SCYR Committee Meeting

SUB-COMMITTEE ON CHILDREN AND YOUTH AT RISK OF THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT AND THE STATUS OF PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES

SOUS-COMITÉ SUR LES ENFANTS ET JEUNES À RISQUE DU COMITÉ PERMANENT DES RESOURCES HUMAINES ET DE LA CONDITION DES PERSONNES HANDICAPÉES

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Tuesday, December 7, 1999

• 1108

[English]

The Chair (Mr. John Godfrey (Don Valley West, Lib.)): Welcome, everybody, to our Subcommittee on Children and Youth at Risk. We are grateful to the main committee for not meeting today, which allows us to take their spot.

[Translation]

I would like to extend a warm welcome to Jocelyne Tougas. We now know each other very well.

[English]

As well, from the Caledon Institute, we have Ken Battle and Sherri Torjman. And we also have Laurel Rothman and Martha Friendly from.... Well, it depends on which hats they're wearing.

What hat are you wearing today?

Ms. Martha Friendly (Coordinator, Child Care Resource and Research Unit, Centre for Urban and Community Studies, University of Toronto): I'm going to be wearing the University of Toronto hat.

The Chair: All right.

[Translation]

Will we have lunch?

The Clerk of the Committee: Yes,

[English]

when you want it.

The Chair: Okay.

By way of bribe, we will be having a light lunch served to us, so we'll do this in style.

Mr. Peter Adams (Peterborough, Lib.): It's an excellent lunch. Our motto is “If you feed them, they will come”.

The Chair: That's right. So we thank the chairman of the main committee for his enormous generosity on our behalf in underwriting the lunch.

• 1110

Let me remind you what we're trying to do. We have a mandate from the main committee to try to come up with some recommendations to it before the Christmas break on things we might wish to suggest for the upcoming February budget in terms of a children's budget.

The task this morning is to understand perhaps the relationship between that children's budget and what elements it should contain, which is what I'm hoping our guests are going to reflect on, and the longer-term target of helping to get a national action plan on children signed off by the federal government and the provinces by December 2000.

So partly it's the relationship between a children's budget in February and a national action plan in December that we're here to talk about. I hope that's what everybody else thinks we're going to talk about too. Everybody is nodding.

Last week, very helpfully, we had Richard Shillington talk to us about clawbacks and taxes generally.

Without further ado, I'm going to ask our witnesses, in the order in which they appear on our order of the day, from Caledon Institute of Social Policy, Ken Battle and Sherri Torjman, to give us their views and reflections. Welcome.

Mr. Ken Battle (President, Caledon Institute of Social Policy): Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the committee for inviting us to appear.

I think we are going to respond to the task you've just laid out. We've been working on this issue for a number of years, probably, but most recently we've put out a couple of reports in kind of an ongoing series on developing family policy. I want to make a couple of general points before we go into the package.

We have six major policy areas that we think should be addressed in the forthcoming budget and that are fundamental to family policy as it unfolds. Certainly in our vision of family policy, it's something that is not going to be achieved any time soon. I think we are talking about an ongoing project that's going to take a number of years to get anywhere near where at least Caledon would like it to be.

In terms of the package of proposals we're recommending be part of the family policy, there are three characteristics that we think should be in the budget. They're the three characteristics, or features or standards, whatever you want to call them, around which we moulded our own proposals. One is that our package is balanced. It's a balance of spending and tax cuts. It focuses on families with children, but it also talks about tax relief for childless couples and for single people.

In terms of families, it argues for the need for a mix of income and services. Even within the income portion, it talks about the need for support to families through several different vehicles.

It's targeted in a broad sense, but very much targeted. We think it's important to target, because we're not in any kind of post-deficit nirvana yet that I've seen. Money still seems to count, and choices still have to be made.

The balance of our package of proposals would favour low-income and middle-income families with children, both through our recommendations for a national child development fund to support early childhood education services, which we can see quite broadly, and also through our child benefit and tax proposals. But it still is a package that benefits all taxpayers. We think it's important that family policy cannot be looked at as somehow separate from tax policy more generally. It's absolutely integral to it.

Finally, the underlying theme of our proposals is that they're looking at real changes through structural means. It's all too easy to say, “Well, what's in the next budget? This is the kiddies' budget; we've done kids, and we're going to move on to high-tech or whatever.” That's not realistic. We're looking for fundamental structural changes on both the services and the income side. We'll underlie those structural changes as we go through our proposals.

• 1115

Our package has six elements, and we're really going to focus on five of those six. The one we're not going to talk about much is the extension of parental leave benefits through EI. We have proposed that EI maternity and parental benefits be doubled as a first step, and in fact the government has done that. This is the package we put forward before that was announced, so that part of our package has been dealt with, although we think it's only a start.

With the growth of self-employed and part-time work, and with the restrictions on EI as a delivery vehicle, there are still a lot of issues to be resolved in parental leave, but we don't want to focus on that today. We do want to focus on five other areas. Two of them are major proposals about the child tax benefit, which I'll speak about. Another one is re-indexation of the tax system. The third one is on changes to tax brackets, and the final one is our proposal for a national child development fund.

We're going to start off with the last of them, the child development fund. And we've added another item that's in a couple of them. It's a focus on families with children with disabilities, which we deal with both on the services and the income side.

I'll ask Sherri to talk about the national fund and families with children with disabilities, and then I'll come back to the tax transfer issues.

Ms. Sherri Torjman (Vice-President, Caledon Institute of Social Policy): Thanks, Ken.

As Ken mentioned, I'm going to be focusing on one specific aspect of our view of family policy, which is quite broadly defined. I want to point out, though, that even though we have broadly defined the various streams of family policy, we recognize that it's even broader than what we're going to be talking about today. Clearly, family policy relates to housing, it relates to safe communities, and it relates to minimum wage. All the other contextual areas of policy we recognize as comprising part of family policy, but we're not going to be talking about those areas today.

What we would like to focus on from a service perspective are what we call the early childhood development services and the family supports. We define “early childhood development services” quite broadly to include a wide range of services for children, starting at the prenatal stage and progressing through the infancy stage and nursery school; child care in centres and through licensed child care at home; and the whole range of development services for children. That's how we see and define early childhood development. In addition, there are supports for families that take the form of family resource centres in communities—for example, toy-lending and book-lending libraries, or parent information classes. And we have some notes on this in terms of a broad definition of early childhood development and family supports, which we see as very closely linked and integrated together.

I think the need for investment in these areas has been clearly made. I'm sure you've had many discussions in your committee, so I won't go into this in great detail other than to say that I think the literature makes very clear the need to invest at the very early stages of children's lives. Families in Canada therefore need support. I think it has been very clearly documented and expressed in many venues about how families in Canada require a whole range of supports because of the stresses they face. We support those arguments, and what we'd like to do is put forward some proposals for how you would address this.

I think we have to recognize—and again this point has been made clearly—that we really don't have a coherent system in Canada. We have a very patchwork system other than what exists in Quebec. I think the Quebec model is a model for the rest of the country, but we certainly don't have a politique familiale elsewhere in Canada. I think there's a lot to be learned from the model we have in Quebec.

We know of the problems with respect to access to affordable, high-quality child care and to nursery. Especially for families who have children with disabilities, there are some really serious problems, so we also have some documentation with respect to the access problem and the affordability problem.

What we would like to propose is a method for addressing some of these issues. We have put forward a proposal for a national child development fund. Effectively, we would like to see child development services and family supports being created and maintained by a whole range of stakeholders, including the school system, including business, and including the labour sector. Primarily, though, we would like to see governments playing a primary role. We feel there's an extremely important public sector role with respect to our children, and governments—especially the federal government—have to play a leadership role. In turn, federal and provincial governments must invest in this area together, as partners.

• 1120

We would like to see the federal government put forward a funding amount that would be put in place over a period of at least five years so that there is some stability in the fund. We're proposing a minimum of half a billion dollars a year over five years. We know there obviously can be some discussion about that, but we think the amount has to be a reasonably adequate amount in order to bring people to the table.

We would like to see a way in which provinces could invest similar amounts. We know there are some difficulties, especially in the Atlantic region. There always have been when you talk about matching arrangements, but we're not necessarily talking about matching here. We are working out the details of this, but we don't necessarily see that this has to be a matched fund. However, there would have to be a way for provinces to bring new resources to the table, whether that would be in the form of actual cash—that would be the ideal—or whether it would be in the form of other kinds of resources that are brought to investment in this fund. So we're really talking about a partnership arrangement here, one in which both levels of government are investing.

We have set out several principles that we hope would guide the expenditure, the investment, in this area. There are five key principles, and they are comprehensiveness, universality, accessibility, quality, and accountability. They're not quite the same as the principles in the Canada Health Act, but we're using that act as a model for how we would like to see children's services develop with a very strong public component.

Comprehensiveness refers to the fact that we see a whole range of services being supported. There's not simply one area in which we would make an investment—like a family resource centre only for example—but a whole range of supports that would be invested in.

Universality refers to the fact that we would like these services to be available to all families. This is not simply intended for low-income families. These supports would be available to all families. There could be sliding fee scales where appropriate, but that's again a financing mechanism that would have to be worked out. And this would not be compulsory. Families would be free to choose whether they want to use these services or not, as they are free to do with kindergarten right now, for example. As you know, though, the majority of Canadian families choose kindergarten.

We'd like to see a system that's accessible to all families. In many cases, there are families that cannot access services right now, either because of costs, because they have a child with a special need, or because they don't speak either English or French and they don't have access to the services. So we see accessibility as being very important.

Quality is crucial, and quality control would be maintained through provincial legislation and provisions with respect to the delivery of these services.

Obviously, monitoring and enforcement are key components. They relate to the fifth major principle, which is accountability. That would involve reporting, monitoring, and ongoing enforcement. There would be a very active community involvement in the accountability process, as well as, we would hope, active parental involvement in governance, ideally.

I would just like to say a few words in our vision or our scheme with respect to best practices in terms of delivery. The guiding principles that I mentioned to you would be the principles that we see as actually comprising the framework for this system, but there are some delivery principles that have been identified in the literature. We would like to put those on the table as well. They are service integration, mixed delivery, and community base.

Service integration refers to the fact that these services should be developed as a continuum or should at least be linked in some way, not like the patchwork arrangement that currently exists. We would like to see a far closer link with the public education system, and we're doing some work right now in the area of how that might happen—for example, with the school as a community hub, or through more integrated models of service delivery.

In terms of mixed delivery, we recognize the fact that there are different delivery agents in the current system. The private deliverers, the public and the non-profit deliverers likely would have to remain, although we feel public funds should be delivered to public and non-profit services.

Finally, on community base, we feel it's very important to have active community involvement in the development and ongoing monitoring of any system. Community government is essential, and parental involvement is key.

• 1125

So there are five key principles that we feel would guide the development of this, and three key delivery practices. These are derived from the literature we've read and from some of the studies, which I'm sure my colleagues can address in more detail.

Clearly this would have to be worked out within the context of the social union framework agreement. We recognize that as the major contextual framework for anything that is put forward. But we feel very strongly with respect to our children and the importance of our children, so that we're very careful in terms of quality and public investment.

In the absence of this option, which is option one in our vision, there are two other options. I'll talk about them very briefly.

Option two has to do with investment in a block financing arrangement much like the CHST, where the federal government says they will invest a certain amount of funds in services and provinces would be free to spend these funds as they like on the range of services they choose. Clearly under this model accountability and monitoring would be central, because you would not be tying your funds in any way, as you would under the first proposal.

The third option is to go a federal-only route, where you just invest in the tax system and in tax breaks primarily in the child care expense deduction and in some of the other tax breaks that I'll talk about with respect to disability. A federal-only approach would also include investment in demonstration projects like better beginnings, better futures. We think that sort of work is extremely important, and we don't want to in any way minimize the impact it has had on Canadian children and communities.

