So where's the child care the Liberals promised?; Universal program still a distant dream for working parents
Vancouver Courier
October 8, 2008
F Hughes

….After the two recent leaders' debates, ….And decency is a leadership quality. I can only hope that the Liberal candidate in my riding of Vancouver-Kingsway is as genuine as Dion is. That would be you, Wendy Yuan.

If you win, Ms. Yuan, I want you championing issues that are close to my heart (child care, the environment, urban infrastructure). I also want you to be responsive to all your constituents when they call and not just be a warm body in Parliament.

…. As much as I admire Dion, however, a key component of the Liberal platform leaves me questioning the Liberals' motivation. And that's child care. Why? Because they yakked about it for years and did nothing about it while in power. How long did Liberal MP Ken Dryden oversee this portfolio? Even the former NHL goalie couldn't stickhandle his way to finding a solution.

As a working mother of two toddlers with a husband whose job provides zero benefits, childcare is my top priority. According to the Liberal platform, the party's long-term goal is "coast-to-coast, high-quality, universal, community-based, early education and child care."

The issue became even more pointed last week when I received a call from a daycare that said it had space for my daughter for two days a week. The call came four years after I'd put my as-of-yet-unborn daughter on their list. If only this were a joke.

The call was too little, too late. A caregiver currently comes to my house to care for my children, which allows me to cycle to work. That makes me and the environment happy, but my bank account unhappy. I chose this option because I worried I wouldn't find a quality daycare in my neighbourhood. Another fear was not being able to get them into the same one and driving to two different locations. Road rage wouldn't begin to describe how I would feel in the morning.

Child care ties into economics, the environment and crime. It's not a panacea for all of society's ills, but the closest thing to one.

I want to walk my children to a daycare that doesn't eat up half a month's salary. But I am willing to pay part of the cost. The universal child care program in Quebec is often cited as a way to go, but at $7 a day it simply isn't sustainable--at least not within Quebec's teetering economy.

Unlike universal health care, child care should be partially paid for by parents, provided they get to write off all the expenses in their taxes. But if you can't afford it, it should be free. If parents can pay a certain percentage based on their family's economic situation, then pay. ….Crime is another reason quality, affordable daycare and early childhood education should be a government imperative. A person doesn't turn into a criminal overnight. It typically begins when they are young and their behavioural problems (whether they are cognitive, literacy related, emotional or family-inspired) are ignored.

This is basic stuff that even idiots like myself can grasp. All the parties understand this, too--except for Harper's Conservatives….