Senator Miville-Dechêne: Are there any more questions?

Senator Miville-Dechêne: That is an excellent question, Senator Omidvar. I will answer in French, if you don’t mind, because the subject is rather technical.

I don’t think the federal government has the power to require that all those investments go toward public not-for-profit daycares. Even in Quebec, where significant amounts were spent and there was an overwhelming consensus between feminist ministers and all of civil society to implement this low-cost child care system, we were financially unable to absorb the costs and have only not-for-profit organizations, offer decent wages and, often, build child care centres.

That is why Quebec made use of private daycares. Had it not done so, the province would have been unable to meet the demand from the many women who were at home and wanted a space for their child. There were all sorts of systems. Now, there are just four or five remaining, including the non-profits and CPEs, subsidized and non-subsidized private daycares, and family daycares where a woman provides child care. Family daycares were extremely important in Quebec. Since the number of children changes from year to year, family daycares were a more flexible tool to accommodate that fluctuation. It is easier to open or close family daycares than CPEs or non-profits.

It’s remarkable that Quebec has managed to do this. The government had to keep its promises, but it didn’t have enough money to build the best not-for-profit daycares for everyone. Studies have shown that the best child care centres are not-for-profit CPEs, which have trained educators and decent budgets. These are the highest-quality child care centres.

Now, what can be done about this rather difficult situation? We need to set stricter standards for these private child care centres, whether they are subsidized or not, in order to keep our children safe.

Hon. Julie Miville-Dechêne: I rise to support Bill C-35, An Act respecting early learning and child care in Canada, at second reading.

My colleague Rosemary Moodie provided a comprehensive overview of the history of child care in this country and the principles contained in Bill C-35, including provisions that enable Indigenous peoples to define and direct their own early childhood services.

I won’t repeat what Senator Moodie said so well. Instead, I want to address some of the challenges of implementing this program, in light of Quebec’s experience with $8.85-per-day child care spaces.

To begin, it is clear that this framework legislation essentially seeks to ensure that the ambitious federal child care funding initiative in the provinces and territories becomes a permanent fixture. Minister Karina Gould said so openly during the committee study in the House of Commons on March 10, and I quote:

The purpose of Bill C-35 is to guide the federal government so that subsequent governments . . . are guided by these principles and objectives when they negotiate with the provinces and territories.

That’s why this bill is short and simply sets out general principles, such as long-term funding. All the details are in the hundreds of pages of bilateral agreements between Ottawa and the provinces. Ontario’s agreement is 140 pages long; Quebec’s agreements are 47 pages long. The agreements include amounts, funding formulas, specific rules and accountability measures.

I would note that the agreement with Quebec is asymmetrical. It reaffirms Quebec’s exclusive jurisdiction over child care and says that Quebec will have total flexibility to spend the money it gets on improving its network and creating new spaces.

I found two segments of Bill C-35 particularly interesting. The first is in paragraph 7(1)(b), which states that federal investments should aim to “enable families of all income levels, including low incomes, to benefit . . . .”

Helping low-income families is no doubt the most difficult goal for a universal child care program to achieve. Quebec’s experience is proof of that. That was actually one of the two major goals set out in Quebec’s Educational Childcare Act, which was passed 25 years ago.

Unfortunately, the legislation has not had the desired result. The idea was to make the service free for the poorest families to encourage them to register their children in early childhood centres, which are known as CPEs in Quebec. These are high-quality, non-profit child care services. The goal was for children to benefit from early stimulation and more equal opportunities in their schooling.

The fact remains that these families still need to register and spots have to be available. We know that 36% of Quebec children under the age of four do not attend a recognized child care facility. Sophie Mathieu, senior program specialist at the Vanier Institute of the Family, explained to the House of Commons committee that very little is known about the systemic, economic and cultural barriers that impede families’ access to child care.

The 2020-21 report of the Auditor General of Quebec gave some striking examples of such disparities. In disadvantaged neighbourhoods, particularly the borough of Montreal North, there are a lot more spaces available in private daycares than in CPEs, whereas the opposite is true in the wealthy neighbourhood of Westmount. In simple terms, richer families have greater access to high-quality CPEs at $8.85 a day than low- and modest-income families, who have greater access to commercial daycares that offer lower-quality services. Children living in families with an income of $50,000 or less are less likely to get a space at a CPE. I find that deeply disturbing.

[English]

The known difference of quality between private daycares and non-profit CPEs should make the province think. The Quebec government did not have the means to meet the full demand, so it turned to the private sector to offer more spots, either by subsidizing them directly or by offering a tax credit. It is more than time to raise quality standards and to enforce them.

Quebec has gone through different stages to try to refine the data and make its waiting list system fairer. Today, there is a single, regularly updated waiting list for all CPEs across Quebec. Right now, for example, we know there are 37,260 children waiting for a spot, a figure that has jumped by 3,700 in one year despite the addition of more than 20,000 subsidized spaces over the past two years. However, even the accuracy of this list is disputed by some.