We would like, though, to see that upscaled to a certain extent. These demonstration projects have already demonstrated, in our view, their worth, and the challenge right now is to figure out how you move these beyond the demonstration mode to be more accessible to other children throughout the country. So if we had a last-resort option, of course, we would want to see spending in some of the federal-only demonstration projects, but only if there was no movement on what we see as the ideal model.

I would like to talk very briefly about the disability issue if I have some time, Mr. Chair. I don't know if I can proceed with this in a very brief time.

We're concerned that the national children's agenda will leave out children with disabilities. We certainly hope that this is not the case, and we want to make sure that the needs of families who have children with disabilities are included in your agenda, because they have very serious needs. And as the current system is a patchwork, as I described, it's even worse for families who have any child who requires either technical aids or equipment or any kind of service.

There are a number of ways in which you can address this, and we outline it in a report we've prepared on the disability system called “Will the Children's Budget Include Kids with Disabilities?”. There are a number of measures that can be taken to improve the current tax system. Ideally you would be talking about moving on the service component as well, and if there is any movement on the service component, certainly our principle of accessibility would include, as I mentioned, families with children who are disabled.

But in the absence of a broader system where we invest in services, we really hope there would be some tax recognition, especially for the care that parents give, sometimes around the clock. Sometimes they need some respite care. There's very little recognition of the extra care required by these parents. Most of the support we provide is for very formal institutional type of care. For that we're prepared to give some kind of tax break. For parents who struggle at home with the day-to-day demands, we tend to leave them on their own.

So this is really a plea to just include those families and those children in your agenda. I'd be pleased to entertain any questions later with respect to some of the specifics.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

We're continuing in this round-table fashion. According to the batting order that Jack brought, I have Laurel Rothman and Martha Friendly. I'm not sure exactly, are you going to go...?

Ms. Carolyn Bennett (St. Paul's, Lib.): Ken was going to finish.

The Chair: Forgive me.

Mr. Ken Battle: Could I have one minute, Mr. Chair? There's the tax transfer side. I don't want to belabour this. I'm actually going to make it quick, because I want to leave time for my colleagues. I'd like to invite some questions afterwards.

• 1130

There are a couple of things. First, here's what not to do: Don't restore a refundable tax credit that will serve high-income families with kids before we finish the job of doing the national child benefit, okay? There are spending priorities here, and we can't do everything all at once.

If we had all the money in the world, I could have designed a system that would have made everybody happy. All the social groups and the welfare rights groups would have been happy. Everyone would have been happy. In fact, I did design such a system, but we didn't have all the money in the world. We therefore had to build a system based on the way Canadian politics works, which is sort of incrementally.

Our proposals on the Canada child tax benefit and the national child benefit are to first of all finish the job. Get the maximum Canada child tax benefit up to $2,500 per kid. Once that job is completed—and that's going to take about $1.5 billion of a third tranche—then broaden the Canada child tax benefit in two ways: broaden at the low end to start delivering real increases to welfare families that are seeing no real increase under the current system—and we can talk about why that is later—and then broaden that gradually up the income scale so that modest-income families and middle-income families that have suffered substantial losses in child benefits over the last decade or so will start to see some real improvements. That's the middle-class tax break part of our package. It uses the Canada child tax benefit as the lever to improve the after-tax income of the majority of Canadian families.

For the Canada child tax benefit, the refundable GST credit, and the personal income tax system itself, re-indexation is absolutely fundamental. Without that, all of the tax cuts that will be delivered and the ongoing improvements in the Canada child tax benefit are constantly eroded. It's a big lie, if I can be really blunt about it.

The support for re-indexation of the tax system comes not just from social groups; it also comes from tax policy experts. We see that as absolutely fundamental, but it's also the easiest way for the government not to listen, by the way.

Finally, on our tax proposals, because of the compression of the tax system further and further down the income scale, we're talking about beginning to restore the second and third tax brackets, and actually the first tax bracket too, so that we don't get that compression in which more and more people get pushed into higher tax brackets. We have some specific proposals I can speak about, but that's the overall package.

I'll stop there. Thank you for your time.

The Chair: Thank you.

For our second wave of witnesses, I'm not quite sure whether Laurel and Martha are going to go together or separately. We'll certainly be focusing on Quebec at the end of the formal series of presentations, so that means Laurel.

Ms. Laurel Rothman (National Coordinator, Campaign 2000): Hi. I'm sure most of you know Campaign 2000. We're quite a broad coalition, so we've come up with a number of recommendations that perhaps focus even more broadly on the children's agenda.

I always want to emphasize a key principle for us when we publish the annual report card on child poverty and when we develop some policy proposals. We've always maintained that the best way to improve conditions for poor children and their families is to improve conditions for all children. Within this broadly based approach to child and family policy, however, we recognize that there are very specialized needs that must be addressed. The reason I want to emphasize this is that I know some current journalists are focusing on this. I think that might be, shall I say, one of the next big challenges around how to balance specialized needs within a broader approach.

I send apologies from my colleague, Marvyn Novick. Marvyn had hoped to be here, but he had several commitments that he was unable to complete.

What we've done in preparation for the budget is summarize a number of our issues in this policy paper that some of you may have, and which I'll try to summarize. We've called it “Fundamentals First: An Equal Opportunity from Birth for Every Child”. We developed a set of public proposals for social investments based on a life-cycle approach to addressing child poverty and improving the life chances of all children.

I want to say a couple of things about how we got to some of our recommendations. Most of this you know, but I think it's important to perhaps briefly repeat it.

• 1135

While the economy is clearly recovering, we have many children and families who are not yet benefiting. One of the real surprises, at least to us, in looking again at the numbers was that while we still have one in five children living in poverty, one in four children under the age of six is living in poverty. So we have one in four kids being born poor. Without some of the appropriate community supports, there is little likelihood of those families moving far out of poverty unless we do something quite critical and comprehensive, and certainly begin to build that foundation in the near term.

The other concern for us is that the capacity of the labour market to support family providers is declining. As we've seen the change in the structure of employment over the past couple of decades, it's had a tremendous impact on wages.

I'll just give you a couple of figures. There's been growth in poverty among one-earner couples, a group we don't always talk about. We're certainly well aware, as many of you are, that female lone-parent earners in poverty have remained high. There's been a decrease since the 1980s, but it's at about 43%. But the number of one-earner couples living in poverty has increased from 19.5% in 1989 to 25.6%. So that's just another indication that the labour market on its own will not be able to resolve the child and family poverty issue.

The other thing is that market incomes are eroding from middle-income, modest-income, and poor families. We divided the economy into quintiles and looked at the number of weeks families work and the earnings they're taking home, and that's market income, after-tax income. Middle-income families are working 5% more but earning 3% less. Modest-income families are about the same on the number of hours but are earning 13% less income. And poor families are working 37% less yet earning 48% less income. So we have some serious structural deficiencies.

Let me go to what we're recommending with regard to the budget. Perhaps as much because of some of the announcements that have come forward, we do see the millennium as a defining time for the country, and we want to see a defining mission of investing in children and their families as the highlight of the next budget.

But I want to underline what Ken also said. Our first benchmark is that the federal budget would provide a five-year social investment plan for Canada's children, with clear national objectives and targets. If we look back over the past decade—I won't repeat it in great detail—we have suffered a tremendous recession, and vulnerable families have absorbed a tremendous amount of the pain and suffering that was needed to eliminate the deficit. It's important to hold on to the foundations we have, strengthen them, and build, or we're going to be in a much more fragile position even than we have been.

The other important thing is there actually is a fair amount of agreement on our first broad point: that we need a multi-year social investment plan with some clear national objectives and targets. We may not agree on all the details, whether it's Caledon, Canadian Policy Research Networks—and I'm sure you've read their stuff—the National Children's Alliance, us, or many other groups. But there is a strong national consensus.

The second of the benchmarks for the budget we've developed is that there would be a commitment to invest at least 1.5 of the projected federal surplus in the year 2005 in federal investments in children and families to meet core objectives. That translates into growing by at least $16 billion from current levels of expenditures, or on the average, $3 billion in new investments for each of the next five years.

Of course you're all well aware of what was lost through the decreased transfers to the provinces and the move to the CHST. While there was reinvestment on the health side, there has not been significant reinvestment on the social welfare side.

• 1140

Another way we'll describe it is that we see our proposals within the balance of 50% of the net surplus for social investments in children and families, and the other 50% of the net surplus would be available for other national priorities. So we're acknowledging.... We see that our proposals, as part of the 50%, would include both income measures and service measures.

We do have a proposal for the child benefit. We're recommending that we improve the benefits so that for all low-income families, we achieve a 50% reduction in the depth and level of child poverty by 2005. We're calculating that in order to do that, we need a benefit of closer to $4,000 a year.

I just want to make a couple of points; we can talk later about the details. European countries that have invested more over the years in income security as well as child care, which we may hear about later, do have significantly lower levels of child and family poverty. So it's quite doable.

We also want to establish the principle of intergenerational equity. Social incomes for families with children should be no less than social incomes for seniors.

I'll just provide a couple of other facts. You can tell me where I am on the time scale, Mr. Chair.

In 1996 the lone mother with one child was provided an average social assistance income across the country of $12,300. We don't often say those words out loud. I had to go back and look at it myself. In 1998 the senior couple had an average income floor of $18,300.

To summarize, we're proposing that we come up with a minimum income floor for lone mothers with children who are not expected to be in the labour market. Furthermore, as lone mothers on social assistance do move into the labour market, the expectation should only be there if quality child care services are available to support that labour force participation. We're not seeing that happen in sufficient or adequate or accountable ways across the country with the...let's call it modest money reinvested as a result of the child benefit.

I'll go on. Our fourth benchmark is to commit the federal government to national investments to establish a basic foundation of early childhood development services, not unlike what Caledon has outlined. I won't go into the details. What we underlined is there needs to be a broad framework, with principles within which the federal government can negotiate bilateral agreements with the provinces and territories.

And as we have said in our meetings with a number of your colleagues, there needs to be serious money on the table, so that during this year of negotiation on an early childhood development plan, the provinces in fact will weigh in and move in good faith toward investments.

We are also saying there needs to be national investment in affordable housing. Specifically, we support the proposal of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, which is saying we need 20,000 units a year, with an investment of approximately $2 billion.

I talked about our proposals on the child tax benefit. I should say also that our proposals go up to support modest-income and middle-income families.

On post-secondary, we're recommending national investments through the provinces to freeze and lower tuition for post-secondary studies.

And we're recommending that the federal government establish with the provinces a commission to develop strategies to improve the availability of good jobs in this country. We need a serious look at the labour market and what it can produce.

Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Martha Friendly.

Ms. Martha Friendly: Thank you all for inviting me once again. I've been here before, and once more into the breach. I'm very happy to be here.

I want to make three points about the national children's agenda, or family policy. I was really pleased to hear Caledon talking about family policy, not merely about a national children's agenda, which is a kind of brand name for what's actually happening. So the remarks I'm going to be making really are aimed at the idea of creating a family policy, which we lack in most of Canada, except for Quebec, as Jocelyne will talk about.

• 1145

I want to talk about three things. I was madly crossing out things that everybody else has talked about, because there's a great deal of overlap. The first thing I want to talk about is what we've learned over the last year, some of the overarching themes we've learned through all of our consultations and discussions about a national children's agenda, particularly in the last year or two, but really over the last twenty years. I think some of what we've learned, some of our consensus, is quite evidence-based, and we can talk about that in the question period.

I want to emphasize again that family policy must serve all families, not only some families. Among the pieces of evidence, some of the reasons that I think are often overlooked have to do with social cohesion and social solidarity among people in this country. I think that's one of the things that's absolutely critical from the point of view of a vision of how we see ourselves. I think there's a lot of erosion of those kinds of ideas that were very much part of the Canadian picture when I immigrated here.

