Kids and corporations
Yes, the shortage of regulated child-care spaces is a pressing public-policy issue, but affordability is just as crucial (Let Parents Choose For Their Children - editorial, Dec. 16). An affordability "what-not-to-do" example comes from Australia, where fees went sky high when corporate childcare giant ABC cornered the market.
Quality is absolutely fundamental, but research shows an inherent contradiction between "good services" and profits in both nursing homes and childcare. Quality is demonstrably poorer in for-profits in both, mostly related to profit-making by undercutting staffing. Finally, yes, of course parents should be the arbiters of their children's care - but to have a real choice, they need a publicly managed system offering multiple high quality options.
Canada doesn't help families much, leaving squeezed-from-every-side young families prey to specious ideological arguments about "choice," and young children fair game for corporations with bottom lines of shareholders' profits, not children's well-being. The care and education of young children shouldn't become a giant corporate piggy bank.
Martha Friendly, Toronto
-reprinted from the Globe and Mail