Jean-Yves Duclos charts social priorities for government
The federal government wants to create an high-quality, accessible and inclusive child-care system, but the minister in charge says the policy landscape has changed since the last time a Liberal government negotiated a child-care plan more than a decade ago.
Families, Children and Social Development Minister Jean-Yves Duclos met with his provincial and territorial counterparts in Edmonton this week to discuss a national child-care program that would build on the efforts already being made by their governments.
"They are currently in different circumstances: financial circumstances, child-care circumstances," Duclos told Chris Hall on CBC Radio's The House. "They have also a variety of ambitions that differ across the country."
Duclos said the ministers also discussed the urgent matter of indigenous children in care, which he will be working on with Indigenous and Northern Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett. The two ministers will meet next week and Duclos expects concrete progress "relatively speedily."
Social Infrastructure
Duclos also outlined how the social infrastructure investments covered in his portfolio could help address the economic downturn in places like Alberta.
He argued spending on items such as child-care, affordable housing and First Nations education can be just as important for the economy as building roads or bridges.
"It's a different type of investment. Social investment doesn't work the same way as transport investment or green investment, but it's investment in the future of our families," he said.
The principles of guaranteed minimum income
The minister has written about guaranteeing a basic level of income as an economist at Laval University in Quebec before he entered politics.
Manitoba ran a pilot program in the 1970s where residents were given a cheque to make sure their income reached a minimum level and the social scientists measured its impact on health and community life. The study has inspired a similar experiment in the Netherlands.
Duclos said a guaranteed minimum scheme could follow the same principles as the Liberal's Canada Child Benefit.
"In fact the way that we'll proceed with our child allowances in a few weeks from now, fits exactly in that setting," Duclos said. "The setting in which we share the objectives of greater transparency -- greater transparency for families, so they know more easily what they get -- greater simplicity of administration on the part of the government and greater equity."