Childcare’s sombre anniversary

Seven years ago, a newly-elected Stephen Harper killed the infant National Child Care Program.

by Jody Dallaire

Stephen Harper`s first order of business when he took office seven years ago on February 6th 2006 – a mere three hours after being sworn in as Prime Minister – was to cancel the Liberal government’s planned national childcare initiative, starting with child care agreements signed between the federal and provincial governments.

On the seventh anniversary of the death of those agreements, the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada issued a media release which included the following comments:

“Canada again has been rebuked internationally for human rights failures on child care. A 2012 UN Committee noted the ‘high cost of child-care, lack of available places, the absence of uniform training requirements for all child-care staff and of standards of quality care … despite the State party's significant resources’.

The cancellation of these agreements, and with them the earmarked dollars for creating licensed and affordable child care spaces, flies in the face of both reason and public preferences.  Research shows that quality and affordable child care programs absolutely require dedicated government funding with clear benchmarks. This is the basis for the Quebec system and it is the basis for the successful child care programs around the world.

As Canadians we understand this. Polls consistently find that a majority of Canadians support public funding and regulations for child care. A national survey conducted by Environics polling firm in May 2006 found:

•  A strong majority (77 percent) of Canadians consider the lack of affordable child care to be a serious problem, and
• Most Canadians (76 percent) support the child care agreements signed between the federal and provincial governments.

A child care poll conducted by Environics in 2008 found similar results.

Indeed, in 2006, 62 per cent of Canadian voters opted for a political party that did support the child care agreements. Stephen Harper’s Conservatives won a minority government, with only 38 percent — of votes cast by a mere 64.7 percent of all eligible voters. Harper’s government did not exactly have a strong mandate.  

In February 2006, Debra Mayer, then Chairperson of the national organization Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada said: “Mr. Harper must reconsider his plan to reduce the child care choices available to families. Cancelling child care is no way to signal that the new government wants a cooperative working arrangement with other [political] parties.”

Canadians understand the need for a collective approach to child care. This is the way our education system is built as well as our health care system.

Instead, the Harper Conservatives replaced the negotiated child care program with the Universal Child Care Benefit (UCCB). The UCCB has nothing to do with child care, but replaces the former universal Baby Bonus, won by the suffragists, which delivered income directly to every mother of young children, to recognize the value of mothering and to ensure children had adequate support. Under the UCCB program, families with children under the age of six, receive a $100 monthly cheque, regardless of family income.

Each year since 2006, the UCCB has cost taxpayers (including cash-strapped young families who can’t get access to child care) $2.5 billion. Yet there is no information about what this $15 billion public expenditure has accomplished for Canadian families.

The UCCB has not created a single child care space nor decreased fees. At a time of “fiscal restraint”, this lack of public accountability or concern about value-for-public-dollars is – at best – irresponsible.

Of course, the Harper government’s track record since February 6, 2006, includes a number of other ill-advised and ideology-driven, decisions since then, such as:

•  Introducing mandatory minimum prison sentences , which goes against the available research on deterring crime and current advice from experts in the field. The Canadian Bar Association says that the mandatory minimum legislation will clog the courts and fill Canadian prisons with the mentally ill and other vulnerable segments of the population, such as aboriginal people, visible minorities and the poor.
• Eliminating federal funding to highly respected organizations that conducted evidence-based research and analysis, including: The National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy, the First Nations Statistical Institute, the National Council on Welfare and the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences.
• Abolishing the mandatory long form census. Non-profit and charitable organizations, as well as the business community, relied on the information collected in the long-form census to make decisions to serve their clientele and to meet the needs of the community.

One final example is the Internet snooping bill, otherwise known as the Internet Surveillance Bill. If adopted, this bill would have authorized huge violations of Canadians’s privacy. In this instance though, the Harper government listened to reason and decided not to proceed with the adoption of the controversial bill.

Could the government’s decision to withdraw the Internet snooping bill be a sign of a change in approach and the beginning of evidence-based decision making?  Canadians will only benefit if our government makes policy and financial decisions based on evidence and not based on ideology.
 

© Copyright 2013 Jody Dallaire, All rights Reserved. Written For: StraightGoods.ca