NDP's childcare plan won't work in 2015
This week I expressed concern about the NDP's plan to eliminate income splitting for families to local candidate Bill Sundu. It was apparent it was a childcare conversation and his first response was to ask me if I wanted to go back to the 50s. I said no, but later I thought when it comes to childcare, maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing. In the 50s, jobs were much more likely to be 8-5 and outside the home, which would have suited the NDP's one-size-fits-all idea of child care. The irony is the NDP's universal daycare plan is based on outdated ideas about the workplace, and it misinterprets Canadians' values. It assumes everyone works 8-5, and wants their child in institutionalized care. But in 2015, the reality is the world is 24/7, global and digital. What hasn't changed? The fact Canadian families prefer care in a home environment.
"But in 2015, the reality is the world is 24/7, global and digital.
What hasn't changed? The fact Canadian families prefer care in a
home environment."
I decided to take an inventory of the working families I know. Here is a fair cross-section: Family #1: He works full time, she works three days a week. They want the grandma care for their preschooler while she's at work. Family #2: Single mom and shift worker. No support from her children's father. She chose evening and night shifts because of better pay. She moved closer to her sisters so the aunties could assist in care. Family #3: He works outside the home, she works online at home as an ESL teacher with clients overseas. She has a neighbour come into her home to care for her toddler while she is working. The common theme? All wanted to take care of own children and when it wasn't possible, they wanted family. When that wasn't possible, they wanted a friend or neighbour in a home environment. I have known single moms also. The preference is a home-type environment. Institutionalized daycare, while sometimes necessary, is last choice. The NDP plan would not help any of these families. And then there is the cost. This is the system NDP wants to model itself after: “In Quebec, what we’ve seen is that the costs have exploded. At the beginning of the program in 1997, the cost was about $300 million a year, now it’s closer to $2.6 billion. And in the meantime, what we see is the cost per child has more than doubled. So it’s very expensive as a system." Yanick Labreie, economist at the Montreal Economic Institute (Global News, What we know about the NDP’s childcare plan, August 20, 2015) So, should we go back to the 50s? Well, maybe back in the 50s the NDP plan would have worked, if Canada could have afforded it. But now, in 2015, it can't. And even if we could afford it, it still restricts choice, and choice in childcare is something all Canadians want.
(I wrote this as a letter to the editor to NewsKamloops.com. You can read it here.)
