Child care is 'No. 1 social priority': Ignatieff
Victoria Times Colonist/ Canwest News Service
By Norma Greenaway
February 1, 2010

OTTAWA — A federal Liberal government will not let the ballooning deficit get in the way of implementing a national early learning and child-care program, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff vowed Monday.

"I am not going to allow the deficit discussion to shut down discussion in this country about social justice," Ignatieff told reporters on Parliament Hill. "We will find the money because it seems to me an excellent investment."

He described a national early learning system as a way to give young people an "equal start" in life and also the "best anti-poverty program" on offer.

Ignatieff said he is committed to making it the "No. 1 social priority" of a Liberal government, although he refused to discuss the price tag or where he would find the money to pay for it.

…."He needs to come clean with Canadians about how he is going to pay for this costly scheme."….

Ignatieff's comments followed pessimistic predictions by Ken Battle, one of Canada's top social policy researchers, that social policy gains will be one of the victims of the economic recession.

Describing himself as a "chastened realist," Battle told a Liberal-organized forum on poverty and homelessness that statistics show poverty has always increased during previous economic recessions, and that it remained stubbornly high even after the economy started to recover.

The forum heard calls from advocates for disabled, poor and homeless Canadians for investments in everything from social housing to job-creation, education and child care to easing the plight of an estimated 3.4 million people living in poverty….

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