Excerpts
If one thing is clear from Prime Minister Mark Carney’s economic update this week, it’s that he’s taking progressive voters for granted.
Headlines like “A Canada for All” sound nice. As do statements like: “the government is protecting the essential social programs that give Canadians a fair chance to get ahead — child care, dental care, and pharmacare.”
But dig into the details and you learn national pharmacare is ending. There is no new money to create more child care spaces. Federal health-care spending is drastically being cut. Oh, and the government is looking at privatizing airports and ports — moves prime minister Stephen Harper didn’t even publicly contemplate.
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Child care, another program widely touted by Liberals, will also see cuts. The $625 million Early Learning and Child Care Infrastructure Fund will sunset next year, and while the Carney government plans to renew the Canada-wide early learning and child care (CWELCC) transfers to the provinces, they won’t increase beyond what Trudeau negotiated his last week in office. Funding will, in fact, be $1.1 billion less than what the Grits promised back in 2021, when they pledged “a minimum of $9.2 billion per year ongoing” to keep the program alive.
Morna Ballantyne, of Child Care Now, said the government will be stalling the growth of the program.
“It’s not sufficient. It’s not sufficient to, actually, even cover the increased cost of operation. It is certainly not enough to cover the capital costs that come with expanding the system.”
Ballantyne worries provinces might look to increase fees rather than cut them, and that a lack of funding means tens of thousands of families that want access to the system won’t find spots.
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There is effectively no new money in Carney’s fiscal plan to support what he calls “essential social programs.”
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