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The Liberals are once again sounding like Liberals this week, as federal party leader Michael Ignatieff made an impassioned pledge to support child care and early education if he forms the next government.
The statement, made as the Liberals hosted a roundtable on poverty and homelessness in Ottawa, marks the return of an issue that provided plenty of fodder between then-prime minister Paul Martin and Stephen Harper, leader of the Conservative party, in the 2006 election.
For what it's worth, Harper won the election and the argument, apparently, although he was held to a minority government.
But shortcomings in the Canadian government's response to child poverty and early childhood development have not gone away. If anything, they have become worse.
In seizing on an issue that can help define the Liberals as different from the Harper Tories, Ignatieff has leapt into the breach.
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In Nova Scotia, as in most other provinces, child care remains a challenge.
Shortages in available child-care spaces leave working parents scrambling and limits the access of many parents to the workforce.
The Canadian Press reported in September that total federal transfer funds designated for regulated child care dropped over the first few years of the Harper government. In 2007-08, funding totalled $600 million, compared to $950 million in 2006-07 and $725 million in 2005-06.
Harper's plan, instead, was to provide a universal payment of $100 per month to the parents of each child under the age of six, regardless of income level. As anyone who has ever written a monthly daycare cheque can confirm, this is a woefully inadequate amount to cover the costs of child care.
Martin's $5-billion national child-care plan would have provided low-income parents with subsidized care, enabling better workplace participation and a better start for children at risk. The Harper government killed the plan soon after taking office.
Ignatieff says investments in child care and early childhood development are the best way to increase productivity and social justice.
"We will find the money because it seems to me to be an excellent investment."
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Ignatieff will have to proceed with caution on the child-care question, as Martin did not find success going down that road. But as labour markets tighten and Canada's productivity scores remain low among international competitors, new ways must be found to strengthen our workforce.
Helping to provide working parents with safe, nurturing child care, while providing children with a healthy introduction to learning, would be a good place to start.
- reprinted from the Chronicle-Herald