Again, any kind of a national children's agenda must include a policy mix—and I think Ken outlined this very well. I think there are a number of ways to look at this. The most common way in which we've been looking at it is as a mix of income and services, and I'm going to be talking about the service side. I was in a meeting last week with Jane Jensen, who made another point about the mix that I hadn't really thought about. She talked about a mix of universal and targeted programs.

Did my handout get passed out?

The Chair: Let me just do something about this.

[Translation]

I know there's been an informal discussion with Ms. Gagnon regarding the fact that one of the documents was not tabled in English only. We cannot distribute it without Ms. Gagnon's authorization. The decision is up to you, Ms. Gagnon.

[English]

Ms. Martha Friendly: I would like to apologize for not having it translated, but the time was very short. I try as much as possible to have my things translated, so it's okay if you don't....

[Translation]

The Chair: All right?

Ms. Christiane Gagnon (Québec, BQ): Well, let's say that I will agree for this morning, since the document is not very long and it's in point form. There's no problem, it can be distributed.

The Chair: Thank you. We will have it translated afterwards for everyone.

Ms. Christiane Gagnon: Yes.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

[English]

We now have the permission of Madame Gagnon to make an exception and to distribute this document on the understanding that it will be translated and distributed to all.

Ms. Martha Friendly: Okay, I would appreciate that.

The Chair: Colleagues, you'll be getting something that is a two-pager.

Ms. Martha Friendly: The point I want to make—and the handout will help in brevity—is that if you look at this diagram here, it does describe why we need to have core community services for everybody but still need services that are targeted at special populations. I think that's a point that's often overlooked. But what we're missing are the core community services. That's what I'm going to be talking about, and that's what Sherri talked about.

The third overarching point I want to make is to reiterate that programs for children are public goods. Because they are public goods, I would absolutely emphasize that they need to be established through public policy. There can be the involvement of communities and so on, but the marketplace is not a way in which they will ever be established. There is very good evidence to support this.

In particular, I'd like to say something about the latest buzzwords, “enhancing community capacity”. I'm very much in favour of communities enhancing their capacity. Some of us at this table have done this many times; as community members, we have developed programs on our own, as parents. But that's not the way you get the fundamental structural changes that we need in order to have a broad system of early childhood development services. It has to be through public policy.

Just to move on, the second and third things I want to talk about are about early childhood development services in particular. First, I want to talk about how we see it, or what our vision is. I think my vision is very much congruent with the other people at the table. And the third thing I'm going to talk about is how we could get it, or what kind of process we could follow.

• 1150

My vision is very much like what Sherri Torjman described, and I think it will be very much like what Jocelyne will be describing about Quebec. What I want to emphasize about this vision is that what we need to have is this coherent, comprehensive, accessible—I completely concur with the principles—service delivery system in every community in Canada, so that we're not having one piece here and a different piece there. Families in every community need to be able to access what they need. I think that's absolutely essential. There needs to be some choice and these things need to be labour force sensitive.

What's very evident from looking at other jurisdictions is that it is quite possible and also desirable to include both care and early childhood education, as well as the supporting of parents within one inclusive service, the way European nations do. In fact it's commonplace in European countries, so it's not rocket science. Lots of countries are doing this, and Quebec is also.

I'm going to be speaking about no more bits and pieces. If there's one piece of advice that I think all of us would be sending, it's no more funding a little bit here and a little bit there. We need a coherent system.

I want to just say a few words about what this might look like at the policy level. If you look at my handout, there's a bit of shorthand that we've all used for years about a national child care program. The language that's commonly used now is much more like “early childhood development services”, and I don't think I have to explain that again. In order to have that kind of strategy, though, it's important to have the different levels of government and community members each playing an appointed role.

It's quite clear that there is a role for the federal government, and I think the social union framework agreement, which I'll talk about in a minute, reiterates that there is a role. One role is financing. I would argue that another role is that at the Canada-wide level there needs to be an overarching policy framework of national principles. The kinds of principles Sherri Torjman described are the principles I would put forward, and have put forward.

This is quite clearly within provincial jurisdiction. The provinces and territories clearly have a role in designing, developing, and maintaining programs, and a role in financing them. I agree that there are a lot of details about financing—whether it's matching funding or cost-sharing—that I think we haven't quite gotten to yet.

There is also clearly a local-level role, but I'm saying “local level” because it's not only local government and it's not only community groups. It's quite obvious that service delivery must occur at the local level, that there are a variety of public and community-based sectors that need to be involved in this. I would also argue that a lot of that service development and a lot of service prioritization should occur at the local level as well.

I think this policy structure is very much like what we have in health care. It's not that different. I just want to again emphasize that nobody has ever said that what we have always called a national child care program should be delivered by Ottawa, or even that it should be delivered at the service level by the provinces. It needs to be a mixed service delivery system.

I want to turn to talking about how we could get this kind of system and what the process is. There are four things I want to talk about here. One is that it needs to be SUFA-friendly; that is, it needs to conform to the social union framework agreement, obviously. The SUFA, signed by the federal government and nine provinces, now frames the form and content of the national children's agenda that's on the table. The national children's agenda will be the first test of whether this agreement will function to ensure that the best interests of Canadians can be addressed.

One of the key roles identified for the federal government by this agreement is a spending role. As each year's federal budget establishes and signals the Government of Canada's agenda for the year, the 2000 budget will be a visible step in moving the national children's agenda from rhetoric to action. Of course that's why I'll be recommending that the federal government needs to put money on the table, but I haven't come to that yet.

• 1155

The principles of SUFA are also important in the process. Some of the pertinent ones are on this handout. A number of them are important, but the one that I think is most important is the last one on my list, which reads:

Ensur(ing) access for all Canadians, wherever they live or move in Canada, to essential social programs and services of reasonably comparable quality.

The Quebec child care system really changes the dynamics around this in the rest of Canada. The best way I can put it is to quote from an article written by André Picard for the Globe and Mail's “Family Matters” series on the Quebec family policy. The last sentence quoted one of the parents interviewed for the article as saying “If the people in the rest of Canada really understood what we have, they'd be screaming for it also.”

What in fact is starting to happen around the country is that early childhood advocacy groups are taking this up. B.C. child care advocates are calling for a Quebec-style child care system in British Columbia. The Manitoba group has told me they're going to do the same thing in January. I think it's going to catch on. So that's very important as far as SUFA is concerned.

The other thing that concerns me about SUFA is that there's a lot of talk in it about accountability. The way it's been designed, unless the commitments in it are met—the commitments to public accountability, to transparency, to including groups like us, in fact, in the discussions—then I think it's a real infringement on the democratic process in Canada. We can talk about that afterwards, but I see very little sign that the commitments to accountability are being met in SUFA.

The next thing I want to mention is that I think there are some scenarios by which this early childhood development services fund or strategy could be put on the table. I've put that in my handout. I won't go into it, because I think my time is running out. We could talk about that later. Quite a few steps need to be taken in order to have a real scenario, but I don't think we're even entering the first step of this scenario.

For a last point about SUFA, I just want to mention that I did go before the finance committee during the pre-budget hearings. It didn't do very much good, obviously, because they seem to be recommending more tax cuts. Well, we did have a good hearing. It was a fairly good discussion, actually.

At any rate, I did recommend at those hearings that since the throne speech had made a commitment to having an agreement on early childhood development one year from now, then putting money on the table for the federal government was within the realm of possibility. I proposed two different ways in which that could happen and that seemed to have some precedents or whatever.

First, although I don't know if we talked about this specifically, when the child benefit was being negotiated money was put on the table in the federal budget while the negotiations were under way. It made the negotiations actually happen. It made the provinces actually participate in a full way. I would like to know why that's not a possibility here.

With regard to the second possibility, being a bit of a child care historian I thought about the many failed efforts to have a national child care program. I'd like to point out that when we had the last Liberal-initiated task force in the early eighties, the one that's always called the Katie Cooke task force, they produced a very good document. You can find it on remainder tables in bookstores all around Canada. I own five copies of it myself, which I lend to students all the time. One of the things they recommended in order to get the federal-provincial negotiations going was the giving of what they called “good-faith grants” from the federal government.

A formula was proposed whereby the federal government would actually give money to the provinces to strengthen their existing child care situations—and they called it “child care” in those days, but they meant pretty much the same thing as we do today—in order to really get the ball rolling. It would show, in good faith, the federal government was serious about it.

So I'd like to put out those two possibilities and reiterate that it's absolutely essential that the federal government play its role and put money on the table.

• 1200

Again, you can look at my handout. I've made a little graph of provincial budget spending on regulated child care in the 1990s. I've collected this information from the provinces. What's really interesting about it—and I was quite surprised to see this—is that, as you can see, after 1995 the provinces started spending money on regulated child care. For nine of the twelve jurisdictions, their spending increased after 1995. This was at the same time that CAP was dumped, and the CHST, and so on. I think that's quite interesting.

This is not accounted for by the reinvestment strategy of the national child benefit. That came in later, and it's much smaller than some of these increases. So that's interesting.

I guess my time is running out. I'm going to start wrapping up here. Don't laugh.

Before I conclude, I want to say that all of us collectively, many people in the early childhood field, have put lots of evidence on the table with regard to why we should do this. Economic evidence as to why we should invest in early childhood development, health studies for parents and children, mothers' employment, education—all those kinds of things are falling on deaf ears. The investment arguments somehow aren't being heard.

The thing I'm particularly interested in and that I don't think we talk about enough in Canada is the human rights perspective. This is a very common discussion in European countries. Some of it has been motivated by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, in which Canada has played a very public role. We don't talk about these programs in terms of human rights and children's rights in Canada.

Interestingly, early childhood development services have human rights components for children, certainly for women, under the women's covenants of the United Nations, and figure into such things as the Salamanca agreement on education. I think you can find many international rationales for the rights agenda.

This year Canada is scheduled to report to the UN on its progress on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. I think Canada is failing abysmally in this particular area. Child care and early childhood education are very specifically mentioned in a number of articles.

I personally am going to take up this issue, because if we sign international agreements, I really think we should either make an attempt to meet them or take our names off them. I mean, that's another way to look at it. Maybe our name shouldn't be on it if we're not going to do it.

I think this is a matter of political will. It seems to me that with the national children's agenda, there will be some type of children's budget in 2000. I guess the message I would like to send to both federal and provincial policy-makers is that in fact a national children's agenda and a year 2000 federal children's budget without a serious commitment to early childhood development services and child care will have no credibility with social policy groups, and I would hope with the public as well.

Here are the things that I don't think we should do. I don't think we should have any more bits and pieces. I think we've had enough bits and pieces that don't really seem to be adding up to very much. I think we're clearly getting less bang for our buck than we could be if we actually had better public policy. I think we need fundamental structural changes.

Another thing we clearly shouldn't do is assume that money translates into services. There's no evidence that it does, certainly in the area of early childhood development services.

I also think we shouldn't follow any strategies that don't allow us to have a national view of this. I don't think we need any more strategies that allow—with apologies to my colleagues from Quebec.... I mean, we could have a discussion about what the differences are, but some of us in the rest of the country, unfortunately, are left with rogue governments that really aren't going to deliver on anything that is of value to their citizens.

I think we're in a really bad state, particularly in Ontario. For most of Canada, we need to have the checks and balances of having the two orders of government both paying attention to what's happening to our citizens. I feel quite strongly that we need to have a national approach, and a Quebec approach, to early childhood development services.

• 1205

I want to close with a conversation I had with a friend of mine the other day. We were both parents in a cooperative child care program, so we're very good friends, although she now works on environmental issues as a producer for the CBC. We were talking about the state of things in Canada, and I was saying my usual things about how this issue of child care seems to be falling on deaf ears. She said, you know, it's so odd; if we're such a good country, why do we not have early childhood services for young children? Why don't we have these things? What's the reason?

So I guess I'd like to put that to you guys on the committee. You're the policy-makers who are sympathetic to this. Why don't we have these things? What's the reason?

