Front Burner - Universal child care: Is it for real this time?

Episode Date: April 22, 2021

Advocates have been calling for a national child care program for decades. Governments have even gotten close to enacting it a few times. Is this finally the moment the idea becomes reality? We’re joined by Martha Friendly, executive director of the Childcare Resource and Research Unit, for a look at the long, winding road toward universal child care in Canada.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. So as we talked about on the show on Tuesday, the big headline out of Monday's liberal budget was money for a national child care program. It's something that lots and lots of people in this country have been calling for for decades. Like I'm talking about since 1970, when Canada's Royal Commission on the Status of Women recommended it. Since then, political parties and governments have studied it, proposed it, even gotten close a few times,

only for things to fall apart. I'm Jamie Poisson, and today, how we got here, and is this really the moment? I'm speaking with someone who is very hopeful that it will be, Martha Friendly, Executive Director of the Child Care Resource and Research Unit. Hi, Martha. Thank you for being here. Thank you for having me, Jamie. I'm thrilled. So I saw you on Twitter Monday night. You said that you were popping some champagne, that Monday's announcement was really emotional for you, hey? popping some champagne that that Monday's announcement was really emotional for you, hey? Yes, when somebody had emailed me saying, are you tearing up? And I said, actually, it's more popping champagne, but there was some tearing up, I have to say. Okay, well, I want to talk to you more about Monday later on. But first, I really want to

understand today how we got here. So I know that you've been active in this movement for national childcare in Canada since the early days, like the late 1970s. And you were, of course, watching when in 1984, the Liberal government of Pierre Elliott Trudeau formed this task force on childcare to look into the issue. Women's movement leaders are now targeting daycare. They seem to be saying they want it all now. They will stop at nothing short of a nationwide universal daycare system across this country. Here's the dilemma.

They want good child care at reasonable rates. Daycare workers are already underpaid, yet the cost of daycare is pushing family budgets to their limits. Yes. cost of daycare is pushing family budgets to their limits. Yes. And at the time, how hopeful were you that that was actually going to lead to a universal child care program in Canada? Oh, I remember being extremely hopeful. It was an incredibly thorough piece of work. If you read it now, it actually, it covers a lot of the issues that we're still talking about, like parental leave, for example. And it actually recommended a program of universal child care

that would build up over time. And I guess I was more naive at the time. I thought if there was a task force on something and it was good, it would become a reality. And so at this time, when this report was finally released from the task force, Trudeau Sr., he wasn't the prime minister anymore, right? And it was conservative. Yeah. Brian Mulroney. What did he do with the recommendations? The recommendations were never used. The Mulroney government let the task force finish its work and publish the report. It was actually on International Women's Day in 1986. The task force found the country's childcare system in a state of crisis. There are two million children with working parents in Canada.

Only 150,000 have access to licensed childcare. We think that this is the key social issue of the decade. Jack London is a member of the task force. We think the federal government in its role as the national government ought to take the bull by the horns and deal with the problem and get the ball rolling and to do that we say put up the money. But what the Mulroney government did was they set up their own task force and it basically did not recommend publicly funded universal child care. There was some public funding.

There wasn't really a commitment to universality. Most of the people in the child care community were not in favor of this particular legislation passing. Ryan Maloney, you owe it to us to come and listen for the families of Canada and for the children of Canada. The government has proposed a child care strategy, but more than half the money will be spent in tax breaks, and to this group that's not good enough.

Women are not going to go back to being barefoot and pregnant in their kitchens. So where it ended was that the federal election was called in 1988, just at the time that the bill moved into the Senate. It was the day that it moved into the Senate. And so it died on the order paper and it never came back. So essentially what you're saying is that even this Mulroney version of a child care program doesn't come to pass. And then I believe it's 1993 then. There is an election, and the Christian liberals

put child care on the national agenda again. But in their campaign, they don't promise universal child care, right? But they do pledge to expand it and pump a bunch of money into it. The Red Book promised 150,000 new daycare spaces and more money. So you can come with this book in front of me every week after I'm the prime minister and say, where are you and your promises, Mr. Chrétien? Yes, that's exactly right, Jamie. Talk to me about what happened then.

What happened there was that Chrétien included in that item a requirement that economic growth would have to reach 3% before they would actually act on it. And it didn't. So they didn't act on it. But it was one more instance where it came onto the national agenda and what was promised didn't actually happen. Right. And talking about that growth, I wonder if it's worth noting the political and economic climate at the time, right? You know, I remember, around this time, you know, 93, 94,

Canada's big debt versus the size of our economy was this sort of global embarrassment, the Wall Street Journal called us a banana republic. Exactly. Yes. You know, I know a couple of agencies lowered our credit rating, you know, making loans more expensive. The mood was very much in need for less government spending a time of austerity. Despite earlier predictions, the new figures show the problem is much larger than many people anticipated. The country is in debt up to its eyeballs, said Martin. The government aims to reduce the deficit to 3% of GDP. We have never equivocated.

