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

Province Moves to Reduce Child-Care Fees by 25 Per Cent

Government of Nova Scotia

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Early Years Study Newsletter #15 – August 12, 2021

Early Years Study Newsletter #15 – August 12 2021

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• Also access Early Learning and Child Care Investments

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Federal-Provincial Agreement Will Transform Child Care, Reduce Costs for Families

Government of Nova Scotia

Canada announces historic first early learning and child care agreement

Excerpt: “This agreement will lead to the creation of 30,000 new regulated early learning and child care spaces for children under the age of 6 within five years, and 40,000 spaces within seven years. These spaces will be focused on community investments that are long-term and run by public and non-profit institutions.

The agreement will fund critical services and support early childhood educators, including through the development of a wage grid.”

• Access the full news release HERE

Charitable, academic, and private sector leaders urge Ottawa limit child care funds to non-profit/public providers

Download the letter:

• English
• French

The Federal Budget 2021 provides $30 Billion over 5 years for the building of a “Canada-wide, community-based system of quality child care.” It compares a quality child care system to public schools: “Just as public school provides children with quality education in their neighbourhoods, the government’s goal is to ensure that all families have access to high-quality, affordable and flexible early learning and child care no matter where they live.”

Ottawa further commits to working with provinces and territories to build such a system through “primarily not-for-profit sector child care providers … while ensuring that families in all licensed spaces benefit from more affordable child care.”

The federal position is backed by national and international evidence showing that child care systems dominated by not-for-profit and public providers, are more inclusive of low-income families, and deliver higher quality services at lower costs.

Recognizing that much of Canada’s child care services now operate as commercial ventures, the intention is not to abolish for-profit child care, rather to ensure public funds do not support its growth in existing or new programs. Already established for-profit services that meet quality standards, charge government-regulated parent fees, and are financially transparent to ensure accountability for public funds, would receive support.

Non-profit and public providers are the best partners for governments to build a Canada-wide child care system. The sector is able to offer a variety of flexible, high quality early learning and child care choices to all families without compromising program quality, or safety and working conditions. Expanding partnerships with the non-profit/public sectors will have positive cascading effects for children, parents – especially mothers, the early childhood workforce, communities and the broader economy for years to come.

The undersigned recommend:

1. Targeting all federal investments for expanding early learning and child care across Canada exclusively to non-profit and public providers.
2. Providing federal capital investments for building new early learning and child care spaces and retrofitting existing spaces exclusively to non-profit and public providers.
3. Investing in non-profit and public infrastructure to support the effective planning and equitable development of child care services.

Colette Murphy, Executive Director, Atkinson Foundation
Jean-Marc Chouinard, President, Lucie and André Chagnon Foundation
Laura Manning, Executive Director, Lyle S. Hallman Foundation
Marcel Lauzière, President & CEO, Lawson Foundation
Hon. Margaret Norrie McCain, Founder & Chair, Margaret and Wallace McCain Family Foundation, Inc.
Neria Aylward, Executive Director, Jimmy Pratt Foundation
Lyn Baptist, Past Chair, J.W. McConnell Family Foundation
Gordon Cleveland, Associate Professor Emeritus Economics, University of Toronto
Pierre Fortin, Emeritus Professor of Economics, Université du Québec à Montréal
Christa Japel, Professor in Education and Psychology at the Université du Québec à Montréal
Sarah Kaplan, Distinguished Professor of Gender and the Economy, Professor of Strategic Management, Director, Institute for Gender and the Economy, Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto
Paul Kershaw, University of BC School of Population Health, Human Early Learning Partnership, Director of UBC Masters of Public Health Program, Founder, Generation Squeeze
David Morley, President and CEO, UNICEF Canada
Charles E. Pascal, Professor: OISE/University of Toronto, Former Ontario Deputy Minister of Education, Former Early Learning Advisor to Premier of Ontario
Susan Prentice, Duff Roblin Professor of Government, University of Manitoba
Helen Sinclair, Former President, Canadian Bankers Association
Beverly Topping, Founder, Today’s Parent
Armine Yalnizyan, Economist and Atkinson Fellow on the Future of Workers

