Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the opportunity to bring this motion forward with my colleague Mr. Yakeleya.
We’ve all heard now about the recent assessment of the Quebec model of daycare, the benefits it has enabled and the positive return on the investments financially, socially and economically. We also know this system is not really universal and is not perfect, yet it’s been a hugely positive factor in the social and economic progress of this jurisdiction.
The Scandinavian examples, when you examine them, speak clearly of the success these longer and comprehensive programs have enjoyed.
Here in the NWT, Education, Culture and Employment does have a program, called Income Assistance Child Care Benefits, but hardly anybody uses it. The issue is not lack of demand. The issue is very few people are eligible and the system sets up too many barriers.
The income support title of the program sums up the problem. Child care benefits are viewed like a welfare program that is just for people who are unable to help themselves. We don’t handle everything like that. Health care is available for everyone and so is education. Can you imagine applying for income support before taking your kids to see a nurse or to school? Daycare is a supporting component of a modern health system and a modern education system, so we should handle it the same way. Daycare should be available for everyone and affordable for everyone, no questions asked.
Just over a year ago we improved our current system by bumping up our subsidy a bit and trying to make the application for such support a little less onerous and demeaning. I appreciated that effort, but it falls far short of the child care program with providers trained in early childhood development and education that is needed and is being called for here.
One of the ongoing issues is, of course, the debilitating costs of child care, often several hundred or even thousands of dollars per month. ECE support is slow, meaning the opportunity for jobs or education could pass you by while you try to seek it. It is not consistent because child care is typically paid monthly, but if your child is sick or away for some days, you still pay the costs for those days but ECE subsidies are deducted for that time.
Under our current policies, there is a highly variable level of care that children receive. ECE support is for child care business or institutions that typically do not have a required standard of professional training for their providers. Recently I heard the case of a father with several children who said he sent his infant to a child care facility in town here where the staff, a young woman, said she had to have the baby take a “time out” period because the baby squealed whenever he was excited about something and needed to learn not to do that. The young care provider said to the father, “Can you imagine having to put up with that squealing all day?” The father wondered: Is this okay, and is this acceptable treatment of my child?
The NWT clearly needs a skilled labour that affordable child care can create while we spend millions on income support without really reducing the need for it. Experts agree, and evidence shows, that high quality child care with trained providers would help mothers pursue careers, ease family stress, reduce poverty and improve success in school. Benefits that today remain unattainable for most.
Speaking of the lack of child care, Susan Prentice, a child care researcher at the University of Manitoba, says, “The kind of strain and stress and worry and cost, with all its personal and social consequences, is enormous in this country and largely invisible to policymakers. It’s tragic for children and families and it spills over into our economy and our civic life together.”
A young parent recently said, “Thank goodness I was living in Alberta to pursue my post-secondary education because they provided child care subsidies, one of the reasons I did not return to the North until my children were of school age.” The bottom line, continuing the quote, “If you want to retain population, there must be some sort of benefit other than northern living allowance to keep us here.”
Another resident, Chelsea McNaughton, gave the following report, “I never fully understood how terrible the child care subsidy in the NWT was until I moved to Alberta. I even remember writing two different MLAs while I was a single parent and working full time.” And she went on to say, basically she didn’t receive any joy on that front. She goes on, “In Alberta, you are automatically accepted for three months while they process your application, so you can start working or going to school immediately. I think it’s important to give a shout out to social programs when they actually work.”
Mr. Speaker, we will hear about the great things that ECE is planning and the enhanced support of the current child care subsidy, but here are people for whom it isn’t working. The Anti-Poverty Strategy folks, early childhood development experts, people pushing these strategies all call for some form of public child care available at reasonable cost and provided by trained workers, noting the benefits pay for the cost of the program and then some.
We are talking here about the most precious components of our lives, Mr. Speaker, our children. This motion calls on the government to take a serious and close look at the experience out there and do the feasibility work for a workable model of public and affordable child care in the Northwest Territories. I look forward to the comments on the motion. I will be calling for a recorded vote and opportunity to summarize at the end. Mahsi.
Mr. Bromley, Mr. Yakeleya, Mr. Blake, Mrs. Groenewegen, Mr. Dolynny, Mr. Bouchard, Mr. Nadli, Mr. Hawkins, Ms. Bisaro, Mr. Moses.
Thank you. All those opposed, please stand. All those abstaining, please stand.
Mr. Beaulieu, Mr. Abernethy, Mr. Miltenberger, Mr. McLeod – Yellowknife South, Mr. Lafferty, Mr. Ramsay, Mr. McLeod – Inuvik Twin Lakes.
Thank you, colleagues. All those in favour, 10; all those opposed, zero; abstentions, seven. The motion is carried.
---Carried
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s not normal that I would speak on third reading, but I just wanted to take a moment to reflect on the vote we’re about to take in this House on an issue that has been a goal of Assemblies back as far as the 12th Assembly and we should appreciate the significance of this bill and what it has done for us. It has helped us create processes working with Aboriginal governments that exist nowhere else and in which we can draft legislation together. It has helped set a really strong foundation for devolution and it has brought our Wildlife Act, as old and archaic as it is, into the 21st Century.
It will be, Mr. Speaker, the biggest single bill that we’re going to pass in the life of the 17th Assembly. We should appreciate that fact.
I thanked most of the folks that needed thanking yesterday, and today I just want to note for the record that while they support the bill, the Inuvialuit and Sahtu have put written concerns about a specific clause, 98.1. I want to restate our commitment as a government that we will work with them through the regulation developing process to resolve the concerns tied to 98.1.
Mr. Speaker, given the significance and singular importance of this bill, the likes of which politically none of us will see again probably in our political lives, I would like to ask, for posterity, for a recorded vote. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The Member is seeking a recorded vote. Mr. Bromley.
Mr. Miltenberger, Mr. McLeod – Yellowknife South, Mr. Lafferty, Mr. Ramsay, Mr. McLeod – Inuvik Twin Lakes, Mrs. Groenewegen, Mr. Bouchard, Mr. Nadli, Mr. Hawkins, Mr. Moses, Mr. Yakeleya, Mr. Blake, Mr. Beaulieu, Mr. Abernethy.
All those opposed, please stand.
(inaudible)…Ms. Bisaro, Mr. Bromley.
All those abstaining, please stand. In favour, 14; opposed, three; abstentions, zero. Bill 3 has had third reading.
---Carried
Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I ask for a recorded vote.
Mr. Yakeleya, Mr. Blake, Mrs. Groenewegen, Mr. Dolynny, Mr. Nadli, Mr. Hawkins, Ms. Bisaro, Mr. Moses, Mr. Bromley.
All those opposed, please rise.
Mr. Bouchard.
All those abstaining, please rise.
Mr. Beaulieu, Mr. Abernethy, Mr. Miltenberger, Mr. McLeod – Yellowknife South, Mr. Lafferty, Mr. Ramsay, Mr. McLeod – Inuvik Twin Lakes.
All those in favour, nine; opposed, one; abstaining, seven. Motion is carried. Bill 24 has had third reading.
---Carried
Mr. Miltenberger.
