November 22, 2013
Winnipeg, Manitoba
The Honourable Margaret McCain's Address to the Early Childhood Development Summit
Minister Kevin Chief, fellow panelists, I would like to thank the sponsors for inviting me to speak today. I’ve been asked why the Margaret and Wallace McCain Family Foundation Inc. is focused on early childhood development.
Our foundation is not alone. The latest edition of the Early Years Study is the result of a collaboration between eight private foundations from across Canada. We came together around a cause that is fundamentally progressive -- to make early education available to all children from age 2. Early education for all would be publicly-funded, available, top-quality and voluntary. Parents would decide if, and how often, their children attend.
Early Years Study 3 builds on two others I co-chaired with the late Dr. Fraser Mustard. The first revealed how experiences in early childhood - from conception on - shape the architecture and function of the brain, with lifelong consequences for the individual and for society. It changed perceptions of the first years of human development and recruited new advocates from health, finance and science.
In Early Years Study 2, we argued for a comprehensive policy framework to improve population health outcomes.
In Early Years Study 3, we update the social, economic and scientific rationale for investing in early childhood education. This edition introduces the Early Childhood Education Report, a tool for monitoring progress in the funding, policy, quality and access to early education. It is already finding use with provinces and territories as a guide to public policy development. The next edition of the report will be released in the fall of 2014.
The evidence is now overwhelming. Good education, begun early, can improve every child’s chance of success. It is fair. It works. It is affordable. It enjoys widespread popularity -- and in many parts of Canada we are on our way to making it a reality.
Why early childhood education? Canadian social policy emerged in the post war era. Its basic structure remains unchanged; unlike the environments it must respond to. Three major socio-economic upheavals confront policy makers everywhere.
First is the changing job market: Cloud Computing Service, Sustainability expert, App developer – these are among the dozens of job titles that didn’t exist 10 years ago.
Not all the new jobs are computer related. There are 220 new green collar jobs in the resource, transport, manufacturing, construction and agricultural sectors. Elder care managers are helping aging boomers and their families deal with end of life arrangements. Zumba- instructors number in the thousands worldwide.
There isn’t a post-secondary institution anywhere that has kept pace with these developments. Job seekers who do well in this atmosphere will have more than credentials. They will be those who have learned how to learn.
Not just employees but employers will also need to adapt if they want to recruit and retain the best workforce.
Second - A workforce on the move: Last year over 100-million people around the globe moved from rural to urban communities. Across Canada there is a continual workforce migration. Meanwhile, 1.1 million Canadians live and work abroad. While 500,000 immigrate to Canada every year seeking either permanent or temporary employment. This migration breaks traditional social networks, strains aging urban infrastructures and puts pressure on housing and living costs.
Third – families are changing: Families come in many wonderful forms. Regardless of the configuration, maintaining a family often requires more than one working adult. Canadian mothers with school-aged children participate in the workforce at the same rate as women without children – here we see school performing the double function of child care.
Mothers with preschool-aged children often delay returning to work because of the absence of quality care options, or they must place their children in risky environments.
These developments test us all; but none are more vulnerable than small children. Today's rising generation is the first to spend a large part of early childhood outside the family home. At the same time, the neurosciences are demonstrating how stable, loving, stimulating environments in the earliest years are critical for every aspect of human development.
Human development is the interplay between genes and environments. Our genes listen to their environments and the environment adapts the genetic blueprint. This is the important epigenetic story – how genes are turned ‘on’ and ‘off’ by environmental influences.
Early experiences that are nurturing and stimulating actually thicken the cortex of the child’s brain, creating a brain with more extensive and sophisticated neuron structures. How the brain is wired in early childhood influences our ability to learn, to get along with others; even our physical health.
Our foundation brings this new social, economic and scientific evidence to policy makers and stakeholders and discusses how it can be used to inform public policy.
I should note that we work with governments of all political stripes: Conservative, Liberal, New Democrats and First Nations because early development is not an ideological issue. It is a human imperative.
Our discussions often begin with officials sharing a list of all the programs available to support preschoolers and their families. Over time, program after program has been layered on. Each has its own mandate, funding and service targets, and often its own ministry. The result is not a system but a patchwork with service gaps, overlaps and ineffective outreach. Families are left to navigate the labyrinth causing needless stress and too often, tragedy.
In many OECD countries and parts of Canada, policy makers are updating their family policies with secured work leaves for new parents, income supplements and guaranteed access to early childhood education and care. These responses acknowledge the documented scientific links between early life experiences and educational and life success.
The US National Scientific Council in a recent report concludes: All aspects of adult human capital, from workforce skills to cooperative and lawful behavior, build on capacities that are developed during early childhood.”
Often we find that it is not just spending more – and almost every Canadian jurisdiction is spending more on preschool and family programs – it is also about spending smarter.
The formula to growing up well is to be born to parents who love you and who have the means to support you. But circumstance can make it difficult for parents to adequately respond to their children. Policy makers often reply with interventions to ‘fix the family’.
Parenting information on its own can not compensate for inattentiveness fueled by poverty, poor health, low job skills, domestic violence or just the daily stresses that can build up and become toxic.
It is difficult for public policy to intervene in family life. Those of you in public health and child welfare tell us just how challenging it is, and how often you lack the tools to make a difference.
Without quality early education for their children, parents are unable to seek support for their own health problems, to find work or to upgrade their skills. A weekly home visit or stand- alone parenting course is not a substitute.
The evidence also tells us that parenting supports such as these are most effective when they are integrated with early education and care programs. And they are particularly effective in reaching traditionally underserved families.
I understand you are piloting such a program at Lord Selkirk Park Child Care with some success. Hopefully this will become the norm for early education programs throughout the province.
Scaling up a program such as Lord Selkirk requires rationalizing the existing patchwork of early childhood services under a comprehensive policy and funding framework. This would optimize existing investments and help to ensure that any new funding meets objectives.
There isn’t a socio-economic goal that couldn’t be furthered by comprehensive access to quality early education and care including: workforce quality and stability; redressing injustices to Aboriginal peoples; women’s equity; closing the achievement gap; reducing family poverty; immigrant settlement; and, heading off the new epidemics stretching our health systems.
To answer the question: Why does our foundation focus on early childhood development? We want a better Canada. This is where early education reigns. Early education helps children learn how to learn. Knowing how to learn is the new essential. A child who has learned how to learn will never be left behind.
A nation of active lifelong learners is the best protection of our democratic values. It is the best contribution we can make to our rapidly changing world.
Thank you.
