ACCESS TO INFORMATION REQUEST: LITTLE ENTHUSIASM SHOWN FOR HARPER GOVERNMENT'S CHILD-CARE POLICY
Few companies keen to provide daycare
The Tories thought tax credits would spur employers and community groups to open 125,000 spaces over five years. Cross-country consultations have poured cold water on the election promise
Globe and Mail
Oct 27, 2007
By: GLORIA GALLOWAY

OTTAWA -- The federal Conservatives were left without any viable strategy for creating much-needed child care after consultations across the country threw cold water on their plans to entice employers and non-profit groups to do the job with the promise of tax credits.

Fact-finding sessions conducted last year with businesses, child-care providers and others garnered a wide range of opinions about what the government should do to help working parents care for their young children.

But, as indicated in a summary prepared for Diane Finley, who was then the minister of human resources, "there were some messages that were consistent across all of the consultations." And most of them ran directly counter to what the Conservative government had proposed during the 2006 election campaign.

An analysis of the possibility of getting Alberta employers to create child-care spots says: "Discussions with employers, businesses in Alberta, were mainly reflective of what we heard across Canada in terms of child care not being their line of business, shared concern that it would be too costly and complex for small business to consider."

As for the idea of tax credits, those performing the analysis said: "shareholders are skeptical that a tax credit will create an adequate incentive for employers to create new child care spaces and are concerned it unfairly favours large enterprises." Nor would tax credits work for non-profit organizations….

Many stakeholders said long-term funding to sustain the spaces was needed as well as the start-up financing that the government had offered. And there was a general consensus that the money should flow to the provinces and territories for distribution rather than from Ottawa to child-care providers directly in the form of tax credits.

It was also apparent that the meagre wages, averaging about $23,000 annually, being paid to child-care workers made it difficult to hire and retain the people needed to expand the sector. And yet parents were stretched to their financial limits to afford quality care.

"My husband and I are college graduates with decent jobs in the 'richest province' in Canada," one mother wrote in response to a consultation that the government of Alberta conducted on the federal child-care plan. "But we can't afford to have the second child we desire, as $1,200 a month in childcare would break us."

Another said: "There are very few spaces available. For over a year, my child has been in a daycare that I wish to pull him from, but there is nothing available to us."

The Conservatives introduced a child-care benefit of $100 a month for every preschool child. But that represents only a fraction of the costs of most daily care. And, because it is taxable off the wages of the lowest earning parent, it pays more to families that have a stay-at-home spouse than it does to families in which both parents work…..

The Globe asked for the results of those consultations nearly a year ago, but the release of the information was delayed for many months by the Privy Council Office, the bureaucratic department working for Prime Minister Stephen Harper. When they were finally made available last week, they showed there was little enthusiasm for Ms. Finley's proposals even as she was touting them during the summer of last year.

"The Conservatives had to face the reality that tax cuts do not create child-care spaces and services," said Olivia Chow, the child-care critic for the New Democrats.

Meanwhile, she said, "there are just not enough child-care services out there. It's lowering Canadian productivity because some parents can't work. It's really hurting our future generation because some children are not getting the best learning and care opportunities. And lastly it is lowering our Canadian population."…

Mr. Solberg, who repeatedly declined to be interviewed for this article….

He cited plans for about 10,000 spaces to be created across the country - far short of the number required to meet the election goal….