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Canadians favour Liberal child-care plan: poll [CA]

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Author: 
CTV News Staff
Format: 
Article
Publication Date: 
20 Jun 2006
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Watch Martha Friendly's interview on CTV's Canada AM [requires Windows Media Player]

EXCERPTS



An Environics Research poll suggests 50 per cent of Canadians prefer the national day-care program proposed by the former government.

In comparison, 35 per cent said they favour the Conservative government's plan to give parents of children under the age of six $1,200 a year.

The poll was commissioned by the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada.

Martha Friendly, a researcher with the University of Toronto, said some of those polled indicated they wanted both plans. However, when asked to pick one or the other, half of respondents favoured the Liberal plan.

"If you look through the whole poll, it really does show that across the spectrum, across the country, across gender, across rural and urban, people really do support a government role in child care and really do value it," she told CTV's Canada AM.

She said that even among Conservative voters, a third of them supported the other system.

"So what we're seeing is that child care has really become a mainstream value, people value it."

One of the main problems cited by respondents about the Conservative plan was that the $100 a month to parents may not be spent on child care.

"It's money to parents, a family allowance, a good thing, income, but not necessarily child care," Friendly said.



The Environics Research survey was conducted between May 5-10. Just over 2,000 Canadians were contacted by telephone.

The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.2 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

- reprinted from CTV
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