I don't know how to answer people at this point. The deficit isn't looming the way it used to. We have the money. The question is, will we ever have these things? If we don't have it now, when will we have it?

I hope I didn't take too long. I probably did. Sorry.

The Chair: Well, those are excellent questions.

[Translation]

Welcome, Ms. Tougas.

Ms. Jocelyne Tougas (Child Care Consultant for the province of Quebec; appearing as an individual): Good afternoon. My colleague Ms. Friendly always tells me that my presentations are often of a philosophical nature. That will probably be the case today, but I trust that your questions will bring me back to earth.

First of all, I would like to thank you for having invited me to come here to join in your reflexions on the future of our children. In case members of the Sub-Committee are not familiar with the pamphlet on the National Children's Agenda, let me point out that this is an invitation to the entire population. This pamphlet is interesting because it reminds us of the common values that Canada claims to have regarding its children and its objectives in the coming years. It sets out the overarching principles and announces major solutions.

I don't want to give you the impression that I don't appreciate the democratic approach advocated in the pamphlet, but it seems to me that the federal government as well as the provincial and territorial governments already have some viable and proven solutions to improve the lot of our children and to ensure that they all have equal opportunities in life.

So as Ms. Friendly said, the question that springs to mind is: why are our governments so slow to take action or worse, why are some of them doing nothing at all? The more cynical among us would say that basically, in a capitalist society, the powers that be want to maintain the gap between rich and poor, between the weak and the well-heeled, between the underprivileged and the affluent; that this is a way to motivate those at the bottom of the ladder to work their fingers to the bone to achieve a better place in the sun and thus contribute to the functioning of our economy. Is that the dominant philosophy in Canada?

This is not what I was asked to talk to you about this morning. In fact, it is my understanding that the members of the Sub-Committee wanted me to discuss what is currently being done in Quebec for our children and the way Quebec's strategies could be used as a basis for a National Children's Agenda, a plan that the federal government seems to want to put forward, at least in appearance.

Like Canada and other places in the world, we have major challenges in Quebec regarding our children. One need not be extremely perceptive to acknowledge that children have a better chance of developing properly, of learning, of flourishing and of being happy if they get a good start in life; if they are loved, stimulated and properly cared for during their early childhood and throughout their growing years. We simply have to look at our family and friends and if that's not enough, we can always look at the ample research that has been conducted in this field.

Thus in Quebec, it has long been believed and stated loud and clear that the licensed day care network gives young children enriching experiences, that good quality day care complements parental caregiving and in some cases, improves and perfects it; that through play and learning about daily life, day care services allow children to discover themselves and others and prepare them, step by step, for school and the world at large.

• 1210

Therefore, with that strong conviction, and with public support, in the past 20 years the Government of Quebec has developed and implemented day care policies and programs that are the envy of all of Canada.

In 1997, Quebec took an important additional step. It adopted a family policy that integrates educational and day care services for children with the various child benefits. If only both levels of government could come to an agreement, this would also include an improved maternity and parental leave program.

But what makes the Quebec day care policy a model and even a beacon, in my opinion, for Canada's provinces? Here are some of the factors that seem particularly important to tell you about, and I can elaborate further in answer to your questions.

First of all, Quebec massively expanded of its day care network. It has taken steps so that licensed day care can become gradually accessible to all families for the modest sum of $5 a day.

In 2000, children in all age groups, that is from infancy to age 12, will have a day care for $5 a day, regardless of their parents' employment status. This means it's not strictly an employability measure and it does not exclusively target poor families and high risk children. It applies to all families and thus recognizes the invaluable contribution of high quality child care to the development of all young children.

Right now, in Quebec, parents can afford licensed day care. They go to one place, the Centre de la petite enfance, to obtain a diversified range of child care service and even services for families.

The second important aspect of the Quebec policy is the method of funding the child care network. Approximately 80% of the operating budget of child care services is covered by the government, with the fees paid by parents making up the difference. This is the opposite of the situation that formerly prevailed and that still prevails elsewhere in Canada.

This method of funding significantly reduces the financial precariousness of licensed day care services. Their survival and development no longer depend on market forces alone, but far more on people's need for day care and the right of all Quebec families to have access to good quality child care.

Third, it must also be pointed out that in Quebec, we finally started to recognize the fundamental role of people who work in the child care sector. The government has understood that in order to ensure the implementation of its child care strategy it had to support child care educators first and foremost. There is no doubt that unionized workers took the government to task through various pressure tactics including strikes. The bottom line is that their mobilization and the solidarity of the entire network—parents, boards of directors and management—led to an improved salary scale, with wage increases of 40% in this sector.

The fourth factor I would like to highlight is the implementation of full-time public kindergarten for five-year-old children. Obviously, this freed up places in the child care system. Secondly—and this is quite important—it provides a bridge between regular school and day care. We recognize that day care facilities should not simply be a place to park children until their parents return from work. Just as with kindergarten, we should be using the day care years to foster the full development of every aspect of a child's personality.

I have talked about three major principles: quality, accessibility and affordability. In my view, those are the three major principles that should govern all social programs.

• 1215

I also talked about an integrated policy. If the federal government wants to go further than just expressing its good intentions and wants a good return on its social investment through the National Children's Agenda, it will have to implement a comprehensive policy like the one in Quebec.

Over the years in Canada, a great deal of money has been invested in all kinds of programs for children and families. But the return on that investment has clearly been unsatisfactory.

At the end of the day, this is the message we can draw from the Quebec approach: shared values and the political will to make a difference are extremely important, but so are an overall vision, and concrete, substantial and well-targeted tax measures.

Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you for your very coherent and interesting remarks.

[English]

Would you like to begin, Maurice?

Mr. Maurice Vellacott (Wanuskewin, Ref.): Thank you.

I'm probably directing my first question to Sherri and Ken. In part, I guess—and not so much that you might have inferred that as well—there seems to be a bit of a sentiment of opposition to tax cuts. I want to pose this to you: If in fact tax breaks were for those who care for children at home, if also there were the provision of a high enough exemption on a personal exemption, spousal exemption, such that it removed significant numbers of people from the tax rolls altogether, would that be acceptable to you?

Mr. Ken Battle: Removing people from the tax rolls is something we would certainly support. It's something we've argued for in the past because the de-indexation of the tax system has added so many to the tax rolls; about 1.4 million Canadians have been added. The last couple of budgets have taken off about 600,000, so that still leaves 800,000, which starts increasing once again because re-indexation kicks in again.

The question is, how do you do that? Would one do that through, for example, increasing the spousal credit or the equivalent-to-married credit? We've—

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: And the personal exemption—

Mr. Ken Battle: Yes, and the personal exemption.... Again, not to sound too capital “L” Liberal about this, I think we need a balanced approach. What we've recommended is a mixture of using the Canada child tax benefit with re-indexation and improvement of other credits. I think both are required.

One of the reasons we put so much emphasis on the Canada child tax benefit, though—which for non-poor families we're regarding as a tax relief mechanism.... I mean, whether you get your money through a tax cut at the end of the year or through a reduction in your de facto taxes monthly, it's the same thing to families. The Canada child tax benefit is, after all, a creature of both spending and taxation. As you know, on the books it's counted as lost tax revenue, not as an expenditure item.

One reason why we put so much emphasis on using the CCTB is that it's the key to the structural reform of child benefits and, indeed, of the welfare system, which I mentioned. Secondly, it doesn't deliver provincial income tax cuts. Now, if you're a tax-cutter who puts the need for tax reduction as paramount, you wouldn't like that, because by increasing the CCTB, we're not delivering provincial income tax breaks the same way we would if we raised the tax brackets or the credits, the personal amount or whatever.

The reason for our emphasis on insisting that the CCTB actually be the dominant partner is that we don't particularly want to deliver any more income tax cuts to provinces, particularly to “rogue” provinces. That's a term we've also used. I won't name the rogue provinces. We don't need provinces to have any more reasons to be cutting the very child care services that we're arguing.... Sorry, I'm going on here, but it's very important.

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: I want to get on with—

Mr. Ken Battle: We think there has to be a mixture of using the Canada child tax benefit and the tax credits.

• 1220

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: I'll come back to the rogue thing, because a couple of people have made these comments.

It occurs to me that when approaching this kind of thing, the question that is paramount and very important, at least to me, is does it also leave choices in the hands of parents? Sometimes what I hear is that we have a big government mode of things, that more government is better. There is the notion that somehow government knows best. I would like to leave choices in the hands of parents. Are you opposed to that?

Mr. Ken Battle: No, not at all. May I just—

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: I want to go to Sherri on that one.

Ms. Sherri Torjman: Do you want to just make a comment, Ken?

Mr. Ken Battle: Yes. Income security policy, tax cuts, gives people choices—very much so.

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: Okay.

Mr. Ken Battle: You can use that money on your family as you see fit.

The second thing is that our approach to the kind of early childhood education system we're proposing is choice. Right now people don't have choice. We're trying to expand choice.

Ms. Sherri Torjman: Exactly. In order to have choice, you also need a supply. You need a high-quality supply of services. At the current time, families effectively have no choice. They are forced into certain positions. They're hiring their neighbour, for example, or they're—

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: Is there anything wrong with that?

Ms. Sherri Torjman: Well, we think there is in terms of quality; yes, we do.

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: If I want to have an aunt, an uncle, some capable, confident and responsible person...that would be my choice, I would think.

Ms. Sherri Torjman: That certainly is your choice. You are the purveyor of quality in that particular case and if you feel there is adequate quality in the arrangement, that's fine.

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: That's right.

Ms. Sherri Torjman: Many people do not have that support, and that's what we're trying to ensure: that there is a range, a choice, of high-quality services.

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: But then to penalize them in the tax code by saying that unless they go to a day care type of thing where you can get receipts for that.... If I have capable aunts and uncles and the loving support of people like that, or if my wife, for that matter, chooses to do that, and I can't...I find that quite a discriminatory measure, a bias in the system. It doesn't really allow choice. As much as we use the buzzword of “choice”, it allows the kinds of choices that certain bureaucrats or elites or whatever feel they should have, instead of allowing people to make the choice.

I want to go the next question—

The Chair: Actually, I think there are a couple of folks who want to come in on that.

Martha and Jocelyne.

Ms. Martha Friendly: To be clear, I think what's happened in Canada historically is that there has been a dichotomy—and this is very well documented historically—between taking care of kids and providing early childhood education. I don't mean at all to suggest that parents don't play an educative role with their children. Parents are the primary people in children's lives. But what we've learned over the years...some countries learned it in the 1800s, but we've clearly learned in the 20th century that in addition to good parenting, children learn—and I really don't mean didactically—in the kind of social environment that happens in nursery schools and good child care centres and in kindergartens.

I think what you're saying is, here are people who want their child to be taken care of and why shouldn't their aunt or their granny do it? That's great. We would not want to restrict people's choice or to restrict having a mom stay at home, but in reality, if early childhood education programs are provided in the rest of Canada, in Quebec, in Belgium, in Italy, parents send their children to them because they think it's a good thing for the kids.

Kids learn in social settings with other children—my background is in psychology—and it's not that the settings are replacing the parent. It's something that happens that's different from and additional to what parents do.

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: Just as an interjection, Martha, I think we would truly know if parents wanted that—they obviously do want it—and to what degree they wanted it. I think we would find out if people were given the choice. As it is right now, people get punished, if you will, for making that choice in another direction.

Ms. Martha Friendly: No.

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: Do you know what I'm saying?

Ms. Martha Friendly: I think you're misunderstanding what we're saying.

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: No, I'm not. I'm a parent. I have two college-age kids and two younger ones. I talk to constituents all the time, and they're not able to make that choice, as you say, in terms of having that. They can, but it's a financial penalty if they do so.

[Translation]

Ms. Jocelyne Tougas: The system Quebec has established is a very interesting one, specifically because parents now do have that choice.

