National Advisory on Early Learning and Child Care

Photo by The Climate Reality Project on Unsplash

The National Advisory Council for the ELCC System has been designed to reflect Canada’s geographic, cultural, linguistic and socio-economic diversity, including experts from across the sector. Members will serve a 3-year term and the appointment process is being designed to strive for gender parity and to reflect Canada’s diversity.

The Council will be supported by a Federal Secretariat on ELCC to lay a foundation for the Canada-wide ELCC system and to serve as a focal point for ELCC across the Government of Canada.

The chair of the Council is Don Giesbrecht, who has worked in Canada’s ELCC sector for over 32 years, starting as an Early Childhood Educator (ECE) in Winnipeg and most recently as CEO of the Canadian Child Care Federation (CCCF).

The Council Members include:

Morna Ballantyne (Ottawa, Ontario): Morna Ballantyne serves as the Executive Director of Child Care Now, Canada’s national child care advocacy association. She has worked professionally as a consultant strategic planner and facilitator and has significant expertise in social policy, labour relations and human resources, human rights and strategic communications. She served previously on the Government of Canada’s Task Force on Women in the Economy.

Dr. Gordon Cleveland (Toronto, Ontario): Dr. Cleveland is an Emeritus Associate Professor in economics at the University of Toronto. His research history includes the analysis of costs and benefits of ELCC and the ways in which different OECD countries finance their child care programs, examining determinants of quality in child care, factors affecting child care workers’ wages and ways of measuring child care affordability. He has served as a member of the Expert Panel on ELCC Data and Research, and authored Affordable for All: Making Licensed Child Care Affordable in Ontario (2018).

Dr. Marianne Cormier (Grand-Barachois, New Brunswick): Dr. Cormier is Dean of the Faculty of Education at the Université de Moncton. Her specialty is in minority language education and she has published on language revitalization in the International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism. For 20 years, Dr. Cormier has been promoting and fostering research to better understand ECE and has been working to increase university training for ELCC.

Linda Cottes (Maple, Ontario): Linda Cottes is the Senior Vice President for Child and Family Development for the YMCA of Greater Toronto. She has actively promoted high quality, affordable, inclusive and accessible child care for decades in her career spanning over 43 years in the field of ECE. She has participated on committees with mandates ranging from regulations to standards of practice for ECEs to opening emergency child care during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hawa Dumbuya-Sesay (Yellowknife, Northwest Territories): Hawa Dumbuya-Sesay is a social worker with extensive experience working with families, victim services, youth, and adults with diabilities , particularly with people experiencing homelessness, poverty and mental illness. She has held the position of Director of Child and Youth Services and other leadership roles in social services programs. As a mother of 4, she has personal experience of navigating the challenges of accessing childcare services and programs for her children.

Amélie Lainé (Quebec City, Quebec): Amélie Lainé, a member of the Wendake First Nation, is Partnerships and Programs Director of the Regroupement des Centres d’amitié autochtones du Québec (REAAQ), which is the Native Friendship Centres of Quebec. In her over 20 years with the organization, she has addressed issues including ECE, health and wellness, social services, and justice, giving her an overall picture of the needs, issues and challenges of urban Indigenous families.

Brenda Lenahan (Tahsis, British Columbia): Brenda Lenahan, herself a mother to a young son with health complexities, living as a single-parent family in a remote village, founded the grassroots group BC Complex Kids in 2017 to advocate for access to equitable support across ministries for children and youth with health complexities. She is on the leadership team for Disability Without Poverty, a national group working to elevate the need for financial security for disabled people in Canada.

Monica Lysack (Regina, Saskatchewan): Monica Lysack is a professor at Sheridan College (Oakville, ON) and a former Sessional Instructor and Faculty Advisor with the University of Regina and Saskatchewan Polytechnic, specializing in Early Childhood education and care (ECEC) research, advocacy and policy. She worked to deliver an innovative Aboriginal program at the Regina Friendship Centre. She served as Special Advisor on Child Care to Ontario’s Minister of Education 2017/2018. As a former official with the Government of Saskatchewan, she participated in the federal/provincial/territorial Early Childhood Development Working Group and chaired Saskatchewan’s participation for the OECD international review of ECEC.

Dr. Sophie Mathieu (Beloeil, Quebec): Dr. Mathieu is a Senior Program Specialist at the Vanier Institute of the Family, specializing in the study of gender inequalities, social reproduction and work-family balance. She has published in a number of ECE journals and reviews and is a frequent contributor to the print and broadcast media on issues related to child care in Quebec. In her research, she has documented the transformation of Quebec’s family policy, with particular attention to changes in the Québec Parental Insurance Plan (QPIP), and has documented the successes and challenges of the Quebec model of early childhood care.

Dr. Christine McLean (Hammonds Plains, Nova Scotia): Dr. McLean is Associate Professor of Child and Youth Study at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She is an executive member of the Canadian Association for Young Children and Vice President of the Canadian Association for Research in Early Childhood. She has worked in the field of ECE in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador for over 30 years.

Abiodun Odueke (Calgary, Alberta): Abiodun Odueke is an educator and a parent of two children, one of whom has special needs, and for whom she has faced challenges and barriers in accessing child care. She has coordinated an early learning program for immigrant parents and children and serves as a community liaison for an immigrant-serving agency. She expresses a passion for making ELCC inclusive and accessible to all Canadians and connecting people with programs, resources and services.

Amanda Pont-Shanks (Beamsville, Ontario): Amanda Pont-Shanks, a Citizen of the Metis Nation of Ontario, with family connections of the Red River Settlement in Manitoba, is the Manager of ELCC Programs and Services for the Metis Nation of Ontario. She has been involved in the creation of programs including the Child Care Subsidy Program, Extra-Curricular Support, Camps, and Virtual Socials to support thousands of Metis children across Ontario.

Alana Powell (Osgoode, Ontario): Alana Powell is the Executive Director of the Association of Early Childhood Educators of Ontario. She is involved in research on early childhood policy, practice and advocacy, with an expressed focus on advancing the voices, experiences, needs, ideas and hopes of ECEs.

Dr. Christopher Smith (Edmonton, Alberta): Dr. Smith is the Associate Executive Director for the Muttart Foundation, a private charitable foundation based in Edmonton, with lead responsibility for the Foundation’s work in the area of ELCC. He serves on the Steering Committee for the Community University Partnership for the Study of Children, Youth and Families at the University of Alberta and is a member of the Edmonton Council for Early Learning and Care. He formerly served as a member of the Expert Panel on ELCC Data and Research and is a former chair of the Success by 6 Council of Partners for the Alberta Capital Region.

In 2021, the Muttart Foundation produced a large-scale 36-chapter resource examining the charitable sector in Canada, including government/nonprofit interactions and partnerships, Intersections and Innovations: Change for Canada’s Voluntary and Nonprofit Sector