Alberta withheld that from them. I will point out that this is the same premier who has now said that she would not support a pharmacare program, the same premier who is attacking trans kids, the same premier who promised us she would not touch our pension and is now doing that, and the same premier who for some unbelievable reason is now saying that renewables are more dangerous for our economy than oil and gas. However, that is different. I will get back to child care.
We are talking about the idea of ensuring that this program is available across the country, ensuring that every Canadian, and from my perspective as a representative of Alberta, particularly Albertans, is able to access quality child care, not in concert with our premier and our provincial government but despite our provincial government. This is the state of affairs that we are in.
Frankly, I do think that the premiers and the people of B.C. and Manitoba have a much more likely chance of getting that quality child care, because clearly the premiers in those provinces have prioritized the needs of women, families and the economy to ensure child care is available to women.
I also want to talk a bit today about the amendment that was brought forward, which talks about access to official language child care. Members will not be surprised that I am going to talk a bit about Campus Saint-Jean, which is a facility in my riding.
The French quarter of Edmonton is in Edmonton Strathcona. I am a very proud representative of the French quarter, and Campus Saint-Jean is a wonderful institution. It is in fact the only institution in western Canada that trains teachers and child care providers in French so that they can meet the obligations of the Canadian government, that we all have across the country, to ensure that Canadian families can have their children educated in the language of their choice.
Something that many in the House may not know is that Alberta has the fastest-growing francophone population in the country. More than 261,000 Albertans have some knowledge of French, making French the second-most spoken language in the province after English. I do not know if members know this as well, but Alberta has the third-largest francophone minority population in Canada, after Ontario and New Brunswick. Therefore, we have a significant French population and the training to ensure that those child care workers and teachers are trained and are able to provide that education in French in my riding. It happens at Campus Saint-Jean.
Of course, this is the same university that Jason Kenney tried to cut funding to and the federal government had to step in. Just to be fair, the federal government did step in and Campus Saint-Jean continues to give extraordinary service to our community, ensuring that teachers can have a good education to provide those services.
Today, as we stand here, I want to make it very clear that the New Democrats have been standing up for child care and pushing for it for decades. We have been working with labour leaders. We have been working with members of the public. We have been talking to our constituents.
Child care is a vital piece of our economic recovery. It is a vital piece for making lives better for families and for women across the country. It is a vital piece of ensuring that life is more affordable for people around the country.
For that, I am very supportive of this bill. I hope that we can get everybody within the House to support the bill.
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- Feb/29/24 1:52:11 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I spoke earlier about some of those champions of child care, and I brought up some of the previous members of our caucus and many in the labour movement who have fought so hard for this. I think that those people today are very excited that we have child care.
The member is talking about a budget that happened well before my time, and so I will not comment on that. I certainly hope all members of the House can recognize the value of child care, that we can stop having the delay tactics that we are seeing from the Conservatives, and that we can actually move forward and get this passed as soon as possible.
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- Feb/29/24 1:53:44 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, absolutely.
My apologies for not speaking in French now.
This is something I have stood on in the House multiple times. I raised the issue that, for minority languages outside Quebec, and English in Quebec, we need to make sure that families are able to educate their children in the language of their choice. However, in western Canada, that is very difficult to do. One of the challenges is that we do not have enough training facilities to train the child care professionals and the teachers that we need to ensure that the French language is available.
About one-seventh of those who wish to educate their children in French in Alberta are able to do so right now. We have a massive population who want to ensure that their children get the benefits of being bilingual or having a French education who are not able to access that, because we do not have the capacity to train those teachers. It is a problem and I think the federal government should work as closely as possible with different provincial governments to ensure it happens.
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- Feb/29/24 1:55:54 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have two points on that.
First of all, we know that Danielle Smith kept half the money back and did not give it to the child care providers. Many of them were almost on the brink of bankruptcy before they could actually access that funding from the premier. That is quite well known, and I would hope that the Conservatives recognize that.
The other thing I would say is that in my speech I referenced the fact that I think there are real challenges with this child care program. It is not that we do not need to have a child care program and not that we need to delay, but rather that this child care program needs to be improved upon. One of the ways I talked about is to make sure that we have a workforce strategy. Labour unions across the country have asked for a workforce strategy, and that is one of the ways that we could be working to improve a program, making sure that it is more accessible and that is better able to meet the needs of all Canadians.
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- Feb/29/24 1:58:22 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I just want to take a moment to once again thank the member for Winnipeg Centre for the incredible work that she has done on this legislation. The fact that we have this child care bill before us goes, in a large part, to the work that the member for Winnipeg Centre has done. I am so grateful for all that she has done.
However, I will say that when she asks about a workforce strategy, one of the ways we make legislation good in this place is we listen to experts, we listen to people who are experts in those fields. Child care workers have been asking for this, labour leaders have been asking for this. Those are the people we should be listening to. A truly feminist government would listen to those experts in the child care sector.
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- Feb/29/24 2:48:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, New Democrats are delivering diabetes medicine and devices and contraceptives for all Canadians today. Free contraceptives would be life-changing for women across the country, but shamefully, Danielle Smith said that she does not want that for Albertans. My constituents are outraged, and the Conservative leader, when he was asked by the media about this, literally ran away so he would not have to talk about fairness for women.
Will the government ensure that it signs agreements with all provinces so all women and all Canadians have access to the—
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