April 19, 2006

The child care issue could be the showdown issue in the House of Commons. Stephen Harper evidently feels he can win it and has thus thrown down the gauntlet. In Burnaby yesterday he basically dared the opposition parties to challenge his govt on the issue.

This is such a critical issue - and not just because child care is so inherently important. It is key because it is the crux of the issue of universality and national social programs. Even though the child care agreements the Liberals signed with the provinces do not constitute a national program, they are a start. If we lose this fight we may never see another national social program.

EVERYONE OF YOU NEEDS TO WRITE A LETTER ON THIS ISSUE. HARPER HAS ISSUED A CHALLENGE. IF WE DON’T TAKE IT UP - AND DEMAND THAT THE OPPOSITION TAKES IT UP - THE MESSAGE IS CLEAR AND HARPER WILL ASSUME HE HAS WON.

Click here to find you MPs’ email addresses. Just highlight, copy and paste into a new message to send a copy of your letter to them as well.

The overarching theme should incorporate three broad messages:

• what Canadians say they want is actual day care spaces, regulated, high quality, early childhood education-based.
• what we need is a program that is universal just as Medicare is - that is, jointly funded by the feds and the provinces but with national standards with Ottawa using its financial clout to set those national standards (again like Medicare).
• Harper’s $1200 scheme has nothing to do with child care and in any case after taxes and clawed back benefits is a small fraction of that amount.

Some facts and analysis you can use:

• Harper said, regarding his plan, in Burnaby: "Make no mistake about it: We will take that commitment back to Canadians if we have to."
• It is critical that we first debunk the $1200 program - make it clear that this has nothing to do with child care:
1. If there are no child care spaces available, the money cannot be used for reliable, safe child care
2. Even is spaces are there, in the absence of a national program, it is totally inadequate as current child care costs are at least $600 a month
• The program is totally fraudulent, Harper keeps talking about $1200 but the net amount is much lower according to the Caledon Institute (keep attached report for future reference).

  The Caledon Institute’s [www.caledoninst.org] analysis of a hypothetical couple with one child and a family income of $30,000 in Ontario (very similar in other provinces):

  Annual Harper “child care” payment: $1,200
  Minus income tax ($362) = $838
  Minus benefit clawback ($390) = $448
  Minus Young Child Supplement ($249) = $199
  Total: $199 per year (less than a dollar a day).

• After 12 years of broken promises the Liberals were finally held to account by a minority parliament and came up with a beginning of a national child care policy. Canadians supported that program - that’s why the Liberals felt obliged to implement it.
• We do not want to be a loose federation of provinces with a patchwork of social programs and nothing but individual solutions to community needs. We want a federal government that leads on these issues, not one that effectively breaks up the country into independent fiefdoms.
• The Conservatives have no mandate to kill the child care deals sained with the provinces. These deals were not signed with the Liberal party -they were signed with the federal government which had a 12 year old mandate from the Canadian people.
• If you look at who gave Harper a mandate it amounts to just 15% of the voters. Do the math: a CBC commissioned Environics poll just following the election showed 41% of the 36% who voted Conservative voted explicitly for a Conservative government - that's 15% (The rest just wanted ‘a change.')
• Harper’s plan allegedly includes creating 125,000 actual spaces through individual agreements with community groups and private companies. But not one dollar - and not one space - will be created this year.
• Call on the opposition parties to make this a deal-breaker. Either Harper maintains the deals signed with the provinces or we go to the polls again.

Sample letters (please rewrite or change the order of the points made):

• So Stephen Harper is “daring” opposition provinces to stop his so-called “child care” initiative. I hope they call his bluff. He has absolutely no mandate to kill existing child care agreements with the provinces, which signed deals with the federal government not the Liberal Party. Only 36 per cent of voters cast their ballots for the Conservatives and according to an Environics poll just 41 percent of those voted for Harper’s policies. That’s just 15 percent of voters. that’s not a mandate for radical change.

  His program is a cruel joke - the poorest familes will get a small fraction of the $1200 after taxes and other benefit clawbacks. The Liberals, NDP and the Bloc - with an 85% mandate - have a duty to stop Harper and save the child care deals.

• Stephen Harper goes on and on about accountability but his so-called “Child care” initiative is a total fraud. His $1200 a year per child payment to families doesn’t create a single child care space. If there are no spaces, the money is of no use for child care. Even if spaces are available, they cost at least six or seven times that much.

  Even worse, the $1200 turns out to be a lot less because it is taxable and because it will lead to existing benefits being clawed back. According to the respected Caledon Institute, a couple with one child and an annual income of $30,000 will see that $1200 become $838 after taxes; $448 after benefit clawbacks and just $199 when the Young Child Supplement (in an Ontario example) is deducted. That’s 54 cents a day.

  The opposition parties received 64 percent of Canadians' votes - they must use that overwleming mandate to oppose this backward step and demand the child care agreements be honoured.

• Looking at the Conservatives so-called "child care" plan it is clear that with a Stephen Harper government in place for very long we will not have a country at all - just a loose collection of provinces and individual families desperately looking for cheap baby-sitters. Harper is determined to eliminate any social policy role for the country's national government. There will be no more community approaches to community needs - just cut a check for a family and throw them into the marketplace. This is not what Canadians want. They want high quality, reliable and safe child care spaces. They want early childhood education - not just places to store their kids. The opposition parties must stand up for Canadians and call Mr Harper's bluff. I, for one, would be willing to see an election on this fundamental issue.

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