According to a recent government study on how the new day care system is being used, 50% of parents who previously relied on unregulated, unofficial day care—such as a grandmother, neighbour or aunt—have switched over to a regulated day care service. They have taken the kids away from grandma and put them into regulated day care, because at $5 a day they can afford it. The other 50% of parents are not using day care services at the moment.

• 1225

We can assume that some parents who remain at home or are simply not working have decided to send their children to a day care anyway, not because they want to be replaced as parents but because they feel day care can enhance their children's development. So when parents have that choice, and can access good- quality, affordable day care, they use it.

[English]

The Chair: This is the last question.

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: Okay, I have one other question I want to go to.

I still don't understand—and we need to maybe talk privately on this. I still think there's this incentive—you say it's choice. But it occurs to me that those other people do not get the kind of financial resource, credit, or whatever if they have the aunt or the granny, so I wouldn't call that choice.

I want get to this thing of “rogue” governments. In contrast to her surname, Martha, in a very unfriendly manner, commented that most provinces—and she didn't name them here—won't deliver what's good for their citizens. I find that rather a severe statement. It sounds as if you meant it that way.

I find it rather troubling that there was no debate in Parliament, no discussion around this UN document that we signed, or were a supposed signatory to. There were some kangaroo-type groups that met occasionally—a half dozen spotted across the country. But there was not full and open debate, and that's the problem with a lot of things in respect to the UN to which we are a signatory. It's the government that signs it, and special interest groups that go and represent the Canadian position, when in fact it's never been approved here. I might agree to it then, Martha, if that were the case. But we don't have debate here.

Ms. Martha Friendly: I'm glad you brought that up, because in fact there was a lot of very interesting television coverage of the Convention on the Rights of the Child at the tenth anniversary, which was just a couple of weeks ago. I don't know if you realize that many countries in the world, having signed the convention, then went and had exactly that kind of democratic debate and incorporated the convention into their legislative agendas. I think this is a really interesting way—

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: I'm saying the debate should come first, not afterwards.

Ms. Martha Friendly: However, it hasn't been done at all, so in a way neither of us are satisfied. You're not happy that they put their name on it because you didn't get to participate in a democratic debate. And I'm not happy that we have our name on it and we aren't doing it and there's no democratic debate. I think you're bringing up a really interesting point about whether things.... There is a democratic process. I actually agree with you, I think there should be.

I think this kind of thing should be brought to the public. I think it would be an interesting challenge for the Government of Canada to think about following countries like Belize, for example, which has incorporated elements of the convention into its legislation. This is very commonplace in Europe; there's been a lot of stuff written about it. I think a public debate on whether children are hungry in Canada would be a good public debate to have, because there's a clause that says that parents should be given the resources in order to feed and provide shelter for their children, and that governments should assist them. That would be a good public debate to have.

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: Right, motherhood and apple pie.

Ms. Martha Friendly: Well, it shouldn't be.

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: I guess I would say we agree on this signature thing. There would probably be something done if in fact the debate occurred first. That would be my suggestion, instead of after the fact, instead of just an empty signature meaning nothing. If the debate and the agreement were across the country, there would be the follow-up to the implementation of it.

Ms. Martha Friendly: Well, you're a member of Parliament, I'm not. This would be a great debate to raise in Parliament.

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: Absolutely.

Ms. Martha Friendly: Go to it.

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: We tried.

The Chair: May I just ask—perhaps our researchers know the answer—was there any debate before we signed this in Parliament?

Ms. Sandra Harder (Committee Researcher): There was discussion, there was definitely discussion. It's in the Hansard. I've read it for various projects I've been asked to do.

The Chair: Could you perhaps resurrect that information?

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: In committee?

Ms. Sandra Harder: Not necessarily in committee.

The Chair: But in the House?

Ms. Sandra Harder: In the House, yes, it was discussed.

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: But there was no debate, no vote?

The Chair: Why don't we find out and circulate that information?

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: That would be interesting.

• 1230

[Translation]

The Chair: Ms. Gagnon.

Ms. Christiane Gagnon: I found all the opinions expressed this morning extremely interesting. We will take them into account as we reflect upon the help we should be giving children and what we should be doing about poverty.

As you know, I have published a paper on poverty entitled Regards sur la pauvreté. For six years, there was a budget deficit caused by the Liberals, and for four years a deficit caused by the Conservatives. Social programs were hit extremely hard, and that is probably why conditions have deteriorated so much since 1989. The government promised to reduce poverty, but today there is more poverty than ever.

Without a targeted strategy that extends over five or even ten years, a strategy whose objectives are reviewed each year, we will probably never be able to achieve our goal. In ten years, I may no longer be a member of the House of Commons and may no longer be a position to ask—as we did on November 24—whether the government is on the right track and willing to make a commitment to support the provinces. That kind of support is crucial.

I believe that we agree on the fundamental issue, at least on many of its aspects. You would see that in my paper. However, if we fail to establish a specific target, if we fail to establish specific objectives, if we fail to require that they be reviewed each year, we will not be able to achieve the goal we seek today.

The National Child Benefit is an excellent example of this. In essence, it is of course a good thing—it gives families some support and helps them take care of their children. But given the way it is set up, the federal government is playing a sort of cat- and-mouse game with the provinces. We know that provinces sign agreements with the federal government. You all know that. Yet at the same time, Quebec invests part of that money in day care services to provide more support for parents.

As Ms. Tougas said a few moments ago, subsidized day care makes it possible for many one-parent families who are extremely poor to get out of the house, either to find work or to find some respite without paying too much for it. If we fail to settle the issue of supporting the provinces so that they can offer such services—

The National Child Benefit is based on family need. I don't know what that need is in every province; for example, I don't know whether need is calculated in the same way for a one-child family, or how the funding is broken down between the federal and provincial governments. Quebec has reduced its contribution and let the federal government pay a higher percentage of the benefit, so its cheque is somewhat higher.

What I'm saying is that this is somewhat underhanded: what people perceive—at least in Quebec—is that the Quebec government is tight fisted while the federal government is more generous. Yet Quebec is implementing a comprehensive family policy. How could other provinces be urged to implement the same sort of the subsidized day care system or family assistance through integrated programs? It's a problem.

We know that the National Child Benefit means more money for children. And that is great in terms of the funding committed. Yet on a practical level, if provinces were to invest in a comprehensive system like Quebec's, they would probably do what Quebec is doing, they would take part of the money and reduce their share of the child benefit cheque. In any case, some provinces contribute while others do not. We don't really know exactly what each province does.

I wonder how we should manage the additional funding we want to commit. You mentioned a fund that could be given to the provinces to manage. But the fund should also be easy to manage; it should not lead to duplicate programs provided by both of the federal and provincial governments. We would have to see how it all fitted together. We are losing people here.

I would like to know your views on my comments regarding the National Child Benefit. I'm not criticizing the fact that families are receiving an income supplement. I am simply asking how the provinces will manage it. Will Quebec reduce its contribution even further to put the money into its family policy? Will there be only a federal contribution in the future?

[English]

The Chair: Before we answer, I think I see Ken girding for battle there, but I was going to suggest that I think we'll do an informal grazing arrangement, so people just drift over to the table and grab some food as it suits—and try not to do it all at once or make too much noise.

On that challenging note, Ken—

Mr. Ken Battle: I'd just like to respond, because you've raised an extremely important point. Your question goes to the heart of everything here, and to be very honest with you, it's something we're struggling with.

• 1235

There are a couple of things. One is, as you said, the national child benefit, which is really just a kind of temporary fix. What I mean by that is that once we get to the point where the increase in the federal child tax benefit has fully displaced the amount of provincial welfare spending on behalf of kids—that magic $2,500 level, which we're not that far from right now—there will be no more welfare money to be displaced by the feds, which the provinces can then put into a range of programs and services for low-income families with children.

And you're right, what has happened under the national child tax benefit is that provinces have had carte blanche as to how they want to spend that money that's being freed up by the increase in the federal, the only proviso being that it has to go to low-income families with kids. As I'm sure you know, provinces have done a variety of things. Some of them have done one or two things, some have done a whole bunch of things. About half of them have done income measures, and most of them have done services. It's quite a mixture, and some people are critical about what some provinces have done as opposed to others.

You can argue that one, but one of the rationales we see for establishing a national child development fund is to maintain a federal presence in family policy if it is delivered by provinces and communities, because under the current system, once we reach the $2,500 level—if we can get there, which I think we should—there'll be no more federal money to keep going to the provinces for services, small as that has been under the national child benefit.

So a fundamental rationale for the proposal for a fund that I think we're all making in common is to have a permanent federal financial presence in the services side of family policy, with the full recognition that it is the provincial responsibility for the design and delivery of those services. I think we're all struggling with this; Sherri and I are, and I talked to Martha, Laurel, and everybody. The trick is how, in a SUFA world—I hate that—a social union framework world, can you do that in a way that we make sure the federal funds are used to create the kind of system that we think we should have? And that system has to be one that allows an incredible amount of diversity, because the existing infrastructure varies so much, and frankly because there are different philosophical approaches to child benefit. That is a political reality we have to recognize. We're not trying to force down families' throats some vision of state child care or anything like that.

So the trick is how can we make sure that fund is spent well in a way that recognizes provincial sovereignty, if you want to use that term, in social services? I think that's what we're struggling to do. We can't do it the way we did in the 1960s and 1970s, through the Canada Assistance Plan, through very formalistic cost-sharing. Those days are gone. It didn't work, and it was particularly bad for the evolution of services. It stymied the development, this kind of early childhood we're talking about.

So can we do it in such a way that it's not just another CHST? As Sherri said, that's a bad second option. The CHST is just money that goes God knows where—and we literally don't know, as the Auditor General said.

Anyway, that's enough. I will turn it over.

Ms. Laurel Rothman: I would add that a very important component in the mixture is civic organizations, whether they're municipalities or whether they're school boards, because there are parts of the country where the philosophical gap is so wide that we will need to have many ways to help communities meet services.

[Translation]

Ms. Christiane Gagnon: You know that Quebec did not sign the social union. I'm not telling you anything new. I understand why Quebec did not sign it. Quebec is doing its homework on all kinds of social policy, and is trying to do as much as it can. Don't worry—I am convinced that the people support the government. And it responds positively to criticism: working conditions and pay for day care workers improved substantially after the government was criticized. I think the improvements and pay increase are justified—child care is a tremendous responsibility. Day care workers are the first people to look after and teach our children when they are outside the home.

• 1240

Moreover, if the federal government is not giving any compensation—The programs exist. I can understand the view of the other Canadian provinces, which would like to see the federal government be the leader. We, in Quebec, feel that Quebec should be the leader in this sector. However, the federal government is being asked to assume a leadership role in the area of integrated policies and family policy. It's a question of policy and sovereignty. We are always under the impression that we are well ahead of the boat but then we wind up hanging on to it.

I feel that if the federal government does not provide full compensation for existing programs when the provinces are doing their jobs and the money is truly being spent on the proper item, the situation will be very difficult. It's all about who gets on the social union bandwagon, because we are all fully aware of what the social union is all about.

We must not diminish provincial responsibility. Let's not turn the provinces into children. We should, instead, be walking with them. I feel the withdrawal of the Canadien Health and Social Transfer to the provinces has caused a great deal of damage, because it is the provinces that provide people with service and it is the provinces that have the departments responsible for service delivery, including education and other social programs.

[English]

Ms. Sherri Torjman: In our view, Quebec would receive a share of the money. There's no question about it.

The Chair: Do they have to sign anything to get it? In other words, the challenge stems from the fact that Quebec is first of all not a signatory to the national children's agenda process, nor to the social union process. Is your understanding of the social union framework agreement document that this is not an impediment?

Ms. Martha Friendly: In fact I don't like this whole social union way of doing business anyway, but it's here. The fact that Quebec has not signed it is one of the things that means this could be a real win because of the way it's structured.

