For Immediate Release
May 5, 2006
Note to Stephen
Harper: Canada’s families are still waiting for child care
By: The Honourable
Carolyn Bennett, Member of Parliament for St. Paul's and Liberal
Opposition Critic for Social Development
Today, Saturday, May
6, marks the one year anniversary of the bilateral agreement between the
governments of Ontario and Canada to increase investment by $1.9 billion
in early learning and child care and massively expand the number of the
province’s day care spaces.
This should have been
a day for Ontario children and their families to celebrate. Unfortunately
it is not. With the tabling of the first Conservative budget in 13 years
earlier this week, Stephen Harper’s government officially backed out of
its bilateral agreements with Ontario and all nine other provinces, and
has withdrawn its funding for a national early learning and child care
program.
As a result this
province will not see 25,000 new child care spaces by March 2008. These
new spaces were to be made available in community hubs, and in schools so
that the new services were going to be easy to access for parents.
Last year, all ten provinces signed agreements with the federal
government to increase investment by $5 billion over five years in early
learning and child care. These deals signaled that the country was moving
towards a shared vision for early learning and child care.
Now that vision is at
risk. Stephen Harper’s first federal budget replaces a real, national
child care program with a $1,200 (before tax) family allowance, leaving
Ontario parents and their children who were counting on the new spaces out
in the cold and scrambling to find quality affordable day care.
The Early Learning
and Child Care plan was already making a difference for Ontario families.
Thousands of new spaces have been created. But the cancellation of the
agreement means that in Toronto alone, instead of 6,000 new spaces,
families will have to settle for 2,100 new spaces. The effect in rural
Ontario will be equally devastating.
Prime Minister
Harper’s plan limits the creation of new spaces when the need for
quality child care is on the rise. Daycare is not a luxury for working
parents – it’s a necessity. It is a simple fact that most Canadian
parents need to work outside the home. By 2003, more than 75 per cent of
mothers with children 3 to 5 years of age worked outside the home. That
was up from 68 per cent in 1995, and the number continues to rise.
A recent Statistics
Canada survey showed the number of Canadian children aged six months to
five years who are in some form of child care has jumped to more than 54
per cent – a 12 per cent increase in just eight years. This increase
applied to all children across all backgrounds, regardless of location,
family income or parental employment status.
By moving ahead with
its income support plan the Conservatives will be forcing families looking
for quality child care to fend for themselves.
Under Mr. Harper’s
plan families will receive $100 a month for each child under age six.
According to Mr. Harper this will give families more choice. It won’t. It
won’t make child care affordable. It won’t create new spaces. It
won’t increase the number of spaces in existing child care programs. It
won’t increase accessibility for children with special needs. And it
won’t provide operating funding to licensed facilities.
You can’t choose
what doesn’t exist.
The cash will do even
less – if that were possible – for
rural residents who live in areas where there are few if any child care
facilities in existence. For families in those areas, there is nothing to
spend the money on.
Worse, very few
Canadian families will actually receive the full $1,200 allowance. In
fact, the Conservative allowance doesn’t target low income families for
more assistance. On the
contrary. Under the government’s plan families with modest incomes will
end up receiving a much smaller benefit than single earner families with
incomes of $100,000 or more. Meanwhile, adding insult to injury, a $249
benefit for young children in low income families will be eliminated.
So let’s be clear.
The Conservative Party can try to spin this any way they want, but their
family allowance is not universal, and the only choice it will give
families is how to spend a few extra dollars.
The only part of the
Conservative child care platform designed to create spaces – through tax
incentives for businesses and communities – was not in this budget.
It’s probably not surprising that Mr. Harper has backed away from the
idea. It was unworkable.
Given that 75 per cent of businesses have fewer than five employees, very
few companies would ever be in a position to take advantage of the
Conservative tax credit – fewer still would have the incentive to
maintain long term child care spaces.
Instead of this bad
idea, the Conservative budget improvises a vague proposal to spend $250
million starting next year – but it offers no details on how that money
will be spent.
So a perfectly
workable plan that the majority of Canadians want, and which the provinces
were counting on is being discarded – and being replaced by nothing more
than vagaries.
As a physician and
former public health minister I believe there has been something missing
from the debate. Constantly we discuss the costs of early learning and
child care, but never the benefits. Decades of research demonstrates that
quality early learning programs have positive effects on child
development. These benefits are even more pronounced with children who are
vulnerable and have special needs. Without a doubt, investing in quality
early learning and child care is an investment in our future productivity
and well being.
People who understand
the issue – people as diverse as Bank of Canada Governor David Dodge,
and childhood development expert Fraser Mustard - understand the value of
quality early learning and child care as a way to build the foundation for
a brighter future.
Dr. Mustard,
describes the early years as critical and sensitive periods for brain and
biological development and tells us that investments in this period of
development represents the greatest single opportunity to improve life
chances for children. Royal
Bank of Canada Executive Vice President Charles Coffey draws a direct link
between investment in early childhood education and national prosperity.
In a 2003 paper he made a strong case for increasing support for early
childhood education, saying, “Prosperity depends on well-developed
minds- intelligence, imagination, ingenuity and innovation. Advocating
sound policy and establishing innovative strategies for early childhood
education and care will contribute to Canada’s prosperity.”
And, Governor Dodge links investments in early childhood education
to improving skills and productivity, observing that the first step to
improving skills is to build an excellent infrastructure for early
childhood development.
There’s much at
stake, for individual children and families trying to find their way in
difficult circumstances, and for our future productivity and prosperity as
a nation. Mr. Harper’s
government had the opportunity to help Canadians balance work and family
obligations, and to help this country – and all ten of its provinces –
take a giant step forward. He
still can, simply by agreeing to honour the Liberal early learning and
child care agreements and giving Canadian families the real choices they
want and need.
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For
More Information:
Rebecca MacKenzie
Office of the
Honourable Carolyn Bennett, MP
(613)
995-9666 or (613) 513-3848
