MP says Tory childcare plan still a work in progress
The Daily Townsman (Cranbrook)
January 17, 2007
By: Bonnie Bryan
EXCERPT

With cutbacks to the Child Care Operating Fund program announced recently, many are wondering what the federal government is going to do to create badly needed daycare spaces. Kootenay Columbia MP Jim Abbott said it will be between six and ten weeks before the details of the plan are unveiled.

"We have committed $125 million to opening new child care spaces and have now established an advisory board as to how we are going to do that but it's still a work in progress," he said. "We're still working out the details because there is obviously a tremendous amount of details that have to be worked out."

Abbott said the termination of the Early Learning and Child Care agreement, and the federal funds that went with it, is not necessarily a loss of possible daycare space.

"We continued the funding level of the federal Liberals from the time we were elected for a transition year...we continued the funding and there still were no new child care spaces," he said. "In other words, the anticipation that there were going to be child care spaces under the old Liberal regime, was unfortunately a bit of a shell game on the part of the Liberals."

Abbott said the Conservative government is going about creating daycare spaces in a different way than the Liberals.

"We're looking for partnerships with either corporations, regional districts or municipalities so that we can get a multiplier," he said. "We can get a multiplier of federal money either by enrolling corporations or other bodies who would also be contributing to it and secondly, our feeling is that running daycare spaces from Ottawa makes absolutely no sense whatsoever."

They are not entirely sure how many spaces this new program will create as each area will be different and how much of a multiplier can be created will determine it. He said the corporations or local bodies involved will have financial say and responsibility, which will give better control at a local level.

"We think less government and more local involvement of concerned people is the most desirable way to go," Abbott said. "We think that there's some very important things for governments to do but probably the delivery of child care services is not among them."

Abbott said another difference between the Conservative and Liberal plan will be the availability of daycare for the children of shift workers.

"The plan the Liberals had was going to make it so only people who worked nine to five had daycare," he said. "What we're trying to do is make it far more encompassing so that if you have someone working at a 7-11, there will still be child care available for them. This is our objective, it is a work in progress, but I wouldn't be talking about it if I didn't believe we could do it." ...

"The thing that's going to be frustrating, and I say this right from go, is that we are not going to be able to have a program that is all things to all people," he said. "There are still going to be situations of individuals that the program will not reach."

He pointed to the daycare system in Quebec as an example, where he said despite the provincial government committing to put billions of dollars into child care, citizens still criticize the program for falling short of people's needs.

"So I don't want people to think, by me making these comments that we envision that we're going to be all things to all people," he said. "But it's definitely a priority for us, we're trying to get the best possible extension of the taxpayer's dollars to get the most child care spaces." ...