Martha Friendly
Excerpts From Oral History Interview
On March 2, 2001, Martha Friendly, of the Childcare Resource and Research Unit at the University of Toronto in Ontario was interviewed in-person by Susan Prentice. In the excerpts below, Martha comments on the child care advocacy movement. In one place, she specifically addresses the meaning of being Canadian, something she is sensitive to as an immigrant from the United States.
listen to clip 15:08 2,478KB
listen to clip 22:15 1,123KB
Martha: I think the advocacy movement has done a really good job, actually.... In general, I think the advocacy childcare movement has been fantastic. And do you want me to talk a bit about that?
Susan: Sure, I do.
Martha: First of all, the childcare movement has really done its homework. You know, really built the intellectual infrastructure, particularly in the last decade. Like all of this research and how the research is used, and getting documentation -- it speaks back to the issue of 'why is it not a feminist issue anymore?'
Well, child care has made lots of new alliances. It has really made alliances with people. It used to be the feminist movement and the labour movement. I mean, they were really important. The labour movement, I think, has been a major partner in the childcare advocacy and achieved things that would have been hard to achieve otherwise. But the child care advocacy movement has made other alliances.
There wasn't a real anti-poverty movement until the 1990's, the end of the 1980s.. And childcare wasn't an issue for the anti-poverty movement. I can remember talking about NAPO [National Anti Poverty Organization] about this back in the 1980's. So that's another alliance. It's not the sole alliance -- and I think that the childcare movement helped the anti-poverty movement have a position that childcare should be universal. All of these other kind of folks like doctors and people who are interested in childcare for a variety of reasons, have become real allies.
Susan: So it sounds like you're saying that one of the real strengths of he childcare movement beyond doing their homework is broadening out-
Martha: It really broadened out and I think-
Susan: A pool of alliance.
Martha: Pool of alliances, and I think that that brings problems that have to be dealt with, about interpretation and all sorts of things like that. But I actually think the childcare movement -- but maybe I'm saying this because I'm part of the childcare movement! -- but I think it's done a really good job.
I think the childcare movement in general has taken on issues: they're willing to take on issues. It's made a lot of political links.... it hasn't restricted it to only being about early childhood education. You know, that's why the childcare movement is much broader than early childhood education, which is a part of it. But it's broader than that. So I don't think it's because the childcare movement hasn't been good. I think the childcare movement has been a really good movement, actually.
Susan: Are you interested in my observation that the Pauline Marois story [told earlier, about recent changes in Quebec] could lead someone to think all we need is a Great Man/Great Woman Theory of Social Change?
Martha: No, no, no, no. I don't believe that, no because I didn't mean that. What I mean is I said-
Susan: I struggle with this myself: if it wasn't this Minister, but that Minister, then things could look very different....
Martha: Well, sometimes, that it actually does make a difference. I could give you examples of that right here in Ontario. Situationally. The context and the political climate and the economic and social climate is really important. But sometimes -- let me give you an example of this.
When the NDP was elected in Ontario, there was -- at first -- it was really, really exciting. They embraced what the childcare advocates asked for immediately. I mean like it was immediately. And we thought "well, we're going to work this through with -
Susan: Slam dunk-
Martha: Well, no, no, no. What happened, in my opinion, was that it moved forward very slowly -- because the Minister who was responsible for it, didn't move it forward.
Susan: Was that Marion [Boyd]?
Martha: No it was before Marion. It was Zanana Okande. This was very disappointing, there were lots of things that happened. And because it was slow, it wasn't exactly that it was opposed but it didn't move. It didn't move.
Then things really turned really bad in the economy and then people got converted to you know the idea that we were going to 'hit the debt wall' and 'shooting the hippo' and all that kind of stuff. I know that that's what happened. And then they backed off on it.
And interestingly, I know also that it [child care] was still carried up until the -- championed still by the man who ended up being the Minister, Tony Silipo. He kept pushing it.
What I'm trying to say is: it's a combination. And sometimes a person -- if the climate is right -- can kind of overcome. And sometimes they won't. But I do think that having a champion makes a really big difference.
I don't mean this in a sappy way. But, I have taken up in the last ten years a lot about what it means to be a Canadian. I took seriously what it means to become a Canadian citizen.
And one of the things it seems to me that it means, is that -- whether you live in Newfoundland, or in Quebec, or in Manitoba -- you should have the same rights as a citizen. I mean that quite strongly: I do think that that's the kinds of thing that holds countries together. And it has to do with human rights -- and all those things that are in the preamble to SUFA [Social Union Framework Agreement], by the way, which I think are really important.
So how does that happen? Well it doesn't happen by just going around and convincing local school boards that it's good to put childcare in. I've always been quite scornful of American (or what stands in for public policy in the United States) which is all about how 'this community did this' and 'Seattle did that' and 'this one did that.' I'm not saying that those are bad things. But it's not a policy framework.
I still believe that Canada is in the UN and has a flag. And that it's a really bad thing to completely balkaniz the country. I didn't immigrate to Ontario, I immigrated to Canada. And if I want to move to British Columbia or my kids move to British Columbia, they should have childcare also.
I don't mean that to be sappy, but it's sort of is linked to it. Some of the Liberals have had this idea of national projects -- well there is something in that. I think that there is some real value in it, .... all this stuff about the national railway and the 'last spike' -
There is something in it. I mean people aren't just taxpayers, right? How has my vision of child care changed? When I moved here, I didn't even know who Sir John A. MacDonald was. Over time we learn this stuff.
Susan: What criteria would you use? how would advocates know if they're making a difference? I mean you're an advocate, you're defined as one: How do you know? how do you assess?
Martha: Well the simplest criteria, is does the policy change?
Susan: Well by that standard, we should be depressed!
Martha: You know I have to tell you what my mother said to me on some occasion. I don't when -- this was a number of years ago. She had been up visiting and I had written some brief or a paper that she read -- I always give her my papers to read. And then she said to me, a couple of months later, "Well, did the government put your proposals into place yet?" And I thought: from her lips to God's ears! (Laughs)
So that would be really simple.
Another way to look at it is, do your ideas become part of the mainstream? Do you change -- and I don't only mean public opinion polling, because I think that's iffy. Public opinion polling is a bit dodgy -- but public opinion.
Finally, sometimes people tell you that things are effective....