It is a target we will meet come hell or high water. I want to move, Martha, to 1997, because this is the year that Quebec does something massive in terms of child care. And what do they introduce? I mean, essentially what they did was set out to make established universal child care in Quebec. And they set a parent fee, which was originally $5 a day. And of course, the government money paid the rest of it. To pay for it, the government's redirected funds from about 20 different family programs.

The government says it's putting that money to better use. They're part of the economic chain, if you want, of our society in the sense that if we want to, the parents to be comfortable in the workplace, they have to be comfortable with their kids being secure and well supported and well developed. You know, we talked just now about an atmosphere of austerity, certainly at the national level. Why was Quebec different? What were the factors in Quebec at the time that allowed for this policy to actually go through and become a reality. Yeah, well, you know, people have always said Quebec, in some ways, is more progressive, you know, socially than the rest of Canada. But I think what was happening then in particular, there are a couple of things, and one of them had to do with Quebec separatism.

So there was a whole, it was kind of a nation building kind of program. For one thing, it really provided an opportunity for children to, you know, really just cement French at an earlier age. And I think the other thing that happened was that Quebec had a champion in Pauline Marois. It was not a luxury to serve Quebec families, to care for care for the children and for equal opportunities. Which was really important. I mean, she played different roles in the government.

One time she was the Education Minister, but she was also the Finance Minister at another point in there. And she was quite influential, and she really championed the program. She believed in the program. And it takes a champion sometimes to actually make, you know, bring this together. Right. And I know in a little bit, we're going to talk about another female finance minister. That's right. Who may or may not be the champion that this country needs for a national program. Okay, so Quebec forges ahead.

And now I want to fast forward a little bit more on the national level. In 2004, meanwhile, in Ottawa, Jean Chrétien's former finance minister, liberal now prime minister Paul Martin, he says that his government is going to follow through on a promise to introduce a national child care program. And it's very interesting, but the Bank of Canada would support that. Most important economic tool is to allow young people to be able to get into school ready to learn at the earliest possible age. Let them be in a caring and nurturing atmosphere while it happens. And by this point, of course, as you and I have just talked about, we've heard this a few times. And so what happens with Paul Martin's promise? Does it actually lead to action? Paul Martin became convinced that this program was really worth doing.

And they went out and negotiated bilateral agreements with the different provinces. And they actually negotiated with, had formed agreements with everybody but Quebec. Social Development Minister Ken Dryden came bearing a gift, $5 billion over five years, to kickstart a national program. It didn't take much prodding for the provinces to agree to accept it. Joanne Crawford is Saskatchewan's Minister of Community Services and Employment. I wouldn't want anyone to underestimate how important this is for parents and children to have to raise the bar. You know, this sounds pretty good, Martha.

Like at the beginning of this conversation, you talked about how optimistic you were when the senior Trudeau launched that task force. So comparatively, how optimistic are you in this moment that this is going to happen? Oh, we were all very optimistic because actually it got to the point that the agreements had been agreed to with the provinces. We thought that was the national child care program, actually. And then what happened? So there was another federal election, once again, and the Harper Conservatives, by that time the Conservatives had become the Harper Conservatives, and one of the things that they ran on was not doing child care that way, but doing it in a different way by giving parents cash. A child care program that actually happens, where people actually, in case of one aspect of our program, we create spaces, and the other aspect, we actually support parents directly. And they won the election, and actually the first thing they did after being sworn in was to cancel the agreements that the previous government had made with the provinces. And what was their reasoning?

You know, why did they say that they were going to cancel the agreements and instead give parents cash? I've always thought it was a combination of being social conservatives and fiscal conservatives at the same time. So, I mean, essentially, they gave money to parents for child care, which included, it was just a check, parents caring for their own children. And they called child care institutionalizing children. And they basically, we were all, I don't know how to, we were kind of enemies of the state, essentially. That was the end of it. When will this government offer Canadian families a real child care program, not one that arrives through the mailbox?

In honor of all the Minister of Human Resources and Social Development. Mr. Speaker, Canada's new government recognizes that different families have different needs. We do not support a one-size-fits-all child care approach as the previous government did. We believe that each family should have the choice and access to the choice in child care that meets their needs. This argument that the Harbour government is making, that this is about parents being able to choose what they do when it comes to child care. Why are you opposed to that? It doesn't work, actually, because if you think about it this way, it's not how you build public institutions like a school or a, you know,

or a health care system like a hospital. You don't give people money to go out and find somebody to take their appendix out. What we do is we put our money together collectively, and we make institutions to provide health care. And if you think about child care as something where people come together, you know, the whole thing of it takes a village to raise a child, that quality early childhood education and care is part of that, and it's part of the public good.

