NewslETTERS
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April 17, 2024
The Early Years Study at 25
April 20, 2024, marks the 25th anniversary of the first Early Years Study: Reversing the Real Brain Drain by Margaret Norrie McCain and Dr. Fraser Mustard.
Reversing the Real Brain Drain. We could not have composed a better line to capture the angst of that time. At the press launch for the first Early Years Study (EYS), we challenged officials to do the math: “What costs more? The emigration of a handful of the top talent, or the wasted potential of millions of young minds?”
The EYS wasn’t a fancy looking, but it was powerful, punching against the mindset that was shaping policy-making. I was able to open doors to board rooms, government offices, and international bodies. Once inside Fraser would often literally punch the table to tell seasoned legislators and CEOs, they “got it all wrong”. I became known as the clean-up girl, the one who smoothed ruffled egos so they could absorb the message.
Our contrasting styles obviously worked as the column below shows. The Early Years Study provided the scientific rationale for investing in young children. It altered the way children, their educators, and even scientists are taught. It spawned a myriad of resources. Most significantly, its evidence — establishing early childhood as the foundational stage of human development — led to policy changes that are transforming the lives and outcomes of millions of young children.
The EYS anchors the mission of my family’s foundation. Over the years, our grants have demonstrated the possible. They continue to bring the child development story, and its call for action to new generations of community partners, researchers, policy makers, and corporate thinkers.
In 2001, just two years after the EYS release, the then finance minister phoned to tell me he was introducing a “Children’s Budget”. He wasn’t exaggerating. Budget 2001 expanded parental leave, family payments, health care for moms and babies, and targeted funding for child care and family supports. Exactly, 20 years later, on the eve of Budget 2021, I got another call — this time from the then minister for families. He told me to listen for my name in the finance minister’s address to parliament. It was there, but more importantly was the multibillion investment in early learning and child care that we had recommended in Early Years Study 4.
Canada’s early learning plan is now growing every day, providing children with the foundational learning that will give them the skills they need to thrive in the world of tomorrow.
Hon. Margaret Norrie McCain, Chair Emerita
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Reprinted from the Atkinson Centre
The Early Years Study at 25 just keeps on giving
This April marks the 25th anniversary of the first Early Years Study (EYS). Subtitled “Reversing the Real Brain Drain,” it addressed concerns about Canadian talent fleeing for bigger opportunities and paycheques in the United States. The report’s authors gathered multiple lines of evidence from across disciplines to argue that our biggest intellectual losses occur when untapped potential in early childhood is squandered by public policy neglect.
The modestly produced document has had an enormous legacy, much of it due to its creators. Fraser Mustard and Margaret McCain were not prepared to let the EYS become another warmly received, then quietly shelved treatise. They took its messaging into cabinet offices and corporate board rooms, to world bodies, and onto every available lectern.
The Atkinson Centre is one of its products. The EYS recommended universities develop a reciprocal relationship with practitioners to link research to best practices, and ultimately influence policy. The call resonated with the Atkinson Foundation, which endowed an academic chair at the University of Toronto, and established an enduring partnership with the School of Early Childhood at George Brown College.
Other actions flooded out of the study. The EYS advocated for early human development to become mandatory learning in every post-secondary discipline. The Science of Early Childhood Development at Red River College produces curriculum that is employed across different fields of study, and world-wide.
The need for a population level assessment of child well-being led to the Offord Centre’s Early Development Instrument, a tool that supports government policy-making across Canada and internationally.
The EYS dismissed the notion that the economy was the only reflection of a nation’s status. As a result, the Human Development Index, adopted by the United Nations, was created as an alternative to the GDP.. The index considers the environment, and access to health care, educational opportunities, and a decent standard of living as key to democratic preservation.
The EYS’s findings were integrated into the World Health Organization’s 2008 report on the social determinants of health, “Closing the Gap in a Generation“. Mustard was on the dais driving home how early experiences get under the skin to affect neurobiological pathways that influence physical and mental health, learning, and behaviour throughout the life cycle.
Perhaps the study’s most significant message was the need for substantial investment in young children. Two years after its release came the “Children’s Budget”, the federal government’s first financial foray back into children’s policy. It produced the Early Childhood Development Agreement, and included funding for child care, maternal/infant health, and parenting supports. That Budget also increased paid parental leave to 50 weeks, and added to the Child Tax Benefit.
The authors redefined early childhood programs as “not babysitting services for working parents but the first tier of education and development that sets the foundation for future success.” The message was echoed 20 years later in Ottawa’s announcement of the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care plan, which credited McCain and Mustard with showing “that early learning is at least as important to lifelong development as elementary, secondary, and post-secondary education.”
Along the way, many acted on McCain and Mustard’s call including this Centre, which together with community child care providers, the Toronto school board and the City of Toronto, created Toronto First Duty, an amalgamation of children’s services. The EYS has since encouraged universal school-based programming for children in five Canadian jurisdictions, and the model continues to spread.
The Early Years’ simple but compelling assumption that it is only through public policy that permanent and sustainable change takes place has been widely recognized. Even the World Bank now advises governments that “investing in the early years is one of the smartest things a country can do.”
