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NATIONAL CHILD CARE BATTLE FADES FOR NOW
Dark clouds arose over the issue of child
care in the 2004 and 2006 federal elections when former Liberal
Prime Minister, Paul Martin declared his government would
implement a universal child care plan similar to that of the
province of Quebec. This was a very bad idea as the Quebec
program on child care has been found to be inadequate and
detrimental to children. (See REALity, March/April 2006, "Children
Rescued from Child Care," p. 10.)
Undeterred, on February 16, 2006, the child
care lobbyists, flush with taxpayers money handed to them
annually by the federal Status of Women ($483,713 in the fiscal
year 2004 - 2005)'' launched a Canada-wide campaign called,
"Code Blue" to lobby the provincial and territorial
governments and parliamentarians to implement the former Liberal
government's National Child Care Plan.
At the provincial premiers' first meeting
with Prime Minister Harper in February 2006, the Premiers
urged Mr. Harper to honour the deals on child care that they
had made with the Martin government in 2005. Mr. Harper turned
a deaf ear and continued on with his plan to give an annual
payment of $1200 directly to parents with children under 6
years of age.
Premiers Back Away From Day Care Battle
The premiers next met with Mr. Harper at the
end of July 2006. At this meeting'' Morna Ballantyne, Co-ordinator
for Code Blue, personally attempted to confront the premiers
to urge them to promote the former Liberal government's national
day care agenda. She did this by:
- Requesting the opportunity to make a presentation
to the Premiers' Conference. She was turned down flat by
the premiers on this request.
- She and a few other activists then showed
up at the Premiers' Conference bearing a petition of some
78,000 names calling on the premiers and Mr. Harper to restore
the Martin deal. They couldn't get past the front door.
- The activists next demanded that the premiers
come out and accept the petition, but they refused. Even
those premiers most sympathetic to them, such as NDP Premiers
-Manitoba's Gary Doer and Saskatchewan's Lorne Calvert -
were not interested. The communiqué issue by the
premiers at the end of their conference made no reference
to child care at all.
- Ms. Ballantyne then sent a follow-up letter
to the premiers requesting individual meetings with them.
She has not received a response from any of them.
What Happened to the Child Care Juggernaut?
The reason the child care lobbyists appear
to be having so little success with the premiers, despite
the vast quantities of money they receive from the Status
of Women to lobby them, is due to the "dead horse"
argument, as expressed by a spokesman for Saskatchewan Premier
Lorne Calvert, who stated, "Harper is not going to change
his mind on child care." Further, the premiers are preoccupied
with lobbying Ottawa for more money with no strings attached.
A simultaneous push for restoration of funding for child care,
with strings attached, would have been counterproductive for
them. Hence, their lack of enthusiasm for the project.
New Child Care Study
The C.D. Howe Institute recently commissioned
a study, co-authored by John Richards, Professor of Public
Policy, Simon Fraser University in Vancouver and Matthew Brzozowski,
Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Western
Ontario. The study released in July, 2006 found little evidence
that daycare improves the well-being or the prospects of children
in most stable, middle-class families. Their study indicated
that day care provides no significant improvement (and perhaps
some decline) in outcomes for children. If Canada is to invest
in child care, the co-authors of the study suggest it would
be better to focus the money on "at risk" children
from poor or troubled families than to spread it around to
everyone in a national child care program. Surprisingly, in
an editorial (August 12, 2006), the Globe and Mail, formerly
a supporter of a national day care program, agreed that the
government should follow the recommendations of the Richards
- Brzozowski report which the editorial claimed "made
sense."
Other Solutions for Low Income Families
REAL Women, however, has some concerns about
establishing child care centres in low income neighbourhoods.
It is a questionable approach to define a family as "disadvantaged",
simply because it consists of a single parent or because the
family has a low income. There are examples of well-off parents
whose children are also "at risk" for a variety
of reasons.
Targeting Child Care Centres for Low Income
Neighbourhoods
Targeting child care centres for low income
neighbourhoods is based on the assumption that low income
families do not use formal child care centres because they
cannot afford them and that, if child care centres were more
fully subsidized, poorer mothers would use them in great numbers.
In fact, evidence in the U.S. indicates that a shortage of
child care facilities or a lack of funds to pay for child
care has little effect on a low income mother's decision to
take or not take a job and use subsidized child care. It would
seem that single mothers or low income mothers are like most
other mothers - they prefer to look after the children themselves
or alternatively prefer informal child care arrangements -
generally with a relative.
The better approach for supposedly "at
risk" children may be to provide funding for local community
centres where parents can attend and be provided with the
opportunity to learn parenting skills, near their children
while they are being supervised. Lending toys and books should
also be made available at such centres. This kind of community
centre would also provide an opportunity for parents, especially
single parents, to socialize, network, and reduce some of
the isolation they may be experiencing.
Child Care Lobbyists Won't Give Up
This is not the end of the child care battle
in Canada. The child care lobbyists are not about to stop
their efforts and are determined to obtain the security of
caregivers on a unionized government payroll. This has been
the real objective all along for their advocacy for a national
day care plan.
These child care advocates have learned, however,
if nothing else over the 30 years of lobbying, that they must
trim their sails whenever the political winds turns against
them. For example,
- In the 1980's, the child care lobbyists
realized that the link between day care and feminism was
hurting them. They had been pushing for a national child
care program, arguing that women had the right to work outside
the home to obtain economic independence and must be released
from the obligations of home and children by way of institutionalized
child care facilities. This position was based on the book,
"The Feminine Mystique," by Betty Friedan (1964)
who called the home a concentration camp to which women
should not be bound. However, this argument was not a winning
one with the general public. As a result, the lobbyists
changed the expression "day care" to "child
care" in order to change the emphasis to the care of
a child rather than to a repository for children to free
the mother from the home.
- In the mid' 90s the lobbyists changed
their focus again to highlight scientific studies which
purportedly showed that the first six years of life are
crucial to a child's brain development. "Child care"
then was re-named "early childhood education"
which required a trained worker with two years education
on early child development in order to stimulate and educate
the child. It was argued that this care was superior care
to that provided by parents. Former Liberal leadership candidate
and MP, Carolyn Bennett, went further on February 26, 2006,
when she stated that denying children child care would turn
them into criminals. She stated this on CPAC (parliamentary
channel) on a panel with REAL Women researcher, Diane Watts.
On May 4, 2006, Ms. Bennett repeated this position on the
Mike Duffy show, seen on CTV. A similar comment was made
by Liberal Senator Francis Fox when REAL Women appeared
before the Senate Committee studying the child care bill
on June 20, 2006. He stated that although investing in a
national child care program was expensive, it was preferable
to investing in penitentiaries!
Since the child care lobbyists have failed
to change Mr. Harper's mind on the "early childhood education"
argument, they will now have to figure out a new position
to advance their cause. We await their next innovation.
The Conservative government is now pursuing
the second part of its child care plan - namely it proposes
to spend $250 million annually to create 125,000 new child
care spaces over the next five years. What this entails is
not yet known. Three members of REAL Women were asked by Human
Resources Development to attend a meeting in Ottawa on September
14, 2006 to discuss this policy with members of the Human
Resources Policy Division. Details about the meeting will
be included in the next issue of REALity.
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