It just doesn't appear if everybody turns up with their little $100 check and says, I need my little piece. The other reason to have childcare is that it's great for children. And I don't mean that it makes them into better widgets, but it can provide a great life for a three-year-old if you have quality childcare. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections.

Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo, 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. Okay, and so let's fast forward again here, because as a political issue,

child care kind of fades into the background for about a decade. And during the 2015 federal election, the NDP brings it back into the spotlight and they promise $15 a day daycare, Tomo care, right? That's correct. It's invariably women who have to make the toughest choices on their careers. And that's why we will get to quality, affordable, $15 a day childcare, one million spaces across Canada. And the Liberals, I remember, they were also promising an expansion of childcare, although it's not the big universal plan like the NDP is promising.

The Liberals, they win the election. That's right. But let's keep fast-forwarding to 2017 because 2017 marks 20 years since Quebec first introduced its universal child care program. And a couple of really interesting studies come out at the time, including one by the International Monetary Fund. And some of the numbers in these studies are pretty impressive. Hey, can you tell me what they find? What was really interesting about the International Monetary Fund, it was in the context of Canadian productivity

that they do annual reports on. And they had made the observation that Quebec's labour force participation rate of mothers had really been boosted by the Quebec Affordable Child Care Program and that if Canada did the same thing, And that if Canada did the same thing, the rest of Canada did the same thing, that it would bring in more in terms of productivity than it would cost, actually,

that it would add to the Canadian economy and that the labor force participation rate of mothers of young children was really needed in the Canadian labor force. Right. I mean, you put people into the workforce, you put more people into the workforce, you put more people into the workforce, they pay more taxes on the income that they make, those taxes to paying for the childcare.

And they spend the money locally and all kinds of things like that. Right. And, you know, interesting. I know that there was another study by a Canadian economist that found that the birth rate actually in Quebec had not decreased over the 20 years, whereas nationally it had. There is evidence at the birth that having child care, accessible child care, is one thing that allows people to have children and keeps the labor force needs at a higher level. And they did come to that conclusion, yes.

So I just want to note here, I know that there are criticisms of Quebec's model, and we don't have the time to really dig into it here, but very basically, there have been issues around access and quality, essentially not enough spaces in publicly funded centers, and then lower quality and alternatives the government provides subsidies for. And I know that advocates say that these issues really need to be addressed. But problems aside here, let's contrast those stats from Quebec with what's going on with the rest of the country pre-pandemic. Because in particular, young moms in the rest of the country, they are not faring as well. The national average of women in the workforce is about 5% lower than in Quebec. Birth rates in Canada hit a record low in 2019. And meanwhile, daycare costs keep going up. And I want to play you some clips from a few moms.

Of course, you hear from women who choose to not work because the finances just don't make any sense. For former journalist Amanda Aron-Shamanovich, the cost of child care was her career. The child care now is not affordable. She says care for her two youngest children is simply too expensive. $3,000 a month. What I'm able to do now, maybe change diet, better than watching kids. And this was not like this before. I was a good professional.

And now I feel that I am stuck. For those who are working, it's a struggle. Right. You know, we spoke to Emile Niazzi in Toronto. She actually works on CBC podcast Pop Chat and she's been on the show before. And she says that, you know, she's taking work that she doesn't necessarily want to do as a freelancer because child care is such a big cost. I don't qualify for paid maternity leave with my last baby, which means that I, in order to make sure that I can do what little work I need to to be able to pay, you know, the bills of living in Toronto, I have to do much more work than I might have wanted to because, you know, I can't just pay for a little bit of care. I have to, you know, there's no payment plan for daycares, sadly. So it means less time with my baby. And this isn't just in big cities like Toronto. Kate in rural BC outside Nelson is a farmer and she picks

up other work in the winter and she is in the midst of this Byzantine scheduling nightmare trying to piece together her casual work schedule so she can qualify for a bit of provincial aid. Daycare determines my work schedule. So when we first got daycare um the center that we wanted to send our kid to that was close to home they had two particular days available and I said yes and then those are the days I went to my employer and said I can work these two days also around the hours that the daycare um is available and so in some ways that like limits what kind of work I can look for. I had a kind of a variety of jobs. And one of the jobs I did this year was nannying for another family with a baby, which it was a nice job.

