Child care scheme's true value is less than originally touted
Vancouver Island News Group/ Campbell River Mirror
31 May 2006
Letters
By Kathy Rae

The face value of the Conservatives' campaign centerpiece is touted as $1,200 for each and every child under six.

It has been presented as a fresh new policy that fairly distributes tax dollars for families to decide for themselves how to spend their $1,200 taxable share of the National Child Care Budget. The $12,000 is an illusion. The scheme's true value is less than that - considerably less, for the vast majority of Canadian families.

One of the justifications for child care programs is not only to support the healthy development of all children, but for many children it is to support healthy development while their parents are away from them at work or school. A child care plan ideal, might be to support families in finding and affording good child care, as quality care allows families with fragile and/or low incomes a better chance of maintaining their social and financial health. One might expect that a strong child care plan would find fairness in lending more support where more support is needed, and less support where it is not required. This does not seem to be the case.

For example, look at a family with both parents working and together earning $40,000 a year. This family will keep only $641 a year from their $1,200 Universal Child Care Benefit (UCCB). Look at a single parent family earning $20,000 a year. This family will keep $768 of their $1,200 UCCB. So far, the greater need, the greater the subsidy. But then look at a one earner, two parent family who earns $250,000 a year. This family - where one parent stays home and is amply supported by the other - keeps a full $971. This family who many would argue needs the UCCB the least, somehow ends up with the most. In fact the affluent, upper income family even gets more than the family on Social Assistance, who, having lost the Young Child Supplement of $249 a year, keeps a UCCB of $961.

It seems ridiculous in the face of these figures to imagine that there is anything fair, or even logical, about a plan that penalizes low-income families, particularly if there are two earners making up that income.

Child care is necessary if parents are to work, train or attend school. Child care is essential for poor families struggling to climb the welfare wall and find and keep jobs. The large majority of Canadian families, including those with pre-school children, have both parents in the workforce. Most single parents work.

Full time child care fees for pre-schoolers in our community are between $500 and $1,000 each month.

A $100 taxable cheque each month is not a child care plan. It may be a new family allowance benefit, but it does pitifully little to support working families in finding and affording quality care for their young children. This plan has turned its back on the national child care challenge. The Conservative plan has responded to families' need for affordable, quality child care with a shrug. This plan ignores the relationship between a productive and efficient work force, national economical competitiveness, a vital social and economic landscape, and the stability and health of families and their children. Without a collective commitment to families and healthy child development there can be no lasting economical prosperity.