Because of Quebec's early childhood program, Quebec is the leader. Quebec has surpassed anything else that's happened, and would have to be compensated—it's quite clear in the agreement—without being a signatory. In a way, it could make it happen as if Quebec had signed it. If it were a different service in which Quebec hadn't taken such leadership in the last couple of years, it wouldn't work so well. That's why I'm so puzzled about it. What it makes me think of the social union agreement is that—and I think this is true—there isn't very much interest among the federal government and the other provinces in making it work. This is such an obvious place for it to work, for all of these technical reasons.

Let's just assume that the federal government and the other provinces got together and said they'd have an early childhood services program. Presumably, if they could agree on some principles, what would the Government of Quebec say? They would probably object because it's in provincial jurisdiction, and the federal government shouldn't mix in it. But I would bet they wouldn't object as much as they might, because they really do need the money, and they should have the money for their program.

In a way, it seems to be quite tailor-made. The fact is that people in the federal government are mostly not very interested in this. When I've talked to other people in the federal government about it, it's like they hadn't signed it. I don't understand what the implementation plan is for it because there doesn't seem to be any plan for implementation, for making sure of how this does carry forward. So how does it become a living document? How are we going to show that it works in three years?

I agree with you that it's the heart of the matter, but I think it would be a sort of way out for this one, with Quebec maybe getting some of what it wants. But the problem is on the other side. The problem is that neither the federal government nor most of the other provinces are interested. That's really what the problem is. Quebec is not the problem in this case. It could work as far as Quebec is concerned, but it's the rest of it.

[Translation]

Ms. Christiane Gagnon: I simply want to add that it's not political.

The Chair: All right. Go ahead.

Ms. Christiane Gagnon: For example, when a province sets up a $5 day care service, families no longer claim the maximum deduction for day care, which used to be $20 to $25 per day.

• 1245

Consequently, the federal government is pocketing millions of dollars because people will no longer be making these claims. We should start to give some thought to what we're going to do with this money and make sure that we don't repeat what was done with the employment insurance fund, namely, pocket the money to provide some flexibility. We should evaluate how much money is saved by policies that are implemented by the provinces.

In Quebec alone, it has been estimated that the federal government is ahead $70 million a year, since the $5 day care system was established. Perhaps the ball should be in the federal government's court. As long as provinces are not being given any encouragement, they won't be interested, particularly those with no established networks.

The idea for day cares did not, at first, come from the government. It was, of course, implemented by a government that passed a law, but the idea first came from the people and the networks. Services were set up because they were needed. Popular opinion is what prompted the government to implement these services, because it felt that it had the public's support right from the start.

[English]

Ms. Sherri Torjman: If there were a fund, if there were federal dollars put on the table, I think all the provinces would be around the table. We don't think there's anything in the social union framework agreement that would preclude an agreement with Quebec and compensation for Quebec with respect to these services. Certainly there is respect for the principles already. As you said, Quebec is leading the way in that regard. So we don't see any conflict.

[Translation]

The Chair: Ms. Tougas.

Ms. Jocelyne Tougas: When I was working here in Ottawa, at the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada, I heard what officials and members of other provincial governments had to say about the federal government investing in various programs. There was a great deal of hesitancy at that time—and perhaps it would be interesting to discuss this matter—owing to the fact that the federal government was investing in programs that it had opted out of five or six years beforehand. It was felt that the costs for the new program implemented by the federal government should be borne by the provinces.

While I sympathize with the provinces when it comes to day care services and any family services, I wonder how they're going to be able to protect themselves against the federal government's tendency to implement fantastic ideas prior to election time, in order to get elected, and to withdraw from these programs a few years later.

I think, and my opinion is just as valid as anyone else's, that is one of the reasons why many provincial governments do not want to invest in programs they expect to grow. I have heard this said on more than one occasion. In Quebec, when we developed the day care network, parents, to the government's apparent great surprise, rushed to take advantage of these services. There was an amazing increase in the number of parents who wanted to use the day care services. The numbers were higher than the government had forecast, requiring it to invest more than had been estimated.

I think that this has scared the governments of the other provinces. And this factor should be included in the equation.

Ms. Christiane Gagnon: The same thing happened with drug insurance, which currently costs $210 million. We are, to some extent, a victims of our own success. This program certainly helps many people, but there have been some failures. Some people have been forgotten in the process. However, if there is not any stable funding, if the funding is not forthcoming, regardless of which government is in power—

This is why I requested a multi-year investment plan, with precise objectives and a review. Otherwise, we are going to miss the boat, not only in terms of the election agenda, but also in terms of people's lives.

• 1250

This is a feature of modern society. Earlier, we talked about family policy. This is desirable in itself. We have to allow young people to dream, to foresee having children and receiving support.

[English]

The Chair: This has been an extremely important conversation, but it has also gone on a bit. Let me just emphasize three points from what Madame Gagnon said, and where I think there's agreement.

First of all, there's the huge importance of a five-year framework, which is also picked up in the Prime Minister's speech and the Speech from the Throne. He talks about two to five years in one paragraph, and a five-year funding arrangement in another paragraph, so that's not out of line with what we think we're saying.

Secondly, there's the huge importance of measurement and accountability, whether it's on poverty of children and adults or on other matters. That's a huge agreement.

And the third interesting possibility, which I think we need to have some research on, is simply on the tax issue in Quebec. The fact is that as $5-a-day day care advances, parents are not able to claim that as a child care expense. Obviously this is going to be a growing sum of lost money, and I don't know whether anyone's doing any work, whether we should try it, or whether you know something about what the projected losses to Quebec are going to be. That might be the first part of the compensation, beyond any dispute.

Do you have some figures, Ken?

Mr. Ken Battle: Could I just pick up on that, Mr. Chair? I think it's crucial, but I have to be careful here, not knowing all of the details.

In our proposal, we talked about geared-to-income parental fees, which I think are very important as a gradual kind of thing. I don't know, but I'm assuming there's some kind of slope to the $5-a-day fee in Quebec—and maybe you can answer that, Jocelyne. If the $5 fee is simply a flat rate, it's an extremely regressive tax. It's a very regressive way of financing.

Now, I understand that the Government of Quebec is spending three times that much on each child, and to the extent that the Government of Quebec gets its money from general revenues, it's blah blah blah.... One of the difficulties of a simple $5-a-day fee—which I can understand has a certain political appeal in terms of selling the program—is that it's a very unfair way of structuring a parental fee part of the financing.

I raise that, Mr. Chairman, because I think this becomes a crucial thing when we talk about funding the kind of system we're looking at. Realistically, I can't see it happening through general revenues. Parental fees are going to have to be part of it. That's one thing.

On your point about the child care expense deduction and what we would do, frankly I would see the child care expense deduction shrinking over time, to the extent that we put more public money into the kind of child care system we're talking about. That could retain the element of choice, though. To the extent that people choose not to use the parts of the system that we see, which are not all state-delivered because a lot would be delivered by communities, one could talk about perhaps broadening the tax exemption so that it is a less restrictive. And that goes back to your point about how it now has to be receipted child care. Perhaps we could broaden that so that there would still be some tax assistance, and perhaps more generous tax assistance, for families that choose not to use parts of the system for whatever reason.

Just as one final thing that goes back to our comment about choice, when we talk about using the system, I think all of us see it as very broad. I can see a stay-at-home parent saying they need a little bit of respite care—as you and all of us who are parents know—or choosing that they want to go to playschool with their kids to have a little bit of stimulation or whatever. They could be using parts of that system while choosing not to have their children in the care part of it. It really is a broad menu.

Martha has used the term “Canada food guide”, because there are different elements. We might want to look at some corresponding changes to tax assistance that I think would have to be as we develop this kind of a system, both from a financing point of view and from a fairness point of view.

Having said that, I haven't thought this through. I'm just thinking, but we'll have to look at that.

[Translation]

The Chair: Right now I'm going to ask Jocelyne Tougas to give us more details about what happens, particularly in the case of poor families. I remember what you said about the time when you were here.

• 1255

Ms. Jocelyne Tougas: Day care expenses are $5 for every family. However, poor families pay a maximum of $1 or $2 per day, I believe. So we have established a second tier for people who can't afford the cost. Indeed, this way of financing the network may be surprising.

Nevertheless, this also stems from the fact that it was very costly in the past. The funding process was extremely complicated. It was based on the parents' salary scale. The way that we assessed day care expenses on the basis of family income, which could change every three or six months, was complicated. We took all of these factors into consideration when we designed the new system, and now the system may result in some economies of scale.

[English]

The Chair: Martha, you can make a very quick comment, and then we'll move on to Peter, who has been waiting most attentively.

Ms. Martha Friendly: One of the problems is that this policy we're talking about is quite complicated. Things come up. Ken mentions that we've always imagined the child care expense deductions as shrinking, but remaining. If you look at France, which has a very well developed early childhood education system that almost everybody uses, France also has that kind of measure for parents who are not using exactly what Ken described: the regular child care system, having somebody coming into their home, or whatever.

There are lots of ways in which you could work out all these problems. The problem is that we haven't really gotten started in terms of developing a policy. We don't even have a good policy discussion about it.

Christiane, you mentioned that in 10 years you might be gone and you wouldn't be able to ask the questions. Having done this for 25 years, one of the things I've found astounding is that there's no institutional memory. Every time we start one of these exercises to talk about these programs, it's like you have to reinvent the wheel again. Then, the next time, the people are gone.

The problem is that we can't even start the discussion because we're being hung up first by the deficit, then by the federal-provincial barriers, or whatever the things are. If we could even start the discussion, if there were some political will and somebody was willing to take a step forward and ask how we can work this out so that it's fair to everybody, to parents at home, to people who want to have their granny take care of their child or whatever, you could do it. Lots of people in other countries have done it, but the problem is getting started. That's what I'd really like to come to.

We can't get the process started. You guys can't really get it started. You're trying to, but the problem is that there's always a barrier that's been put up. Somehow, in spite of everything we know about it, the people who are making the decisions just don't want to do it. I don't know how to get around that barrier, but that's really what the problem is.

The Chair: All right, poor Peter Stoffer has been waiting so attentively.

Mr. Peter Stoffer (Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern Shore, NDP): I could tell her how to change it. It's called an election, but I didn't want to throw that in.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

Ms. Laurel Rothman: We've tried that a few times.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Also, on your comment about the rogue provinces, I can tell you which ones they are: Alberta and Ontario. I know you can't say it, but I can.

Anyway, you haven't said the word “investment” yet.

Ms. Laurel Rothman: Oh, yes, I talked about five-year social investments. Maybe it was before you came in.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Okay, because that is critical.

Not to be critical of your presentation, but you used words like—and I've never even heard this one before—“didactically”—

Voices: Oh, oh!

Mr. Peter Stoffer: —and “quintile” and “intergenerational”. We're talking about people, a lot of whom are impoverished, a lot of whom have low education, a lot of whom are illiterate. If I go back with a presentation like this, they would turn off in a heartbeat. I understand the presentation, but I think what has to happen is....

The reason we're not seeing that debate and communication is that we're all coming at this from different angles. You heard yourselves that there are disagreements among yourselves and there are disagreements among provinces. We're trying to build a national program here, but it's no wonder that the federal government—whether it's the Conservatives or the Liberals—and the provinces are having great difficulty in coming together. The groups themselves speak in different tones, in different ways, instead of breaking it down to the fact that we need to protect our children and we need to help our families.

• 1300

In that regard, I haven't heard the mention of elder care yet, but the strain on families is not just with children. Now it's also the additional, I certainly won't call it “burden”, because I'd love to look after my folks if I had the opportunity, but a lot of people now, due to economic reasons or for whatever reasons, are now having elder care. You're looking at people from the ages of 25 to 50 not only looking after their children, but looking after their parents as well. So in that regard, I think elder care has to be part of any kind of program you associate with the families.

