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Canada's last Conservative minority government died a quick death on the arid hill of a steep hike in gasoline taxes; this one has chosen the grassy knoll of a popular $1,200 child-care allowance for its first do-or-die stand in Parliament.
On his first day in office this week, Stephen Harper announced that he would fulfill his big-ticket promise to families by July 1. Win or lose, this is the battle that will set the tone for the rest of his mandate in and outside the House of Commons.
On the child-care front, Harper can expect little help from the Liberals or the NDP. The latter may actually be a bigger fan of the Liberal national daycare plan than its nominal authors.
If the Conservatives are to survive their first budget and get to deliver cheques to parents of young children instead of funding to the provinces, they will need the support of the Bloc Québécois. Still reeling from the outcome of the election, Gilles Duceppe is not spoiling for an early showdown.
This week, Duceppe said he did not oppose the notion of direct help to families. But he also hinted that to secure Bloc support, Harper would have to earn the blessing of Premier Jean Charest.
With his own election not all that far away, Charest is not about to stand in the way of the dispensing of federal money to Quebec families.
Only half of them currently take advantage of the province's generous child-care program. There have been suggestions this week that Charest could recoup the federal money from those who access the system by raising the daily fee of the program from $7 to $10.
Charest also moved quickly to dispel the notion that the Conservative plan would hamper Quebec's existing system.
In contrast with the other provinces, Quebec never planned to use the five-year funding it negotiated with the Liberals to create new places.
But that does not mean Charest - who is financing the most extensive and affordable child-care network in the country &em; is willing to forgo almost a billion dollars in anticipated federal funds.
The premier came away from a conversation with Harper this week with the impression that there was room for accommodation and that really got the attention of Ontario and Manitoba, the other two provinces that have signed five-year funding agreements with the Liberals.
If Harper does not come to terms with Charest, he will put an early crink in the relationship of the two governments and undermine a premier who needs all the help he can get on the popularity front.
One working week into his government, the least that can be said about Harper is that he is no boy scout. As demonstrated with Monday's cabinet, political expediency comes easily to the new Prime Minister.
Whether that makes him extremely bold or just excessively reckless is now a matter of debate in and outside the nation's capital.
The upcoming child-care debate should shed a lot more light on that.
- reprinted from the Toronto Star