Open Menu
November 14, 2014
University of Toronto Political Science Professor Linda White has been quoted today in a story posted on iPolitics regarding the national child care debate. Please take a read through the story below:
By Yamina Tsalamlal | Nov 13, 2014 5:00 am
Originally published at: http://www.ipolitics.ca/2014/11/13/national-child-care-debate-to-take-centre-stage-at-winnipeg-conference/
As the major federal political parties unfurl the child care components of their 2015 election platforms — the Harper government’s being its apparent surplus-eating budgetary priority — child care experts are gathering in Winnipeg this week amid heightened political stakes and national attention.
The first national child care conference in ten years couldn’t have come at a more perfect time, says Martha Friendly, one of the organizers of Childcare2020 and executive director of the Childcare Resource and Research Unit.
“It’s kind of serendipitous,” says Friendly, adding that when they started planning the conference two years ago, they couldn’t have anticipated that child care be would be such an important issue.
According to Friendly, the goal of the Childcare2020, which runs Nov 13-15 in Winnipeg, is to bring together experts from Canada and around the world to put early childhood education on the policy agenda and reinvigorate the child care movement.
The child care debate has resurfaced this fall, with the NDP and Conservatives each announcing what they see as the best plan for parents ahead of the fall 2015 election. The two plans couldn’t be more different.
The Conservative family tax benefit package includes adding $60 to the existing Universal Child Care Benefit. This gives parents $160 per month for children aged 0 to 5 and $60 per month for children six to 17 years old. The Family Tax Cut—also known as income-splitting¬–allows parents with children under age 18 to split their income up to $50,000, with a maximum benefit of $2,000.
The NDP plan is similar to the $7 a day Quebec model. The NDP say the subsidized child care will cost $15 per day. It promises to partly fund 370,000 child care spaces by 2018-19. It is expected to cost $1.9B per year.
Kevin Milligan, an economist at the University of British Columbia, points out that, because — as was made clear in the Conservative government’s fall fiscal update Wednesday — child care policy, either Tory or NDP, will most likely cover almost all the budgetary surplus Canada has.
“When we hit 2015, unless there is some change in economic news that I don’t know about, there’s not going to be a lot of money left for future promises,” says Milligan. And he is probably right because Finance Minister announced on Wednesday that the surplus would only be $1.9B, $4.5B less than originally forecast, mostly because of the family tax plan.
But the economics of it aside, child care is so personal for so many people. There is always a debate—the conservatives say they are offering choice because they put money directly into the pockets of Canadians and allow them the choice to decide how they want to spend on their families.
Tim Powers, vice-chairman at Summa Strategies, says he understands why this approach can be popular with parents, given the tangible benefits to their household bottom lines.
“There’s a sense in politics that … when people can see what you’re doing and they can touch and feel what you’re doing … they’re at least more engaged with it,” says Powers.
But Linda White, who teaches political science and public policy at the University of Toronto, thinks this is nonsensical. The money doesn’t provide any choice, she says, if there are no options to choose from.
“It would be like saying, you provide health care dollars to families, and they’ll just go spend it on healthcare,” says White. “But if you don’t build hospitals, you don’t train doctors and nurses, and other health professionals, you won’t have anywhere to go to spend those healthcare dollars.”
“The equivalent is, ok here’s a voucher, go find yourself an education system,” she adds.
The problem with child care is that it is a “patchwork,” according to Friendly, and there is never a one-size-fits-all approach. Most experts agree with her. She says it’s about finding a plan that allows the provinces to decide how best to approach it. But she says the “money in pockets” idea of the Conservatives doesn’t add up.
“The main thing is, if your idea is to give people a choice on child care, the way to do it is not to give them money, the way to do it is to build a program,” says Friendly.
Liberal MP Carolyn Bennett says child care is clearly divided along ideological lines. She is very familiar with the subject—she was part of the Liberal government that almost created a universal child care policy supported by the provinces in 2005, only to have it quashed when the Conservatives took power in 2006.
“The Conservative government just doesn’t believe the government has any role in this,” says Bennett. “They do not seem to believe that it takes a village to raise a child … they hold that it’s up to individual families to just make it work.”
Bennett says that the research is showing that Canada is lagging behind Europe when it comes to child care. She says she intends to listen to experts at the conference and bring ideas back to her caucus.
“It [child care] is crucial to ensuring Canada’s long term prosperity. We are so far behind the European countries. We actually know that this is a key ingredient to moving forward as a country.”