EXCERPTS

Re: Don't kill national child care plan (Feb. 16, 2006)

I realized with great sadness that Stephen Harper was likely to terminate the plan for a national child-care program for this country. After reading Mayor David Miller's empassioned plea in yesterday's Star, I felt I had to join his voice, and thousands of others who believe that a national child-care program is essential and a timely expression of this country's commitment to our future.

Harper could be a champion of Canada's future, a Conservative whose vision of leadership is different from that of Mike Harris, whose dark days of the "Common Sense Revolution" have left this province with a hefty social burden.

Why not make this important commitment to Canada's children through a national day-care program and find out? The offer of $1,200 per year to families with kids means nothing if there are no affordable and reliable child-care spaces.

- reprinted from the Toronto Star