And it was a different kind of caretaking because it was a baby. But it did really make me wonder about the whole system when I when it made financial sense to me to send my kid to a daycare and look after someone else's kid. And another woman, Bridget in Toronto, says that she has to make decisions around how many children to have based on child care costs, while her friends back in her hometown of Montreal aren't doing the same. So I don't know, the vibe I get is that there's a more relaxed atmosphere in Montreal about having kids in general. I don't know many people in Toronto who have more than two kids in my world. And even that second kid, like it's, there's always kind of a pause point. So and in Montreal, it's convenient. My friend was like, Yeah, I have three kids. They're the same daycare.

I dropped them all off at the same place. And I'm like, Oh, no, that's a nightmare. You can't do that. That's like, you know, you're looking at more than five grand a month. You know, that's just it's a literal impossibility. And so how familiar are these stories to you? Well, those stories, they're completely familiar. And what they capture is they have to make these really hard choices. And I think that that's what's so outrageous about it is the expectation put on women nowadays is that they should have jobs, you know, like they've made it.

And they're not being, they have not been supported by Canada. And I think that that's one of the things that really outrages all of us who grew up in the childcare movement, you know, move from being young mothers now to being grandmothers and seeing the same thing played out for our children. Okay, so now let's cut to the pandemic. So if that's the situation, even before the pandemic, a lot has happened that has obviously made the question of universal childcare pretty central to people's lives in a new way. Because for all kinds of reasons, people's kids have been at home. And one of the outcomes of that is what's known as the she-cession. Women are often bearing the brunt of all of this. The question they're asking is, is there any help on the way? I do think we are going to see ongoing gender divergences in this recovery. You are going to see. And it's not a three-month story. It's a several-year story. So last month, RBC put out a report saying that nearly 100,000

working-age Canadian women have completely left the workforce since the pandemic started. And of course, we heard the finance minister, Krista Freeland, talk about how she believed this was the political window recently. This half century of struggle is a testament to the difficulty and complexity of the task. But this time, we're going to do it. This budget is the map and the trailhead. And you know, we talked earlier about the conditions that were in place in Quebec in 1997,

this formula that allowed a universal childcare program to actually become a reality. And I wonder what you think about what kind of formula exists now. Well, I really have to agree with the finance minister. The pandemic has been a political window for people who didn't really get childcare before to understand why it was essential, why it was so central to the economy. And also what doesn't work about it.

That's what made it a political window. I think it was like a it's an epiphany. Oh, my God. What does this mean if we don't have child care? Well, I have I'm going to have to have a Zoom meeting with my three-year-old on my shoulder, you know, as many people did. So I think that that was the aha moment for politicians who may not have believed in childcare before is we really need this and it doesn't work and we got to do something

about it. And, you know, earlier when you and I were talking about Quebec, we talked about Pauline Marois and her championing that. And so I wonder, when we're talking about the formula today, what your assessment is of the minister herself? Oh, it's, she's, I mean, she's put herself on the line on this. And she is a working mother who relied on childcare. Maybe this is why it sometimes takes a woman finance minister. You know, I mean, unfortunately, women still, we could see this in the pandemic, women still bear the main responsibility, but she decided that she was going to make it her issue. That's major. You can see this in

some other countries around the world where it has taken a woman in a high position. It's been the finance minister one time in Norway who did that. And if you look at New Zealand, if you look at Prime Minister Arden, she's also really championed changing how they're doing childcare. And so, you know, I can't help but think you've talked about other moments in history where you have been really optimistic, right? And so on Monday, we got the announcement that this was going to be $30 billion over five years and $8.3 billion annually thereafter. Here is our goal. Five years from now, parents across the country should have access to high quality early learning and child care for an average of $10 a day. Is this what you wanted to hear from the budget? Is this as far as you've ever seen it go?

Oh, we were, the amount of money, actually, it was bigger than we expected it to be. We were kind of dumbfounded. You know what it represents? It represents, this is, we're putting on the table a really serious commitment. You know, all the details aren't laid down. There's a lot of pieces that need to be done. But it really, really has stated their intention to really bring in over time sustained funding to really put a national child care system in place a universal child care system we've never had child care being sent a central item in the budget for economic reasons before you know or at all you know there's a lot

of work to be done but people feel that this is it. I know there's all kinds of possible pitfalls, you know, it depends on a lot of things. Right. I mean, first of all, they could, they could lose the election, right? They could lose the election, or they, somebody could change their mind, or they could have a different leader, or, you know, it's all kinds of positive. The provinces could all refuse, or, you know, one thing or another, but it just feels like there's an opportunity to make this work. And I think that that's kind of the sentiment in the child care community. I think people feel, wow, this is big, what we were looking for, serious, and,

you know, championed, and, you know, we're going to work to make this work. Okay, Martha Friendly, thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. All right, well, that is all for today. Thank you so much for listening to FrontBurner. We'll talk to you tomorrow. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.