TARA NELSON: The federal government's announcement this week of more tax breaks for Canadians on the heels of a skyrocketing federal surplus is also prompting renewed calls for a national publicly funded child care system. Promised by the feds for decades, in 2005, the Liberal government agreed to establish a $5 billion program, but when the Harper Conservatives took office, they cancelled the plan, promising instead to use a system of taxable allowances for parents, and tax breaks for business to create 125,000 new child care spaces in Canada, but as Global National's Peter Harris tells us, for many Canadian parents, accessible and affordable child care remains elusive.

PETER HARRIS (Reporter, Global News, Ottawa.): With this Victoria daycare centre set to close, director Roberta Martell spent four days camped out on the roof, a desperate attempt to keep precious daycare spaces open.

ROBERTA MARTELL (Concerned Resident): Well, on the ground, there are no solutions. On the ground, there are no answers, and on the ground, parents are desperate.

HARRIS: Keeping one-year-old Gordon organized means Vicki Smallman keeps her son in daycare, and she went months on a waiting list.

VICKI SMALLMAN (Parent): It's only going to get worse. I know in this neighbourhood people are having babies all the time, left, right, and centre, and there's, yet there's no infants, there's no real, there's not much in the way of infant care.

HARRIS: She's expecting, so costs and waiting lists are top of mind again. Finance minister Jim Flaherty says new income tax cuts will help parents like Vicki by putting money back into the pockets of Canadians.

JIM FLAHERTY (Finance Minister): So, as soon as we get into the new year, and people get their T4s, and so on, they can go ahead and file, and they'll get more money.

HARRIS: But, is it enough to cover the bills? If you are making $40,000 a year, you will see $225 back, thanks to the new tax break. That is exactly what Leah Fournier will see, a third of her $40,000 income she earns as a daycare worker goes toward her son's daycare costs. So, does it help?

LEAH FOURNIER (Parent and Daycare Worker): I think not in the bigger picture when you're spending $665 a month, a yearly tax benefit of $225 really doesn't make that big of a difference.

HARRIS: The Conservative government does give parents $100 a month to put towards child care, and they were hoping that tax incentives would encourage developers to build new child care centres, only in eighteen months in power, not one spot has opened up, but the minister in charge says they're working on it.

MONTE SOLBERG (Conservative MP): Thousands are being created this year.

HARRIS: The Liberal behind that party's childcare plan says tax cuts offer little care for children.

KEN DRYDEN (Liberal MP): It is an allowance. It has nothing to do with childcare. It never did. It doesn't now. It never will.