44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 29, 2024 10:00AM
- Feb/29/24 1:07:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, today, I am continuing my speech on child care, and in the earlier part of it, I went through some of the challenges with the child care system and outlined them.
I would like to go through some proof points, which are actual emails I received from constituents. I will try to read these as clearly and as unredacted as possible, but obviously, for personal reasons, for names and other things, I will skip over those parts.
The first one says, “Good evening. I'm hoping you can assist us with daycare funding. My daughter is a mother of 3 year old twins. She has...children in [a day care provider right now] and was told [that] funding would be available by October. [However] She has had no further information and unfortunately the employees are unaware of when the funding [will] be available. As you can imagine having children in daycare is costly. My daughter pays $100.00 a day. Is there someone...I can reach out to for answers?”
They tried very hard, working through the government, to get this $10-a-day day care spot, but to no avail, still, to this day.
The next letter reads, “I'm writing to you [today] as a concerned mother of an 8 month old baby. I have been a [RN]...for [over] 10 years. The state of availability of licensed day care spaces in Ontario is appalling.”
I will read this unredacted, good and bad. She wrote, “It is fantastic...the government is working towards $10...daycare to improve [the] financial accessibility for all. However, the planning behind this rollout has been abysmal. Did the government not consider the immense increase in demand that could not be met with the already lacking spaces in the licensed childcare industry prior to [the] rollout?! The wait lists were already lengthy. We added our child to multiple wait lists at 20 weeks pregnant, being told [that]...we might...already [be] too late to secure a spot for him at one year for me to return to work”.
Just to clarify, she put herself on the list at 20 weeks pregnant so that she could have a spot when the child, who was not born yet, was a year old, and she was told that she was too late.
She went on to write, “I am now less than four months away from my return to work and have no idea when I can return to work due to the lack of day care spaces for my child. As a registered nurse, I am eager to return to work to support [people in my important work], but may be delayed due to being unable to access appropriate...child care for my infant. The plan for $10..daycare requires significant infrastructure...for years prior to being able to achieve it.” I paraphrased a little because I did not want to give away the specifics.
That is an insightful comment. In order to achieve something, one has to plan. My father used to tell me all the time, when I was a youngster, that if one fails to plan, one plans to fails. I think that this is borne out here.
The email continues to read, “New centres must be built. RECE's must be trained. Supplies must be purchased.” I will paraphrase here, because I do not want to give away the specific area. She wrote that her community is growing quickly, so that need is even more acute. She goes on to write, “Both of these issues combined are compounding the problem and creating disaster[s] for families who are planning...for their children so they can return to work. I can only imagine how...other health care workers or first responders are in the same situation. This is only compounding our health care and first responder shortages. [I'm asking] you to please advocate for the development of infrastructure to support this rollout. Also, consider creating area based...lists, rather than...[individual]”.
These are all relatively recent emails that were just quickly pulled up by my staff.
One person writes, “I am pleased to see the media is finally reporting on the disastrous roll out of the Canada Early Learning and Child Care Act. I am so tired of listening to [the Prime Minister] bragging about saving Canadian[s]...thousand[s] of dollars in child care expenses when I know [this to be] a fallacy.... This became an issue [and a] concern for me in 2022 with the birth of my third grandchild in St John's [Newfoundland]. This was about the same time as [Newfoundland] signed on...the federal program; $10...day care sounded so promising. Little did my daughter know how difficult it was going [to be] to find day care at any cost. At that...time my older daughter in Ontario was looking for day care for her 3 year old. She become [number] 90 on the wait[ing] list...at the local school's publicly funded [centre]”. She wrote that she would like to thank the member from Peterborough for advocating so strenuously on their behalf.
