The last time I ran in a federal election was in 1993 (don’t ask how I did). At that time, I remember reading and critiquing the Liberal Red Book (co-written by Paul Martin). For those who’ve forgotten, this is what the Liberals said 12 years ago about child care:

“In each year following a year of three per cent economic growth, a Liberal government will create 50,000 new child care spaces to a total of 150,000.”

I’ll save you some research — economic growth reached or surpassed three per cent in six of seven years that followed the Liberal victory, but nothing resembling a national child care program emerged until this year.

Now, faced with another election campaign, Martin is promising to “make our commitment to child care permanent.” Having already perfected the art of making child care promises permanent (by not keeping them), that commitment seems only fair.

In a recent column, Maclean’s columnist Paul Wells provided an excellent analysis of the Liberal plan:

“[The Liberals plan to create child-care spaces] by doubling the amount of money allocated to Ken Dryden’s child-care and early-learning agreements with the provinces. And, just to be on the safe side, by doubling the length of the program. That’s right. Instead of spending $5 billion over five years, Martin was announcing $10 billion over 10 years. His new commitment does not take effect until 2009 — almost certainly after the term of the government we are about to elect. Before long he may extend his commitment to $48 billion over 48 years, or $162 billion over 162 years.”

The Liberals have been successful in negotiating child-care deals with the provinces. However, like their deals on increased funding for health care, these deals were achieved without any national standards that would guarantee that the funds won’t be squandered on profit for corporate child-care warehouses or on other substandard care arrangements.

The Conservatives have a different plan. Instead of supporting or expanding existing child care commitments beyond the first year, they’ll simply cut parents a cheque for $100 a month for each child under six. While Martin’s advisor Scott Reid’s now infamous beer and popcorn reference was clearly offensive, he was correct in stating that there are no strings attached to the money promised by Stephen Harper. Of course, he ignored the fact that there are no strings attached to the cheques that the Liberals want to write to the provinces either.

Harper calls the proposed payments a “choice in child-care allowance.” In his announcement, he returned again and again to the word choice:

  • “It’s hard enough to be a parent. But government should help parents with choices not limit them.”
  • “In fact, the only people who should be making these choices are parents, not politicians, not the government.”
  • “Government should support your choices, not limit them.”

The reality is that Harper’s plan would actually deny parents the opportunity to make a choice that they’ve shown time and again that they want to make: choosing affordable, regulated, quality child care for their children. The Conservatives’ plan would limit parents’ choices to a range of other options, some of which are less than ideal for children.

Kira Heineck, executive director of the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care, notes, “We’ve been trying to fund child care through benefits to families or parent subsidies for 30 years, and it hasn’t worked. We’d like to see investment directly in programs across the country.” Heineck also points out that the Liberals have previously projected a much smaller number of spaces (less than 20 per cent of their current projection) for the amount invested when they first announced their plan earlier this year.

The NDP is advocating a national child care system based on the Quebec model, spending $1.8 billion in the first year and increasing that amount by $250 million a year over the next three years. The party projects that this money would create 200,000 child-care spaces in the first year, and 25,000 more each year following. Unlike the other parties, the NDP would pass legislation and sign agreements with the provinces to ensure that the money would go only to “licensed, high-quality, non-profit child care.”

NDP leader Jack Layton points out that fewer than one in five children have access to regulated child care. Layton argues “That makes no sense for employers. Quality child care is good for business. Parents who know their kids are well-looked-after during the day are more productive, have lower levels of absenteeism, and stay in their jobs. Most importantly, the lack of quality child care makes no sense for children. Being at home with a parent is often the best option for kids. But in today’s economy that just isn’t available for most kids. Being in good child care gives children a wonderful boost, a wonderful start, at their education.”

Monica Lysack, head of the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada, sums up the three plans as follows: “The NDP is the only party that is walking the talk of making community-based child care a reality for families. The Conservative plan is a throwback to another era. The Liberal plan so far lacks real commitment to growing a system.”

Now that we finally have three parties talking about child care, voters would do well to consider Lysack’s advice on the issue.

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Scott Piatkowski

Scott Piatkowski is a former columnist for rabble.ca. He wrote a weekly column for 13 years that appeared in the Waterloo Chronicle, the Woolwich Observer and ECHO Weekly. He has also written for Straight...