Tories back universal child care: Stay-at-home parents will be the biggest beneficiaries of the new federal plan
Vancouver Sun
May 3, 2006
By Nicholas Read
EXCERPT:

For Lynda King and Don Black, who have two sons in daycare, the federal government's $100-a-month child-care subsidy is money misplaced.

"My perspective is that they should give the money to child-care centres and child programs and the people who need it," said King, who lives in Vancouver and works in corporate strategies for the Greater Vancouver Regional District. "This is just the baby bonus."

Robert Cassidy agrees. He and his wife, Danielle Kemmer, who live near the University of B.C., have been trying to find full-time child care for their one-year-old daughter, Sara, since before Sara was born. But they can't. It means Cassidy can't start the full-time research job he was offered last week.

So he, too, would prefer to see the money go directly towards creating more child-care spaces instead of into parents' pockets.

"The way the policy is going to work now isn't going to help anyone get back in the workforce, and being in the workforce helps pay for daycare," Cassidy said.

But for stay-at-home mom Jennifer Schouten, of Surrey, the $200 a month she will receive for five-year-old Micah and two-year-old Markus, will be much appreciated.

"It's always nice for single-income families to get extra support because it's a challenge to make ends meet," Schouten said…

Families like the Schoutens, with at least one stay-at-home parent, are the biggest beneficiaries of the new Conservative plan.

Because no matter what the working spouse earns, his or her stay-at-home partner stands to retain almost $1,134 of the annual allowance for each child after tax. That is $263 more than the $871 a working couple earning $50,000 a year stands to get, and $308 more than the $826 allowance that would go to a working couple earning $100,000.

The only scenario under which a working couple could retain as much as a one-income couple with a child -- $1,134 -- is if their combined income is $20,000 a year or less.

The plan has already come under attack from critics who say it provides the least assistance to low- and middle-income earners, and that it will not create needed child-care spaces.

But Schouten, whose husband, Mike, works as a grower at a Surrey greenhouse, believes the government is on the right track because the allowance encourages mothers to stay at home with their children.

"They would be on the wrong track if they supported a national daycare program, because it has no benefit for women who choose to stay at home and raise their families," she said.

King, who pays $1,870 to keep her sons, Thomas, two, and Sam, four, in daycare, says $200 a month, less taxes, is not going to make any appreciable dent in her child-care costs, and will have no effect on her decision to work outside her home.

"The decision to stay at home is not going to be based on getting $100 a month for my kids. You make those decisions for different reasons.

"Personally I would rather pay so that every child can have better access to quality daycare."

Cassidy said he and Kemmer probably would use any money they get from the government to defray Sara's daycare costs -- if they can find a daycare space for her -- but given that they expect to pay at least $1,200 a month, it won't make much of a difference.

"A hundred dollars a month is just a hand wave," he said.

The government also signalled it is prepared to rethink its plan to create 125,000 new child-care spaces by offering a tax credit of up to $10,000 to businesses and community groups for each child-care space they create.

Critics, led by premiers Dalton McGuinty of Ontario and Gary Doer of Manitoba, say past experience shows businesses and community groups, many of which are tax-exempt and could not claim tax credits, are not interested in getting into the child-care business. Instead they want the Tories to honour the former Liberal government's promise to provide multi-year funding to the provinces to create child-care spaces...