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In the beginning of the election campaign, a hapless Liberal staffer provided a metaphor for child care's emergence as a wedge issue. Fixation on his comment that parents might use child care money for beer and popcorn has unfortunately trivialized the divergence in the parties' visions for Canada and obscured recognition of the practical consequences of their child care promises.
Although Stephen Harper's "choice" rhetoric has an alluring ring for some, examining his child care proposal uncovers negative consequences for communities and families that should not be taken lightly.
Interest in child care in this election has been spurred largely by the ever-increasing labour force participation of mothers of young children.
Concurrently, recognition of the link between early child development and society's prosperity means that men of a certain age who were previously indifferent to the idea of early childhood education now embrace it.
After a decade of erosion of social programs, Canada has finally begun to put pieces of a modern family policy framework in place.
Introduction of the National Child Benefit and extension of parental leave benefits to one year were followed in 2001 by the first federal financing earmarked for child care.
Then came the 2004 Liberal election promise of a national early learning and child care program and a $1 billion annual commitment.
The federal program began to take shape last year as agreements to develop provincially delivered programs were concluded and Ottawa's first dollars began to flow.
The primary federal stipulation is that funds must be used for child care programs that are provincially regulated although usually community delivered. Provinces will be able to finance overdue quality improvements such as improved wages and training requirements for staff as well as better equipment and facilities. Improving accessibility will require reducing parent fees and making centres, nursery schools, family day care and extended hours programs more available in all communities &emdash; urban, suburban and rural.
These programs can be for all children, not only those with employed mothers.
At the heart of Harper's proposal is a plan to cancel the already-concluded agreements with provinces.
This would mean that provincial plans to use the considerable federal dollars for much-needed expansion and quality improvements would have to be abandoned.
The results for communities and families would be devastating. Just two examples: Toronto would lose 5,000 new subsidies and close to 60 new planned child care centres would not see the light of day.
In Manitoba, 3,000 new full-day and 200 nursery school places, wage increases, training for child care staff and capital projects would fail to materialize.
Projects being developed in other provinces would meet the same fate.
The Conservative proposal is more a universal "baby bonus" than an early learning and child care program.
The direct payment to parents would be paid regardless of family resources and taxed back from any parent with income. It promises a maximum $1,200 annually and comes with a "parental choice" label; that is, families could use the public funds as they see fit.
This may sound attractive to cash-strapped young parents in the labour force or families with an at-home parent.
However, the payment would add far too little cash to low or modest family incomes to allow "choice" about employment.
And for employed families, it is well below the cost of even unregulated child care.
Indeed, at about $4.50 a day, it wouldn't cover even the $7 a day that Quebec parents now pay.
And under such a scheme, low-income families with no additional cash would perhaps have the fewest "choices" of all.
There is no evidence that small, or large, payments to parents are a substitute for investment in a high-quality early learning and child care system that could eventually provide parents real choices.
Over the years, Canada has made various payments to parents with little observable impact on expanding "choice."
Since 1971, the Childcare Expense Deduction has allowed employed parents to claim child care expenses &emdash; now up to $7,000 annually.
Until it was abolished in the 1980s, ironically, by a Conservative government, the old universal Family Allowance program sent a small monthly cheque to recognize additional expenses incurred by all families with children. And more than 80 per cent of families receive some income support with an additional $2,900 maximum available annually to low-income families through the Child Tax Credit.
What no federal government has yet tackled, however, is building the publicly financed high quality child care system necessary for modern families and available in most developed countries.
Building a quality child care system will take many years and hard work to deliver both the nurturing, developmental environments in which young children thrive and the care that most parents need.
Yes, the new federal program will need more money, stronger policy, better accountability and ongoing watchfulness to fulfill the principles.
But this cannot even be contemplated if payments to parents replace investment in education services.
And while provincial plans thus far are embryonic and far from perfect, they nevertheless represent our first hard-won progress toward the kind of child care Canadian children, families and communities crave.
For families, much more than beer and popcorn is at stake in this election.
- reprinted from the Toronto Star