My last statement is that it was interesting to note that the children in the schools just had an election that was designed by UNICEF and Elections Canada. It's a worldwide thing, and 24.3% of the vote, which was the majority across the country—these are kids from six to sixteen years of age—the number one vote was the family. The number one issue in their minds was the family.

That kind of scares me in a way, because what are the kids really telling us? Are families fairly stable out there? I know the diversity of the families, but are they stable? Is this a warning sign to politicians and social groups like yourselves that maybe the structure of the family isn't as sound and stable as we think it is?

Have no worry, Madam Rothman, you'll have all the time to reiterate that, but one of my fears is that these children from six to sixteen years of age are saying their number one priority is the family, and it kind of makes me very nervous that quite possibly there's something going on within the family that isn't up to speed. Because we are parliamentarians and we speak and are at a certain level, we tend not to get off our horses and get down on our knees and actually relate to children in that regard. I know you folks do, because you're the front-line people.

I'd like your comments on those. I'd also like to extend greetings from Libby Davies, who couldn't be here today, and Wendy Lill, our critic on disabilities, who also couldn't be here, so I'm in their place.

Mr. Chairman, I'm going to come to more committees like this, because this is great. I've been to committees all the time, and it's the first time I got lunch. This is fabulous.

The Acting Chair (Mr. Ovid L. Jackson (Bruce—Grey, Lib.)): Martha wants to respond to you.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Yes, go right ahead.

Ms. Martha Friendly: I have one little comment about the convention. In this whole election among the children, first of all, if one looked at it, there was no education of the children about children's rights, and they were told to choose their favourite right.

Canada signed on to the whole convention, and I actually was very concerned and disturbed about this thing about saying to kids, which is your favourite right? A lot of kids will say they'd like to have a bigger allowance, or whatever.

I'm sorry, but I was quite concerned about the whole way the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child was presented to children in school. If I had been still a parent of a kid in school who had done that, I would have actually really objected to the way it was done. So I just want to say that. Of course children chose their family.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Martha, if I may interject, I went to eleven schools in my riding long before the vote took place, and what actually happened was that there was extensive consultation within the classroom to discuss what their rights were. It wasn't just “Hey kids, pick your favourite candy”.

Martha, I know there are a lot of parents who disagreed, because they said they decide what's best for the kid, not the kid in cooperation deciding what's best for all.

In every school I went to, what their rights were, what they meant, was extensively discussed. The kids went home and talked to their parents, and they talked to other social groups they're part of, their church groups, their Cub packs or Girl Guides, and so on. There was extensive consultation before their vote.

Ms. Martha Friendly: Okay. The second thing is that I think there's a lot of agreement among us. You've mentioned that we seem to be disagreeing. Actually, there are all these details I haven't thought of, or the other folks have said something I haven't thought about. Not only are we in agreement, but I would say that virtually all the social groups across the country would actually put the same kinds of things forward in quite similar ways.

Very often I go before committees and this kind of criticism is levelled at the NGOs: Well, if you people got your act together and were more in agreement.... Actually, I haven't seen a time when the social groups were more in agreement. Wouldn't you all say that's right?

I've been to many consultations. I went to the federal government's consultation on the national children's agenda. I went to Campaign 2000. I went to the Canadian Policy Research Networks. The same things have come forward, the same principles that Sherri put forward. So we have done our consultation. We're in agreement. That's really not the problem.

• 1305

As a matter of fact, the political parties actually don't all have their policy in place. I don't know the positions of the New Democrats, the Conservatives—I know what the Bloc's position is—the Liberals. So the political parties are not really part of the consultation as much as we have been.

I'm sorry to say that to you, but we are very much in agreement about the way we see a national children's agenda. People from other parts of the spectrum might see it differently, but with virtually every group, there are variations but quite good agreement.

Ms. Sherri Torjman: I want to make a brief comment about listening to children, listening to people. We certainly have tried to do this in our work.

I don't know if you're aware of the fact that we do a series called “Community Stories”, where people themselves who are doing some really fantastic work in communities with children or with elder care, with respite care or community economic development, write their own stories and we publish that for them. We distribute it very widely, and much of our policy work is based on those stories, because those come from the real-life experience of people. So we are at least trying to listen to the stories from the ground and develop policy that reflects those issues that are raised.

One of the series of reports we just started publishing this week—and I can send you some copies if you're interested—is called “Personal Stories”. We're asking individual Canadians, families, children—and actually we have done many stories on children and what they've done—we're asking people themselves to write their own stories in terms of the issues and the problems they've had with respect to the system, whether it's federal or provincial. We're saying we'll provide you a national vehicle; you please write your story, because we want to learn the policy lessons and implications from what you're saying.

The first one in the series is called “Tax Breaks, or Broken by Taxes?” It was written by a parent in British Columbia who has a child with multiple disability. We're trying to use her story as an example of the kinds of policy issues we should be addressing.

So I take your point very well, and we are in fact trying to open up our work and at least listen to what people are saying, to what Canadians are saying.

The Chair: The last comment is from Laurel, and then we'll move on to Ovid.

Ms. Laurel Rothman: My point was going to be that there is a very high level of agreement, but I want to say one other thing. We are all focusing on income and services, and we all talked primarily about early childhood services because it is the most underdeveloped service in the country.

Last spring we had a chance to do consultations in six places across the country. In most places we have recreation or schools or post-secondary. They may be suffering severely from budget cuts, and so on, but they exist. In most communities in this country we don't have early childhood services, and we certainly don't have them in anywhere near the amount or accessibility that is needed.

The Chair: We'll have a teeny-weeny remark from Peter.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

This is for Madame Tougas more than anyone else. In Quebec, do they concentrate heavily on aboriginal reserves? I haven't heard you folks mention aboriginal children, who suffer the most poverty of all of us, in that regard. Are you focusing on and assisting them as well in your policies?

[Translation]

Ms. Jocelyne Tougas: In Quebec? In reserves where there are early childhood centres or day cares that have been licenced by Quebec, the day care services are funded just like any other day care service. They are part of a network.

The federal government is also paying money that has been earmarked for day care services on reserves located in Quebec. For example, there is money for early intervention. There are, therefore, two sources of funding, but their day care services are part of the network.

[English]

Ms. Martha Friendly: Actually, the one place where the federal government has spent money on regulated child care is for aboriginal communities. It was the one part of the red book commitment that was carried forward. From my work, in some of the provinces there has been considerable expansion of on-reserve child care, run by aboriginal community groups. I can give you that information if you'd be interested.

The Chair: Ovid.

Mr. Ovid Jackson: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

In today's world, where there is so much information and a lot of good information going out and many groups meeting, the name of the game is how to get your message through.

I go to a lot of committee meetings and get a lot of really great stuff. It reminds me of Gilbert Ryle and The Concept of Mind, when he said they went and saw the faculty of law and the faculty of education and what not, and then the guy came out and said “But where is the university?”

• 1310

When we get into policies to do with children, firstly, in regard to the politics of it, perhaps, it's that people get elected for four years and, as you know, it takes too long to develop a child, I guess, from the time they're born to adulthood. But I think one thing is definite—that is, I think there's a certain amount of convergence on how to deal with children. On that level, I don't think we have problems. Even the “rogue governments” know there are policies that you have to do in a good society.

I would put my head on the block.... In any part of the world—and it has nothing to do with whether you're English or French or Portuguese or black or whatever—if you go to a community that's well, where there's not a lot of crime, where they live in harmony, where the kids do well, you have everything from the extended family to the caring grandmother and all that stuff.

I think a lot of it is a red herring. I think you'll find in today's world that a lot of our original communities are doing a great job. There are a lot of communities, we know from studies, where parents are struggling, with the grandparents helping so that the child does well. As a matter of fact, some children do well despite coming from an extremely poor background where they have this circle of disparity. You know, nine of them went to jail and had drug problems, but one kid became a doctor, so how does that happen?

But there's no question that the better the start they have.... I mean, we don't want to argue about that. The problem I have is that it has to be sustained, and I think we've agreed on that point too. How do you get it into the program? I would suggest that it has to be part of the total picture. That would mean that you have to reallocate some of that money from other sources. A lot of money is required to do this job.

More than that—and I don't know if Ken can answer this problem—we've had some dislocation, we've had some problems, and we've had some erosion of the middle class over the last number of years. It's sort of like having a race where now it has become stratified. If we go back to indexation—which, by the way, is inflationary—what happens? For the people at the top making a lot of money, their money will go up exponentially, and for the ones at the bottom, it gets even worse. I suggest that in terms of the indexation there will have to be some thought put into this as to how we are going to achieve it.

That's my comment, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Ken Battle: At any rate, again some tough issues.... I'll take your last point first, on the indexation.

We did a study, a little over a year and a half ago, I guess, which was called “No Taxation Without Indexation”. That was an attempt to take a really detailed look at the impact of the lack of full indexation throughout the income spectrum, and on families with kids as opposed to singles and so on.

Because de-indexation affects not only the structure of the income tax system but also the GST credit, the Canada child tax benefit and, by the way, provincial refundable credits that a lot of provinces have—Manitoba, Ontario and others—and because of course all provinces but Quebec base their provincial tax on the federal one so all this ripples down through provincial income tax, the overall conclusion we came to was that when you looked at who was being hurt most by the tax increases—because that's what the de-indexation imposes—the weight of the burden is on lower-income people.

So just from a kind of straight equity point of view, in terms of restoration of indexation, I think the people who stand to benefit most are low- and modest-income Canadians with families, even though it would help people throughout the tax system.

The stratification of society is a very crucial point. Others have mentioned this, and there's a whole literature on this kind of stuff.

One of the things we come away with year after year when Statistics Canada puts out its “Income Distributions After Tax”.... Ever since I can remember working in this field, what has always struck me—and we've quantified it—is that when you look at the income inequality gap, which has widened in the 1990s, it widens during recessions and then it doesn't come all the way back down. So it sort of shifts up another notch, the plateau goes up.

• 1315

The striking thing is how strikingly consistent the income tax system and income security benefits have been in greatly reducing that income gap between rich and poor and in ensuring that it isn't widening. That sounds counterintuitive, because everybody goes on about the growing gap. The growing gap is a terrible problem, because it's showing how the marketplace is creating terrible inequality. It's putting enormous pressure on government to offset that growing inequality.

But the fact remains that the federal and provincial governments have managed to offset increasing inequality. That's not a reason to say that everything's fine, we don't have to worry—not when you have six million low-income people or whatever it is. What it tells us is that income and tax instruments, like social services, have power. They actually work.

One of the things Canada is good at.... We were talking about what we're bad at. The thing we're worst at in social policy is early childhood education. I was at a meeting in Germany, talking to colleagues. They assumed that because Canada's medicare system is so renowned.... When I told them what we do with early childhood, the Dutch people and the Germans just looked at me like I was nuts. In fact they couldn't even understand when I tried to explain to them what we do. They understood English. They just couldn't understand that we didn't have that kind of system. On the other hand, on the retirement income system we've made a lot of progress.

All of that is to say that I don't think we should get defeatist. Government has powerful policy levers. Income security is one. The tax system is one. Social services is another, as is regulation of working conditions. There's a whole range of them and they do have an impact. They actually work. It's not that nothing is working. They are working. It's just that we have to put more money into the parts that are so undeveloped. I think that's the whole rationale here.

Finally, I've worked in the field for 25 years and I've never ever seen the kind of consensus that has developed around early childhood education. Even on the child benefit, there have been arguments about the implementation of the child benefit vision, but we're all in agreement on where we want to go with the income side and on services. It is a remarkable consensus.

Now whether that consensus is shared by Canadians—and this comes to your point about the difficulty we have in selling things in everyday language—that's a real problem for social policy. I take your point: it's very difficult to talk about these things, to have this kind of debate in a language that people can relate to, especially if they don't have kids.

