Liberal minister presents bill aimed at protecting child-care system from future governments
CTV
The federal Liberal government has presented a new bill aimed at enshrining in law their commitment to the Canada-wide early learning and child-care system, and the long-term funding needed to maintain it. The minister responsible said the legislation is needed in-part to ensure that the nationwide system being can't easily be scrapped by a future federal government.
The federal Liberal government has presented a new bill aimed at enshrining in law their commitment to the Canada-wide early learning and child-care system, and the long-term funding needed to maintain it.
On Thursday, Minister of Families, Children and Social Development Karina Gould tabled Bill C-35, otherwise known as the "Canada Early Learning and Child Care Act."
She said that the bill is needed to provide parents and premiers certainty that the federal government is dedicated to seeing affordable child care remain in place, and to ensure that the nationwide system being built can't easily be scrapped by a future federal government.
"In the last election, every Conservative member of Parliament ran on a promise to get rid of affordable child-care for Canadians. So, we know the threat to this transformational child-care initiative from federal Conservatives is very real. The government and Parliament must protect we have built," Gould said during a press conference in Ottawa on Thursday.
The eleven-page bill seeks to cement the federal government's role beyond the existing five-year agreements now in place across the country, that will see daycare costs reduced to an average of $10-a-day by 2025-26.
"We want to ensure that these achievements are lasting. That is why we are acting to protect this crucial support for families and children," Gould said. "And that we make it that much harder for any future government to you know, basically take apart what we have built."
Bringing in federal child-care legislation to shore-up the Canada-wide system was something Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tasked Gould with doing on the heels of the Liberals bringing in a national affordable child-care plan.