She went on to write, “I am a firm believer in the value of accessible day care for all Canadians but I also believe [that] parents should have the option of...private care for their children. I realize a number of Canadians do not support tax funded day care. Many of these are people who do not value women's work and don't connect the dots when their hip surgery is cancelled because there['s] no ER nurse available. My [Newfoundland] daughter became very active [in an organization]”, which I will not reveal, “[where she works for and advocates for child care].... There are so many Liberal missteps for the Conservatives to address but I think it is time to address child care. As well as an issue for young families it is [an issue for ] grandparents [as well]. It [is] also a federal issue as...provinces and territories are raising concerns.”
This person's daughter said, “I really wish [the member for Carleton] would come out on...attack [on] child care.” The email reads, “I can't agree more. I believe it is time for Conservatives to [take an even stronger stance, holding the Liberals to account].”
Those are just a couple of emails I received, and I could read many more emails on the state of child care. Like everything with the Liberal government, it is great with photo ops but poor on delivery.
I also had a meeting in the last constituency week with the Otonabee-South Monaghan Food Cupboard in Keene. The context is of course parents and grandparents being unable to find child care, but in some ways the crisis is even more serious for many Canadians as they are facing insecurity as never seen before. Numbers have already increased significantly year over year, but in just the last four months, the number of children now being fed by the Otonabee-South Monaghan Food Cupboard has gone from 19 to 30 to 31 and then to 37. That is in an extremely small catchment area. The number of children going to a food bank at the Otonabee-South Monaghan Food Cupboard has doubled, and this is the kind of story we are hearing across the country.
The Liberal government promised a strong and prosperous economy, and it has failed. It promised $10 day care, and it has failed. It is time for a common-sense Conservative government.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak once more to Bill C-35, an act respecting early learning and child care in Canada, with respect to the amendments that were provided by the Senate.
First, let me reiterate the Conservative Party's support for child care and for supporting women entering or re-entering the workforce as they balance their family lives. We want to see Canadians have equal access to child care in the forms that fit their families. This goes far beyond the Liberals' $10-a-day day care spots to include traditional day care centres; centres with extended, part-time or overnight care; nurseries; flexible and drop-in care; before- and after-school care; pre-schools and co-op child care; faith-based care; unique programming to support children with disabilities; home-based care; nannies and shared nannies; au pairs; stay-at-home parents; guardians who raise their own children; and family members, friends or neighbours who provide care. This is what it means to make up and support community, and our children and our grandchildren are some of the most vulnerable members in our communities. They all deserve high-quality care in the chosen style of their caretakers.
However, my Liberal colleagues have been clear that they do not want to amend the bill overall to include choice for parents. This is unhelpful for a variety of reasons. So many Canadian parents are not in a position to send their children to traditional day care during conventional work hours. First responders, medical personnel, military members, truck drivers and a whole host of others must work through the nights, weekends and holidays, when many traditional day care centres are closed, and they thus require specialized care. Do they not deserve flexible options that suit their needs, especially when so many of their jobs are community focused? Anyone working unconventional shifts to provide for themselves and their families is just as deserving of high-quality affordable child care as those who work Monday to Friday, nine to five.
I have personal experience in this realm. I raised my two daughters while travelling extensively for work as a chemical engineer. I have previously in the House discussed the challenges of securing child care for them while working around my busy travel schedule, especially when factoring in the realities of travel, which include delays, changed timelines and flights cancelled altogether. Families absolutely need options that work for their individual needs. When Conservatives form government, we would honour the provincial and territorial agreements and ensure parents have the choice and flexibility they deserve to remove the Liberal ideological shackles, if they so desire.
With regard to the Senate amendment of Bill C-35, the bill already contained references to the official language minority communities, or OLMCs, when it was sent to the Senate. However, the bill did not originally include any reference to them until the Conservative amendments were made during the clause-by-clause review done at HUMA and we introduced these safeguards. The references to the OLMCs in the bill now include a provision that federal investments related to programs and services for the education and care of young children should be guided by the commitments outlined in the Official Languages Act, and the inclusion of OLMCs and indigenous peoples in the composition of the National Advisory Council on Early Learning and Child Care.
