EDITORIAL: Back & forth
MetroValley Newspaper Group -- The Tri-City News
24 Jan 2007
Opinion

Canadians are divided over who should look after our children and who should pay for their care.

And it is this never-ending debate, not government negligence, that explains why there has never been a national child care strategy and there never will be.

The questions of whether all children might benefit from some organized early learning opportunities or whether older kids need somewhere to go after school are not discussed because we still don't agree about who should be caring for the kids even though many parents work. Is mom the best or dad? The neighbour or the licensed caregiver down the street? Who knows?

While some Canadians think government should take a stronger role in children's early learning and development, including paying for daycare, there are just as many parents who think government should stay out of the nursery altogether and are managing fine on their own.

The Universal Child Care Benefit, which provides parents with $100 a month for each child under the age of six, is a policy that reflects the individualist approach to parenting and child care. A few years from now, the opposite policy might once again be in ascendance, with money channelled into new child care spaces or early learning programs such as free pre-school, until the pendulum swings back again.

The only consensus that seems to have developed is the belief that child care should not be a barrier to employment, which is why even right-wing governments will provide some level of daycare subsidies to poorer working families.

Other than that, there is little common ground. The result? Canadian families are pretty much on their own and most seem to do a pretty good job of raising their kids, whether they put them in daycare or not. Could they use some help? Yes. Could there be more frank discussion of the real gaps and less ideological hand- wringing? Certainly. But watching the way the pendulum swings, it's hard to expect any real innovation.