Real Top Issues Facing Canadians - Child Care & Early Learning

Make no mistake about it child care is one of THE most important election issues Canadians are facing, although this gets little attention, nor interest from the parties, or media. This is an issue that affects every one of us, not just families with children. The leader and party that form our next Canadian government need to understand that child care is a necessity for Canadian families. If that is not understood, then the leader and party are unfit to govern Canada. It really is as simple as that.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development reports that affordable and accessible child care benefits families in the following ways:

- allow parents, often women, more opportunities to participate in the workforce;
- impacts child poverty rates
- increases incentives for individuals to have more children and boost birth rates

We need to examine this issue with some historical background. It is a HUGE mistake to assume that child care is an negligible issue, or one that simply impacts women. We never have lived in some rosy world where working women of the lower and middle classes had the luxury NOT to work, to stay home and rely on their husbands, the breadwinners. I grew up listening to the struggles of the amazing women in my own family, in the 30's and 40's, cobbling together child care, while they went out to work to keep the roof over their children's head and food on the table. Staying home to raise the kids was never an option for working class women, nor is it for many women and families today where an average house in our riding goes for over $700,000.

It is a national disgrace that in 2008 Canadian families continue to be subjected to inadequate access to affordable and subsidized child care. The responsibility for that lies in two places.

For decades the Liberal party has strung voters along with promises of a national child care system. It was only in 2006, heading into an election were they finally dangling that bedraggled carrot once again. It is the mark of extremely poor leadership and an opaque vision, devoid of reality, that the Liberal party failed to project the necessity of child care and early learning resources and supports.

As the birth rate started to lessen, child care advocates and families across our nation continued to yell for access to child care, the Liberal government did not listen. When labour market implications began to be projected and it became obvious that the mass retirement of an entire nation of baby boomers would leave thousands of jobs and professions unfilled, the Liberal government still did nothing. That lack of leadership and vision has cost families from coast to coast. It has also cost Canada in productivity and has limited the potential and opportunities for women for many generations. These are real world outcomes of failed political leadership and this short-sightedness will cost our nation for decades to come.

When we examine the Liberals election platform, we can see that they still offer little real leadership, or vision, in the issue of access to affordable child care.

And I quote from one of the vaguest platforms I've ever seen regarding child care:

"we will allocate substantial new federal funds. This investment will increase over a four-year period and at full implementation in the fourth year, the[sic] will climb to $1.25 billion annually."

Anyone smell a carrot here, because I sure do. And it is rotting as we read this.
So, exactly HOW MUCH will the Liberals put into child care in Years 1,2 & 3 of their Master Plan?

A significant number of an entire generation, or two, have foregone increasing Canada's birth rate, largely due to the struggles to find child care. It is a source of discussion among many women, who find the costs, stress and lack of support for families having children are all too difficult to bear. I really don't know why Canadian leaders cannot examine the successful child care, family incentives and supports available in European nations and the huge benefits these have in their countries' productivity and labour market supply. This also speaks to a lack of leadership and vision.

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Below is the Conservatives boasts of their record on Child care. I don't know about any of you, but I feel frightened, discouraged and quite shocked that a sitting government, Stephen Harper and his Conservatives, have not actually released a platform on anything, let alone child care, even though Canadians head to the ballot box in 10 days and advanced polls are open now. What kind of accountability is that? What can we expect? And when you consider the rapid increase in the number of StealthCon's who are showing up to meet with constituents and local media, I would say Canadians are taking a tremendous risk if they vote Conservative in this election.

The Conservative Record

Delivered choice and support to parents through the Universal Child Care Benefit: $1,200 per year in direct support for every child under six – over $3.7 billion in 2006 and 2007 to help parents with the cost of child care

Invested $250 million per year to assist the provinces and territories in creating new child care spaces

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Stephen Harper and the Conservatives even went further than the Liberals by cutting the plan for a national child care system AND bringing in the offensive and hostile so called "child care benefit." The Conservatives contempt for women and families played out in every household across this country with their policy on child care. The "child care benefit" and how it has been administered is an act of aggression and an insult to every family in Canada, especially the large numbers of Canadian children and families who live in poverty.

This miserly $1200 each family (under age 6) receives is grossly inadequate and really is an attack on families. For someone who is using his family so shamelessly for photo ops, you would think Harper would understand the real needs for child care for Canadian families. But clearly he doesn't, or he just doesn't care at all about the necessities of real families.