We are grateful to the hon. senator from Acadia who proposed an amendment to include a reference in clause 8 to eliminate any ambiguity before the courts, and we continue to support his amendment today. The amendment would add the words “official language minority communities” to the first sentence of clause 8, after “including early learning and child care programs and services for Indigenous peoples”, and would divide clause 8 into two paragraphs. The first paragraph would then outline the government's financial commitment, while the second would specify the mechanisms through which the federal government would provide funding. To allay any remaining hesitancy, under no circumstances is it the intention to create a new direct-negotiation mechanism between the federal government and the OLMCs. The amendment text is very clear on this matter. Furthermore, adding a mention of OLMCs after the word “including” would not in any way diminish the rights of any other minority or indigenous peoples.
Clause 3 of the bill explicitly states that it would not infringe upon the rights of indigenous peoples as “recognized and affirmed by section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982”. The amendment is simply to clarify the intent to ensure the consideration of OLMCs as stipulated in clauses 7 and 11.
There has been much study done on early childhood as a critical period for language development and the identity development of children. Access to French language early childhood services is often a necessary condition for the transmission of language and culture in French communities. These services help young children acquire the language skills they need to prepare for education, especially for children who will enter French language or immersion schools across the country. This is all upholding the right to education enshrined in section 23 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Critically, and to assuage fears from across the aisle, this amendment does not introduce any new funding mechanism and merely aims to clarify financial commitments. Especially with Sarnia—Lambton recently receiving the official Francophone designation and with French language use in danger throughout the country, it is more critical than ever to establish and protect these services for our official language minority communities.
This amendment was adopted by a large majority of senators, who clearly understand and appreciate both the need to increase child care spaces and access to them and the need to deliver services across the board in both of our official Canadian languages. It is clear now more than ever just how important and critical child care is, in terms of both obtaining an early child care space and maintaining it if one is lucky enough to have one, for recruiting and retaining women in the workforce.
The employment rate for young women has been on a strong downward trend since last February, with a cumulative decline of 4.2% over that period. This is the lowest since May 2020, excluding the pandemic. More than 46% of parents reported difficulty finding child care in 2023, which is up from 36.4% in 2019, so more parents are having trouble finding child care now, in the era of the Liberals' $10-a-day child care, than before.
A column in the Financial Post last week alleges that the Liberals' national child care plan is proving to be “an expensive shambles, creating widespread shortages and destroying private child care businesses”. This problem spans the country, with issues from Newfoundland and Labrador to British Columbia.
This week there has been a slate of news reports across the country, with headlines despairing over the lack of access to child care, including the Liberals' $10-a-day program. Day care operators, including the owner of Little Heroes Daycare Centre here in Ottawa, say they cannot turn a profit and are not even breaking even since opting in to the $10-a-day program, which they did out of their desire to assist their families, to their own detriment.
To further illustrate, as part of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women's current study of women's economic empowerment, the executive director of the Association of Day Care Operators of Ontario, which represents independent licensed child care centres, said, “[W]e have a sector of the economy that was largely created by women. It's essential to women's equality in the workforce. It's one of the only economic sectors in the country where women are fairly represented as owners and managers, and it's being not only undervalued by government but targeted for replacement by a government-run system.”
The Liberals are undercutting their own economy once again and pushing costs onto taxpayers while denying Canadians the freedom to choose what works best for their families. What is more is that one of the main goals of the $10-a-day plan was to enable women to join the workforce in greater numbers, but a recent Fraser Institute report looking at that issue indicates there is “little evidence” whether the Liberal program is reaching its stated goals. It reads, “There is also little evidence that the federal government is achieving [the second] goal of boosting the labour force participation of women with children.”
As the StatsCan data I quoted earlier shows, the employment rate for young women is on a downward trend. It is another example of the problem of the Prime Minister's fake feminism.
I will be generous and allow that the pandemic exacerbated the issues of child care, and many well-meaning parents changed their plans and their lives to accommodate for a more precarious world, either changing work hours to watch children, changing jobs or leaving the workforce altogether. However, the Liberals owe Canadian parents and families that much more for letting them down in the first place.