The Chair: I hate to interfere, but Madam Tougas has to go to catch a plane, and I know that Ms. Rothman has to go in ten minutes.

Mr. Ken Battle: Oh, I'm sorry.

The Chair: No, that's all right. I failed to give the right signals.

Madam Tougas, I regret that we didn't have a chance to get a final comment.

I'm also mindful of the fact that Laurel.... We are also due in the House of Commons within a reasonable time because of question period and so on.

I have Madam Vautour here, who has been waiting most patiently. Why don't we move to you?

Ms. Angela Vautour (Beauséjour—Petitcodiac, PC): Thank you.

Firstly, I want to apologize for being late for technical reasons: I was waiting for a document to be signed so I could sit at the table. I'm replacing Diane St-Jacques.

I've missed some presentations. I'm probably going to make comments more than I'm going to ask questions, because a lot of questions have been asked.

I've been a single parent. I've been at the low-income level, before I was an MP. I know what the struggles are out there. Since I've been elected, I've maybe come to a conclusion. There's a lot of talk about child care programs and helping out the families, but I'm finding out that there's a lot of talk and no action.

Once you're elected and you see how even this Parliament is structured...I see that most people in the House—or at least this is what we seem to indicate—really don't have a lot of family values. Until parliamentarians maybe have family first...I have a four-year-old and a thirteen-year-old, and there are times when it's very hard. Sometimes you just have to put your job on hold to give time to your family.

• 1320

If we have a system here where we're the ones making the decisions and putting together policies and we automatically have it set up here so that family often has to be put aside in order for us to do our job, how can we really influence policies that can help the family?

It's not only politicians who sometimes forget how important family values are. We also have a whole society in this country in which our kids aren't always first. Until we start, and in every policy.... If you look at any policy that governments implement, we should make sure that we do not affect our children, that it's best for them, because if it's best for them, it's going to be best for the adults in the future, because the children are going to be the ones running this country someday.

You don't have to convince me of anything. I know what's needed there. Being a single mom for seven years, child care was absolutely.... To start with, even if you could afford child care, where were you going to find a day care that had space? We need a choice. We also need a choice if we want to stay home with our kids. We should not be penalized for that. There should be a system in place. There's no reason why we can't do both.

But we won't do both until we sit down and say we're going to do it. Right now, we only have talk. We have people talking up here. We can put out all the reports we want, but if we don't have a government that wants to implement it.... And in doing it, I do believe in doing it from the bottom up. We can have national standards, but.... I live in a rural community, and it's a lot easier to set up some child care program in an urban area where everybody can walk their kids there or take the bus to that area. When you're in a rural community and getting 25 kids into one space, first of all, you probably have to build the space, because you don't have it, and you have to try to find a way for these moms and dads to take the kids to that place.

I can see why you can have difficulty with trying to figure out how we're going to put this together. We need to bring everybody together and say how we're going to do this. We need to bring the people, the parents, from our local communities together with politicians, with groups like yours that know what's going on out there. I believe that until we do that, we can't come up with any solution.

The Chair: At this point, I'm aware that we are losing folks, both our guests and other members around the table, so may I do this, which is is something that maybe you can help us with as we go? The challenge to us as a subcommittee, really, is to prepare almost just a series of bullets, which will then go to the main committee so that officially we will have something that may have an impact on the budget before we break for Christmas—so this is a very tight task.

Here's what I would like to do. Pardon me if we deal with a bit of the mechanics of this, because I know we have a challenge. We probably have only one meeting in which to do something, to alter it, and to make sure it's translated to take to main committee. Let me just try out something on those of us who have remained. This may make it easier, of course, as fewer people remain, but I'm trying to pick up on the points that have been made by various members. Remember, the task is to put together something that would be concrete enough to be directive for the budget but not so concrete as to produce either discord or a level of detail that we'll bog down on.

What I would suggest is that we, as a committee, think of this first of all: our task is to suggest the main points of what we might even say is a children and family budget, because I think that might allow some of our colleagues to sign on for that. But if we put children first and understand that they do come in families, that would be the first...that's what we would call it, the children and family budget. I'm going to try to craft this in this way so that I can make life easier for our colleagues.

Secondly, and this is really as much for these colleagues who've had to slip off, we would understand that this would be crafted within a balanced approach of 50-50, that is to say, some of our income concerns can be met through the tax front and some through the expenditure side of 50-50. That would be an overall kind of framing device.

• 1325

Let me just try this on to see if people object to any of this. I pick up on Madam Gagnon's point. I pick up on your point. I pick up on the Prime Minister's language, which talks about a two-year to five-year framework. The first order of business is to suggest that we need not a quick fix or a one-shot deal, where the band moves on to something else, but we need—almost verbatim—the first funding benchmark of Campaign 2000, which is a five-year framework strategy that addresses different components, including labour markets, homelessness, and early childhood development, so that we don't feel that we have to get all the details nailed down next week. We understand that it's going to be a five-year commitment, just as it was on the health care budget, where we laid out $11.5 billion over five years, just as it was even for our strategy on access to higher education.

So that's the first order of business—to get a framework in place that contains the elements. But we understand we don't have to fill in all the blanks right away.

Secondly, we have to have an income component, because families need money. Families particularly need money at the lower end of the socio-economic scale, and we have to pay attention to that. But that will allow us to group some of the commitments that have already been made: the parental leave commitment, the tax cut for family commitment, and the extension of the national child benefit system commitment. There may be others one can conceive of, but at least those have been mentioned and they're sort of in the bank.

The third component would be the early childhood development service side. I think I pick up a degree of agreement from everyone that we need to put some money on the table in February if we're going to have a children's budget and increase the likelihood of a deal on a national action plan from the provinces in December. As an earnest of our intentions, we need something out there that needs to be seen in a multi-year fashion. You suggested $500 million a year over a four-year or five-year period as a sort of opening gambit. Yes?

Ms. Laurel Rothman: I guess I would have to say we would weigh in on a minimum $1 billion, if you look at what happened with the red book that never came to be. I just had to say that.

The Chair: Okay, but the principle of a sum of money somewhere between $500 million and $1 billion in the first year to get the conversations going.

The fourth element is—and I don't want to put words in anybody's mouth—that it is very useful, and I pick up Peter's point, to have a kind of public education or public participation component so that we can do the outreach to put it in language everyone feels comfortable with. It's true that there is huge agreement among all those who've looked at these issues, but we need to get that information out there as a preparation for any kind of national action plan.

I also heard witnesses say that it would be very useful—sometimes it was put in the context of a third option—to take existing demonstration projects over the next nine months and make them work to illustrate the point. It might have some utility if people ask what this so-called national children's agenda is.

And then perhaps finally—and I think we need to work very carefully on this—we need a very useful understanding of the social union framework agreement generally, how it's going to work for us, but also very specifically, how we can, to use the words of Madame Gagnon, I think the word was accompagner the most enlightened province in the land and find a compensation mechanism that would be provided for by this fund of money—$500 million to $1 billion, whatever it is—whether it's through tax, that we compensate them for the tax that would normally have gone to families who had put in a higher claim for child care, or whatever mechanism. We don't want to get hung up on the fact that Quebec didn't sign these two agreements, but we want to make sure Quebec gets the money because they're doing the right job.

If we can put those elements out there, it seems to me we've got something to say in bullet form. But first I want to check with my colleagues, as they slip on their coats.

Madame Gagnon.

[Translation]

Ms. Christiane Gagnon: I would just like to add to what you comments. You have said that we need flexibility. You alluded, earlier, to the issue of the homeless.

• 1330

In my opinion, we have to consider social housing in the context of the poorly housed. In Quebec, the homeless by themselves do not constitute a major problem. We know, however, that in other provinces in Canada, the problem is dramatic. Montreal is not facing the same type of problem because of its home care centres.

When Ms. Bradshaw announces that millions of dollars will be spent on the homeless, community groups in Quebec will be disappointed, because we also have to think about support for parents and one-parent families who spend money on housing although it is often very poor. Their housing is inadequate and, because it is poorly insulated, their hydro costs are too high.

So it's fine to help the homeless because that is a major problem in Canada, but it is important to find out which provinces need that money. If some financial assistance were made available to the provinces and if Quebec had fewer needs in the area of homelessness, it might get less money or it might be able to use that money elsewhere. That is what I call flexibility.

You also talked about parental leave in one of your points dealing with income. If we are talking about leave of six months to a year, as in the programs announced by the minister, I have some concerns. Who will be able to afford one year of parental leave at 55% of his other salary, which is often minimum wage and even below the poverty line?

Moreover, if nothing is done to lower the number of hours of work needed for women to qualify for employment insurance, who will be able to afford that nice year at home? It is an option when there is a spouse working, when there is another income. It was pointed out earlier that parental leave can often exacerbate poverty for single-income families, because the income is not enough to cover needs.

I put all that in my report. Unless we look at the whole situation, it will be impossible to come up with a sound strategy, one that will really help families.

The Chair: May I add two new points to the list? First of all, you say that all government departments must be involved in the entire process of coming up with a policy to help the homeless, for example. You say in your report that the approach should involve the whole government. I feel that it is very important to have consistency from one federal department to another. That is the first point.

The second point is something that I believe you had already mentioned. That is the importance of having true measures of the progress achieved over a series of years in eliminating poverty, fostering child development, etc. That is crucial, so that we have more than hearsay evidence. That is a very important point, in my opinion.

I would add a third point with respect to income and especially the idea of parental leave. Without going into too much detail, it might be good to introduce this whole idea of flexibility and decide that simply extending the present system will not do. We need to think about self-employed people, etc. There needs to be flexibility to accommodate families living in various situations.

[English]

I'm attempting to build onto our little list here, trying to pick up on these points. We understand that, within a certain framework, suppleness is a great virtue, suppleness that recognizes the different circumstances of different communities but that neverthless gives us a checklist to say yes, we've taken care of the care element, and we're working on the health element, and so on.

I hope I haven't muddied the waters here.

[Translation]

Ms. Christiane Gagnon: I would just like to add that there are already mechanisms that could be improved. Take the Canada Health and Social Transfer, for example. Before we reinvent the wheel, we need to realize that there are already mechanisms designed to bolster the provinces in their work. If the CHST is not restored, how can the provinces be expected to provide better services to citizens? If children need care because they are in poor health and if our health system is fraying because there is not enough money—

• 1335

Reforms have been undertaken, but we know that in Ontario the situation is no better than in Quebec. That is what I was reading on the weekend. But the system is also severely underequipped and underfinanced. The same is true in education. All that comes out of the CHST. We are talking about family incomes, education and health. This financial assistance enables the provinces to better support parents.

The programs that the deputy minister presented to us all provide direct support to the public. But it is the provinces that deliver these services.

I wonder if the federal government wants to create this kind of program because some provinces are not meeting needs or rather because some provinces are already doing a good job. But we cannot play cat-and-mouse with this. Later we will be able to see whether the provincial governments are doing what they are supposed to. Some adjustments may well be necessary, but if the provinces are not given support, they will not be able to provide services.

Employment insurance is another irritant that is unhelpful to families. When people lose their jobs, they end up on welfare. With the cuts to the Canada Health and Social Transfer, the provinces cannot supplement minimum family incomes.

So all these things need to be re-examined: the tax system, indexing and the GST. Personally, I had even considered a tax holiday for a given number of years on all purchases of children's clothing as one way of helping families. Instead of programs administered by bureaucrats and burdened by overhead, there may be better ways of helping families directly so that it costs them less to live.

[English]

The Chair: Do you have a last comment, Martha?

This could be a little challenging, since we may be calling you in the next week or so, but if we can get those elements at least as bullets or as a list of suggestions—an agenda, if you like—I think we would be doing a tremendous piece of work.

Thank you very much for helping us to formulate that.

Ms. Sherri Torjman: Thank you for the opportunity. We appreciate it.

The Chair: Great.

This meeting is dribbling away, so we'll adjourn.