This isn't about "choice for families" it is about deprivation, government negligence and a failure of vision. When a government purposefully denies children and families access to child care and early learning they are short-changing Canada, now and in the future.

$1200 taxable income dollars does not pay a quarter of real world daycare. And there is Conservative cruelty and a contempt for families in making those funds taxable income. Single parent families end up losing a good chunk of that inadequate bit anyways and wealthy, two parent families can collect the whole bit if one parent stays home with no income. And in the Conservatives 50's coloured glass, guess which person stays home. Do you get the impression that Stephen Harper doesn't really like kids, or families? It's hard not to get that impression when considering the actions of his government.

Stopping the "benefit" when a child turns age 6 is an irresponsible act as well. Has Mr. Harper ever had anyone point out the high cost of after-school care? Since most parents have to work, especially if they are single parents, not having the funds to put your child in after-school care, or even to find spaces, is a disaster and leaves many children-at-risk. Under the Conservatives leadership, more and more children have become latch key children, spending time at home, by themselves while their parents work to keep shelter and food on the table. Is that really the kind of leadership Canada needs? What does that say about the real respect and care Stephen Harper and his party have for families?

I think the values of any party say a lot about them and the Conservatives are no different, this is the sole founding principle they have to say about families and children (dependents they so affectionately refer to them as) in their entire list of principles and that explains A LOT:

A belief that it is the responsibility of individuals to provide for themselves, their families and their dependents, while recognizing that government must respond to those who require assistance and compassion;

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The Green Party's - Vision Green discusses their own ideas about child care and supports to families:

Our Vision

The Green Party believes we need a high-quality federally-funded universal child care program in Canada. Workplace child care has been shown to improve productivity, decrease employee absenteeism, ensure quality care for children (because parents can “drop in” at any time to see their young children), and permits longer breast-feeding of infants.
Work-place child care spaces create other benefits, recognizing the emerging literature that children benefit enormously from time with their mothers, especially when very young.

Green Solutions - Green Party MPs will:

* Restore and revamp the 2005 agreement reached between the federal government, provinces and territories to achieve a universal child care programme in Canada.
* Specifically ensure that Canada’s universal child care programme provides workplace child care spaces wherever possible.
* Tax shift to make advertising directed at children ineligible for corporate tax write-offs.
* Accelerate the creation of workplace child care spaces through a direct tax credit to employers (or groups of employers in small businesses) of $1500 tax credit/child per year.
* Value the decisions of parents who choose to stay home with children.
* Promote and facilitate access to Roots of Empathy Programme to every Canadian child at some point in their elementary school years.

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The NDP's Child Care Platform is called Children and Child Care: Ensuring a Head Start for Kids

In consultation with the provinces and territories, Jack Layton and the New Democrats will:

Enact the New Democrats' Early Learning and Child Care Act – which has already passed Second Reading in Parliament - to establish the program in law for the first time in Canada.

Establish and adequately fund a Canada-wide child care and early learning program. We will make high quality, accessible, affordable, non-profit and licensed child care available to Canadian families, including aboriginal Canadians.

These initiatives will create 150,000 new child care spaces in the first year, growing to 220,000 spaces per year in the fourth year.

Ensure a healthy head start for kids. We will develop a Children's Nutrition Initiative to support and expand provincial and local programs that provide healthy meals to school children.

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While the NDP and Green Party plans sound infinitely better than either the Liberals or Conservatives, they both fail to actually identify how much funding they will allot to these in the real world. I'm kind of a meat and potatoes kind of person and Canadians have been led down the garden path too many times before on child care. I want to know exactly what to expect and vague promises do not leave me feeling encouraged by any of the parties.

Access to affordable child care and early learning opportunities cuts to the core of an issue impacting Vancouver-Kingsway constituents and is one that candidates must understand and be committed to.

When we look at different statistics from our riding, many questions come up:

How many individuals aren't able to be in the workforce because they have no child care?

How many children of immigrant families would benefit from early childhood learning and ESL opportunities?

Which party has the courage, vision and commitment to build a child care and early learning system that benefits all children and our entire country, which continues head on into a labour shortage which will change the fabric of our entire country?

As we head into the final week before the election, lets tell our candidates loud and clear what kind of a child care system we require for our children and send a clear message that this is what we expect and if their party can't deliver, they don't get our vote.