Access to Child Care is Fundamental to Women's Economic Security in Canada

What needs to happen Martha Friendly1, Childcare Resource and Research Unit Prepared for the Standing Committee on the Status of Women (FEWO), Study on the Economic Security of Women in Canada March 21 2017 1 Martha Friendly, the Executive Director and founder of the Childcare Resource and Research Unit (CRRU),. [...] Thus, access to child care is fundamental to advancing women's economic security in Canada as it is evident that if mothers of young children are to be in the workforce, affordable care for their children is needed to cover their absence. [...] This should include a robust provincial/ territorial/Indigenous policy framework (s) based on the assumptions that child care is a public good and a human right for both women and children and that policy is based on the best available evidence. [...] In the absence of Canada-wide child care policy and adequate federal funding, high quality child care remains limited in supply and financially out of reach for a majority of women and families in all regions of Canada. [...] But the reality of the Canadian child care situation is such that in most regions, parents must both find a space and pay the fee.