Conservatives, when we form government, will put Canadians first and prioritize freedom of choice and family life, empowering parents to make the decisions that best serve their child care needs and not just what the government prescribes.
If I look over the history of my own journey with child care, I will say that it is very difficult when only one in 10 families are covered by the existing program. That is nine out of 10 families that are not. I have people calling my office asking if I can help them find child care. It is almost impossible.
I had some very wonderful child care providers and some not-so-wonderful child care providers. Ms. Betty was a school teacher who was off with her own kids. She was probably a better mother than I will ever be, so that was great. She was flexible, because I could drop the kids off at 5:30 in the morning if I had to catch a flight at six o'clock. If a flight was cancelled, late, or the kids had to stay late, she had flexibility. That is really important for a lot of workers today.
Similarly, I had Joanne, who was wonderful. She was a stay-at-home mom with her kids. Once again, she was flexible and gave excellent care. However, she moved and I was left in a cycle of trying to find child care. It started with Sarah, who was a mom at the preschool that my kids went to, but once my kids were eating cat food on her stairs, I had to find another one. Then there was the student who was smoking weed and hanging out with her boyfriend. That one went away. Then there was Karen. I should have known maybe just by the name, but she was watching soaps when I came home and found out she has let my kids go swimming with a male neighbour some place up the road. That was not so great. There was a happy occasion with Generations Day Care in Petrolia, which was a wonderful experience. It was certainly expensive, but worth it. The pinnacle was Andrea, an ECE worker who became my nanny. She was able to stay overnight if I needed, make meals if I was travelling, and do anything that was needed. When my kids got older and went to high school, she opened her own day care and they ended up working there, so that was fantastic.
There is a lot of need. We need more care and in order to get more care we have to build on the $10-a-day child care and we have to allow parents to have choices. We have to figure out how we are going to help with those, because I think that is fair.
We also need to consider that, with the inflation we are seeing, the cost of food and heating is going up, and the interest rates are going up. All of these pressures are really affecting the cost of providing child care. I know when we studied this issue at the status of women committee we looked at the Quebec model. At the time, Quebec was charging less than $10 a day for day care and the actual cost was more like $47 or $48, which would have hugely increased now. However, the comment was that there were still long wait-lists. Therefore, I do not think it is good to have $10-a-day day care if there are no spaces. We need to provide more spaces. We need to be creative in figuring out how we help people get child care and broaden their freedom of choice so that people who work weird hours can get coverage, and people who have special needs children can get the care they need. All of these things I think will be important.
I know all of the provincial and territorial agreements have been signed. I always hear the Liberals whining about Conservatives wasting the time of the House on concurrence motions, but here we are debating something where the agreements have already been signed. Why do we have everyone state on the public record that we support this program when that is the case? We should move on.
Finally, I want to reiterate some of the things that have been implied. The members opposite have implied that Conservatives do not support this program. That is not true. We do support child care. Anyone can go to openparliament.ca and see that we all voted yes on Bill C-35.
I think there is more work to be done in this area. I certainly would like to see the government come forward with something that would not only address an increase in spaces but also help those who are less fortunate. We see that 71% of people who are taking advantage of the $10-a-day day care are higher-income people, whereas only 41% are lower-income ones. That does not seem right to me. I think there needs to be a means test. There needs to be something that favours those who need the help the most, because obviously we do not have enough spaces, so we have to prioritize.
If we could work with the provinces and territories to create some flexibility, I think that would help the private day cares. We need more spaces. We cannot afford to lose the ones we have, and that is what is happening. I am hearing from day care providers that are not eligible for this program that they are struggling, and many of them are even going out of business. I have heard from the ones that are in the program that they are having issues with cash flow because of the way the remuneration works.
I think there is more work to be done on this, but certainly we need to move in this direction. We want to see more women in the workforce. I certainly experienced the highs and the lows of child care, and would rather head in the direction of highs.
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