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A group of New Brunswick day-care advocates is pushing Ottawa to honour multimillion-dollar child-care agreements signed by the previous Liberal government.
A New Brunswick parents group has formed a coalition with nine other community organizations and unions to make the case for regulated day care.
The coalition &em; which includes the Canadian Labour Congress, New Brunswick Federation of Labour, the New Brunswick Advisory Council for the Status of Women, a parents group and local day-care operators &em; is joining a national movement to pressure Ottawa to honour commitments made for a national day-care program.
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Just days before the federal election was called last fall, New Brunswick and Ottawa inked a five-year deal that would have seen $110 million invested in early child-care education.
But Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said his government will terminate all of the provincial deals in the spring of 2007. The agreements would have poured billions into public day cares, creating new spaces and raising wages for workers across Canada.
He will instead introduce a plan that will see the government give $1,200 per year to parents for each child under the age of six, as well as invest $250 million per year in tax credits to help create new child-care spaces.
- reprinted from CBC News Online