Carole Taylor plays eco-Evita to B.C. families
Georgia Straight
May 27, 2008
By Pieta Woolley

B.C. families have just one more month to contemplate how they’re going to spend their $100-per-child “Climate Action Dividend.” In late June, cheques will be mailed, according to the Balanced Budget website.

The money is part of a government “surplus”, announced by Finance Minister Carole Taylor for the 2008 budget. Smart Choices B.C. hopes that citizens choose to spend the money on items that help them reduce their greenhouse-gas emissions, but no one is forcing them to….

Back in 2005, another government plan to dole out $100-per-child to families came under fire. That's when the federal Conservatives announced that, instead of a universal child-care plan, they’d be sending out $100 per month, per child under six-years-old, to spend on care.

Just after that happened, then-Liberal leader Paul Martin’s director of communications Scott Reid made an insightful blunder on CBC national TV news.

“Don’t give people 25 bucks a week to blow on beer and popcorn,” Reid said. “Give them child-care spaces that work.”

Both government’s plans echo the Eva Perón Foundation of mid-century Argentina. There, in the absence of established, government-run social programs, cash instead flowed directly into the pockets of citizens.

In B.C., as in Argentina, a cash payout is a stop-gap policy. But really, $100 doesn’t stop many gaps for childcare, nor for the environment….

If the province had a surplus, how about spending that cash on a universal day-care plan, so families can get care in their neighbourhoods instead of driving miles across the city each day?

Whether it comes from Stephen Harper or Gordon Campbell, $100 is crumbs. So grab a beer to cry into, and a bowl of popcorn. With a whopping extra $100 in your pocket, that’s what you can afford.