Petition to the Government of Canada

Childcare in Canada is in crisis.

As we look to safely restart the Canadian economy in the wake of the first wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic, there is a failure to acknowledge that a substantial proportion of the workforce are parents of dependent children. To date, there is no national strategy that addresses the care of those children so their parents may return to work.

The primary unit of society is the family. Families are the microcosms that model society at large: They are the earliest attachments, the first classrooms, the initial exposure to and reinforcement of, the rules and values of the civilization. They are the basic structure of support for the most vulnerable members of society. They are the blueprint of the economy. Families weave individuals into the fabric of community.

Something this important should be held in the highest regard and afforded the greatest protection. Unfortunately, the Canadian tax system punishes families by refusing to view the family income as a whole; and by refusing to acknowledge the critical role of childcare in the potential productivity of that family.

For families with children, participation in the workforce is often determined by the availability of appropriate childcare. If childcare is either not available or not affordable, one parent, typically the mother, is forced to leave the workforce at the peak of their productive years. The ground lost is rarely clawed back, playing into gender income disparity and lowering the socio-economic ability of the family as a whole.

In 1990, Canada ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child which included commitments regarding the Rights of Children and Families to have access to High Quality Childcare. It is Thirty years later and there is still no national childcare strategy, and affordability has yet to be addressed.

Fully funded childcare is rare in Canada. The funded childcare that is available to those few is of a limited nature, forcing parents to curtail their career options to fit.

For the majority of Canadians, who do not have access to funded childcare appropriately matched for their work requirements, neither the child tax credit, nor the child tax deduction match the financial burden. The fact that daycare, in its basic form, is almost always more expensive than the allowable tax deduction sends a message to families, that children and families are not important to society and furthermore, that children and childcare are a burden that someone in the family, most often a woman, must bear.

If the working members of the family have hours of employment that are long, irregular or “unsociable”, or require overnight absences from the home, as is common for many professions and trades, there may not be any daycare suitable. These families must attempt a private arrangement or a parent leaves the workforce. Minimum wage in Canada ranges from $11.32/hr in Saskatchewan for an annual salary at least $23,545.60, to $15/hr in Alberta resulting in an annual salary of at least $31,200. The average wage of an experienced childcare provider is often rightly, above minimum wage. No matter where the family lives or who they employ, the expenditure is far greater than the $8000 deduction allowed by the Federal Government.

Employee salaries and other necessary costs of doing business are fully deductible in every setting except in the family.

The overwhelming majority of childcare in Canada is provided by women.

A disproportionate number of childcare providers are women of colour.

The lack of a National Childcare Strategy, combined with the Government’s failure to allow childcare to be treated as the most basic business expense of society, directly impacts both the ability of parents, especially women, to participate in the workforce and the wages expected to perform this vital service to society, worsening economic gender and race inequality.

We, the undersigned, 

Concerned Citizens across Canada,

call upon the Government of Canada 

to commit to urgently address access to quality, affordable and flexible childcare as a main focus of the plan to reopen the economy in the wake of the COVID-19 Pandemic and in accordance with the Convention of the Rights of the Child ratified in 1990. This should include acknowledgement of the critical role of childcare in the survival of the economy and the need for wider acceptance of different childcare models that respect limiting the size of social bubbles by moving to allow full deduction of childcare expenses, in accordance with employee salaries, by the 2021 tax year. In the meantime, immediate relief for working families should be offered by increasing the childcare expense deduction to at least the highest national minimum wage of $15/hr ($31,200/year).