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FURTHER CONSERVATIVE PLANS ON CHILD CARE

During the last election, when the Conservative government rejected Paul Martin's grand (and expensive) scheme to establish a national child care program, Mr. Harper promised $1,200 per year to be paid to parents with children younger than 6 years of age. This plan was implemented on July 1st of this year.

The second part of the Conservatives' plan on child care is to create 125,000 more child care spaces at a cost of $250 million annually over a five-year period, beginning in the fiscal year 2007-2008. These spaces are to be created by way of tax credits and other financial incentives, such as capital grants and loans to corporations and other organizations in order to encourage the development of more spaces.

Over the last few months, officials from the Department of Human Resources and Social Development Canada (HRSDC) met with employers, stakeholders and providers in each province and territory to discuss this initiative.

REAL Women was contacted by officials at HRSDC and asked to meet with Barbara Moran, Director, and Maureen Edgar, Policy Analyst of the Child and Youth Policy Division of HRSDC ,to obtain our input on creating the child care spaces.

On September 14, 2006, three members of REAL Women met these officials from HDSDC. They were National President, Laurie Geschke, National Vice President, Gwen Landolt, and Cecilia Forsyth, Saskatchewan Chapter President. Prior to our meeting with these officials in Ottawa, Cecilia had conducted an informal survey on behalf of REAL Women on the child care requirements of rural women. (Cecilia and her husband, George, operate a farm in rural Saskatchewan.)

REAL Women believes that the ideal situation is for every family to look after its own children in its own home, if they so choose. However, we know that because of economic necessity, illness, and other family circumstances substitute child care is often an essential and valuable service to families. The child care choices, however, must be made by the family, not the state.

Thus, at our meeting, REAL Women emphasized that the creation of child care spaces must give priority to parental preference, which usually means informal arrangements with relatives, friends, or community care provided by religious or cultural organizations. We discussed the advantages and disadvantages of on-site child care at business sites, as well as the development of child care centres in schools. (The school site child care centres provide care before and after school hours, which allows the child to remain in one place during the course of the day, i.e., provides continuity of care for the child during the day.)

We also discussed child care for rural parents and single parents, as well as parents operating home-based businesses and small family businesses, which often require child care for only short periods of time, rather than on a regular, consistent basis.

We recommended a voucher system or tax credits for parents, so as to allow them to make their own choices to accommodate these different child care needs.

Informal Child Care Providers Don't Give Receipts

Informal child care arrangements are by far the preferred choice of parents, but unfortunately, such child care providers do not usually provide receipts because informal child care providers do not want this income to be taxable. Rather, they regard these earnings as a small contribution to their family income, as well as, often, an effort to help out their family, neighbours, and friends. REAL Women believes that neither the parents nor the informal care givers should be financially penalized for these informal arrangements. Consequently, we suggested that a mechanism be developed whereby taxes would not be payable by the informal child care providers up to a specific sum, for example, $3,000 per annum, after which the earnings would then become taxable.

Consultations on this child care initiative by HRSDC were carried out until the end of September. In early October, the results of these consultations were submitted to a nine-member Child Care Advocacy Committee, headed by Dr. Gordon Chong (a Toronto dentist and former Toronto Council member). This Committee was appointed by the Conservative government to provide final advice on the approach and mechanisms required to implement the child care initiatives. The Advisory Committee's recommendations are to be submitted to the HRSDC before Christmas, to enable the government to put the plan in place for the 2007-2008 budget.

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