For more information please contact: info@ecdfwg.ca

Early Years Study Newsletter #14 – June 14, 2021

Early Years Study Newsletter #14 – June 14, 2021

New Report! Early Childhood Education Report 2020

This is the 4th edition of the Early Childhood Education Report (ECER). Established in 2011, the report is released every three years to evaluate provincial/territorial early years services against a 15-point scale. Results are populated from detailed profiles of each province and territory. The ECER is organized around 5-categories with 21 benchmarks forming a common set of minimum criteria contributing to the delivery of quality programming. This report captures changes to early years services from March 2017 to March 2020, as such it is able to assess the impact of the Early Learning and Child Care Bilateral Agreements and serves as a baseline for the pre-pandemic status of ECE in Canada.

Access the full report HERE

Early Years Study Newsletter #13 - April 22, 2021

Early Years Study Newsletter #13 – April 22, 2021

Budget 2021 Statement

Budget 2021 Statement

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:

• English
• French

Early Years Study Newsletter #12 - April 7, 2021

Early Years Study Newsletter #12 – April 7, 2021

Early Years Study Newsletter #11 - March 29, 2021

Early Years Study Newsletter #11 – March 29, 2021

Early Learning and Childcare as Key Economic Infrastructure

Deloitte Canada

Investments in early childhood education and childcare (“ELCC”) can help put Canada on a higher trend economic growth path. A high-quality ELCC program that young children can attend for several years, where education is provided using a curriculum-based program delivered by trained educators can provide several benefits including:

• Benefits to Children: Investments can have positive impacts on the outcomes for children, including better behavioural/social skills, better mental and physical health, and better long-term labour market outcomes.
• Increase in the Labourforce Participation for Women: Expanding early childhood education can have a positive economic impact through a resulting boost in the labour participation of women.
• Benefits to Parents: Beyond increasing workforce participation for women, ELCC can help reduce parental stress, which benefits their mental health and in turn benefits their children, work performance, and standard of living.
• Promotion of Equality: There is also evidence that investments in ELCC disproportionately benefit lower income Canadians and this can help address socioeconomic challenges, such as income inequality.
• Decreased Reliance of Special Needs Education: There is evidence of the sustained impact of ELCC on reducing the need for special education in the US, the UK, Canada, and other advanced economies.

These gains create additional income that provide tax revenues to governments and reduce the demand for government transfers and other support programs. The purpose of this report is to highlight the literature on early childhood education (“ECE”) to demonstrate why further investments are necessary and how we can achieve a preferably universal system of early learning and childcare that will benefits our economy and society.

Access the Executive Summary:

• English
• French

Access the Full Report:

• English
• French

Access the March 26, 2021 Future of Canada Conversations – Are we on the right track for Canada to thrive? webinar featuring Craig Alexander, Chief Economist and Executive Advisor, Deloitte Canada, Georgina Black, Managing Partner, Government, Public Services, and Health Care, Deloitte Canada, and the Honourable Margaret Norrie McCain.

• English
• French

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Canadian Mothercraft Society hosts expert panel and presents Bill Bosworth Memorial Award

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Margaret McCain awarded honorary doctorate in psychology from Université Laval

Université Laval

In recognition of her significant contributions to developmental psychology, Université Laval has awarded the Honourable Margaret Norrie McCain with an honorary doctorate in psychology.

Ontario’s child care cuts will hurt low-income parents working or studying full-time

Linda White, Elizabeth Dhuey, Michal Perlman, and Petr Varmuza
The Conversation Canada
Reprinted in the National Post, May 17, 2019

Nova Scotia’s new pre-primary class gives kids a head start through play-based learning

Jessie Lee-McIssac and Joan Turner, Mount Saint Vincent University
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Reprinted in Halifax Chronicle Herald, April 30, 2019

I am an 'autism mom'. Here’s why Ontario is choosing the wrong path

Kimberley Maich, Memorial University Newfoundland
The Conversation Canada

New research shows quality early childhood education reduces need for later special education

By David Philpott et al Memorial University Newfoundland
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Full-day kindergarten is what Ontario needs for a stable future

By Kerry McCuaig, Atkinson Centre, OISE, University of Toronto
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