Despite significant investments, there is a lack of spots for mothers who want to return to work. The reality is that it is the less fortunate families who are worse off. The labour shortage in child care services aggravates the problem.

When I was President of the Quebec Council for the Status of Women, I spent much time thinking about this supposed universal child care model. There is no easy answer.

[Translation]

Let me share a personal anecdote. When the child care program first started 25 years ago, I secured $5-a-day child care spaces for my two children. I was very lucky. It was a daycare at my workplace at Radio-Canada, and there was always a child care educator available in the evening for employees with atypical work schedules. That applied to me because I was covering the news. I simply added my name to a waiting list at the right time. The system was purely first-come, first-served.

That child care centre gave me seven years of peace of mind. I could see that my children were learning and that their tastes were developing thanks to healthy lunches. However, even back then, there were long waiting lists, and some of my lower-income colleagues were not as lucky as I was. The Quebec model is not equitable. That is a lesson Canada should learn from.

The same problem will arise in other provinces. I believe that until there are enough spaces for all children from all walks of life and all neighbourhoods, the principle of universality is unfair if it doesn’t take income into account. I think it’s essential to give priority to less fortunate families. As it stands, the system will provide a daycare space at $8.85 a day to a doctor earning $300,000 if she registers before an orderly who earns six or seven times less than that.

In 2015, the Quebec government abolished the flat rate and charged higher rates to parents with higher incomes, but that reform was later abandoned because of an election campaign. In short, we went back to square one.

The Quebec example illustrates the challenges and the adjustments that were needed along the way, just as they will definitely be needed elsewhere in Canada. Fortunately, the Quebec government has recognized the inequity of access to reduced-contribution spaces and is working to address it. The legislation was amended two years ago to ensure that priority for subsidized child care services is given to children in precarious socio-economic circumstances.

Despite these challenges, I would remind the chamber that the Quebec model has contributed to significant advances in Quebec society, particularly for the middle class.

In 2022, 88% of Quebec women between 25 and 54 years of age were active in the workforce, compared to an average of 84% in the other provinces. Over the years, mothers of young children have been returning to the workforce faster, due in part to good‑quality, affordable daycare. In 25 years, the number of daycare spaces has climbed from 79,000 to 307,000, including 237,000 subsidized spaces. That is a huge increase.

The second thing in the bill that struck me is the annual report that the federal government will be required to prepare. The report has to contain a summary of the progress made in the provincial systems and information about the quality, availability, affordability, accessibility and inclusiveness of child care services.

The federal public servants who answered our questions at a recent briefing on Bill C-35 were unequivocal: They are depending on the provinces to provide the evidence needed to carry out a real assessment. This evidence must show not only how many spaces costing $10 or less per day were created in each province, but also how many families are still on waiting lists.

Obviously, each province already has its own waiting list system. Some don’t even have a waiting list. With this in mind, how can we evaluate the effectiveness of federal investments?

I am going to end by sharing some words from the November 2021 brief prepared by the Conseil du statut de la femme du Québec, which identifies the primary shortcomings that should be corrected in Quebec’s model. To meet the needs of all women, child care services must take into account mothers with variable work schedules, women with precarious immigration status, and poorer and more vulnerable women.

These are equity issues that have no doubt already been identified in other provinces and territories, but they are difficult to resolve. I hope that other provinces can benefit from Quebec’s experience and that Canadian families — especially the less fortunate ones — can fully benefit from the new program put in place by Bill C-35.

Thank you.

[English]

Hon. Julie Miville-Dechêne: I have a question for you, senator. I am not an expert in monetary policy, but you made several references to the Australian example. These days, Australia is referred to for all sorts of examples. In this case, did having a mandate that you consider to be more balanced between prosperity and the fight against inflation have a measurable impact on monetary policy? For example, is Australia less likely than Canada to deal with inflation by raising interest rates? Is it possible to see whether this model has already had an impact?

Senator Bellemare: Thank you for that excellent question, senator. Unfortunately, I can’t say whether there’s been any impact in Australia.

What I can tell you, however, is that in the United States, there has obviously been an impact. The United States also has a dual mandate, specifically price stability and full employment. Pierre Fortin has been working on this issue, and I had the honour and opportunity to speak with Janet Yellen, who was chair of the Federal Reserve Board just before being appointed Treasury Secretary by President Biden. She told me this could explain why the unemployment rate was often much higher in Canada than in the United States in the 1980s and 1990s.

I examined this issue in a book I published, but it hasn’t been updated for the 1980s and 1990s. It’s clear that Canada didn’t increase its productivity as much as it could have, because of its strict monetary policy, but I didn’t do that kind of regression analysis. I compared the statistics for countries with dual mandates, and I studied the matter of Canada’s stringency. As for Australia, I can’t answer your question. Thank you.