Kerry McCuaig
Atkinson Centre Fellow in Early Childhood Policy
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August 17, 2022
Early Years Study Newsletter #23 - August 17, 2022
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March 28, 2022
Early Years Study Newsletter #22 – March 28, 2022
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March 17, 2022
Early Years Study Newsletter #21 – March 17, 2022
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February 22, 2022
Early Years Study Newsletter #20 – February 22, 2022
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January 31, 2022
Early Years Study Newsletter #19 – January 31, 2022
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January 14, 2022
Statement By The Honourable Margaret Norrie McCain On Nova Scotia’s Early Learning And Child Care Announcement
HALIFAX — Nova Scotia was the second jurisdiction to sign an early learning and child care agreement with the federal government last July, but it is first to put in place the essentials for a quality system.
As Premier Huston stressed the province is embarking on an ‘historic transformation’. By converting its majority for-profit daycare services and incorporating them into a new publicly- managed system, Nova Scotia is creating the foundation needed to deliver affordable, accessible early learning and care, staffed by a qualified and well compensated workforce.
While officials are understandably motivated by child care’s ability to support the economy by growing the labour force, it was the parents at today’s announcement who reminded us that it is children who are the prime users of child care. Dr. Jessie-Lee McIsaac and other parents spoke of how they value educators and their ability to create wonderful spaces that foster children´s “kindness, curiosity and imagination”. These are the 21st century assets the new generation will need to tackle the challenging world bequeathed them.
Often overlooked among the front line heroines of the COVID pandemic, it was fitting that government officials recognized the indispensable role of early childhood educators to the success of the Canada-wide early learning and child care initiative and committed to real, sustainable improvements in their wages, benefits and training supports.
Families will applaud the retroactive reduction in their child care fees and the ambitious target of 1,500 new non-profit spaces by year end, the first installment on 9,500 new spaces by 2026.
For Canadians it was gratifying to see how intergovernmental cooperation can accelerate policy for the benefit of children, families, and the economy. Together they have created something very special for Nova Scotia. There is much in today’s historic announcement for others to emulate.
For more information on today’s release: https://novascotia.ca/news/release/?id=20220114001
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January 4, 2022
Early Years Study Newsletter #18 – January 4, 2022
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October 4, 2021
Early Years Study Newsletter #17 – October 4, 2021
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September 22, 2021
Early Years Study Newsletter #16 – September 22, 2021
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August 12, 2021
Early Years Study Newsletter #15 – August 12, 2021
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August 5, 2021
Letter: Childcare funding announcement is good news for Newfoundland
Saltwire
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June 14, 2021
Early Years Study Newsletter #14 – June 14, 2021
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April 22, 2021
Early Years Study Newsletter #13 - April 22, 2021
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April 12, 2021
Canada’s Leaders Sound the Alarm on the Childcare Crisis
“A diverse group of Canada’s leaders are saying the time has come to view the absence of early childhood education and care as a Canada-wide emergency and are asking the federal government to get on with the business of fixing it.
In an open letter to Minister Freeland, six other federal ministers and Opposition Leaders, signed by public policy and business leaders from across the country, The Prosperity Project is calling for the introduction of a Canada-wide early learning and childcare (ELCC) system to address the needs of working families, citing multiple research studies that show women are exiting the workforce due to the pressures of the pandemic. Joining the Prosperity Project to support this call are Business Council of Canada CEO Goldy Hyder, the Hon. Margaret McCain and Children First Canada Founder Sara Austin.
“We are mothers, white women, black women, women of colour and Indigenous women. As female leaders, we are taking action because the hardships of the crisis have been unevenly shared. In the world of work, we are witnessing significant negative consequences for women as they drop from the path to prosperity while it becomes apparent that others will never get the opportunity to participate in the first place,” said Pamela Jeffery, founder of The Prosperity Project, a not-for-profit organization created to ensure Canadian women are not left behind in the COVID-19 pandemic recovery.
The Prosperity Project is supporting a new ELCC platform for children and families across the country that is anchored by:
- Shared guiding principles affirmed in all jurisdictions focused on issues of quality, accessibility and affordability;
- Long-term, stable, national funding made available to “fund the services” including the training, recruitment and retention of well-paid and professional staff to help create attractive career prospects for early childhood educators-a predominantly female labour force;
- Ongoing benchmarking, assessment and planning to monitor outcomes across ELCC programs and ensure adherence to the guiding principles; and
- Equitable access to high quality and culturally appropriate ELCC for First Nations, Inuit and Métis children who often do not meet the minimum indices of social determinants of health.
Access the Open Letter:
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April 7, 2021
Early Years Study Newsletter #12 - April 7, 2021
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March 29, 2021
Early Years Study Newsletter #11 - March 29, 2021
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March 15, 2021
Early Years Study Newsletter #10 - March 15, 2021
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March 3, 2021
Early Years Study Newsletter #9 - March 3, 2021
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February 16, 2021
Early Years Study Newsletter #8 - February 16, 2021
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February 10, 2021
Early Years Study Newsletter #7 - February 10, 2021
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January 28, 2021
Early Years Study Newsletter #6 - January 28, 2021
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November 17, 2020
Early Years Study Newsletter #5 - November 17, 2020
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September 21, 2020
Early Years Study Newsletter #4 - September 21, 2020
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September 14, 2020
Furey’s commitment to $25-a-day child care is wise public policy
The Telegram
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August 24, 2020
Early Years Study Newsletter #3 - August 24, 2020
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June 23, 2020
Early Years Study Newsletter #2 - June 23, 2020
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June 14, 2020
A strong child-care system is essential to our recovery from the pandemic
The Globe and Mail
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May 27, 2020
Early Years Study Newsletter #1