Excerpts from the summary:

Over the last decade, child care has been a central policy issue in Canada. In general the debate has been polarized between proponents of financial support for parents who care personally for their children full-time and proponents of financial investment in services that supplement familial care while parents participate in the labour market.

In this study, Paul Kershaw goes beyond this dichotomy and looks at the whole "family benefits package" &emdash; that is, the full range of federal and provincial public supports available to families, from tax allowances, cash benefits and exemptions from various social charges, to subsidies and services in kind. This holistic approach allows him to tackle issues raised by those who do not believe that child care services should be the sole focus of public policy for families, while also acknowledging the paucity of these services in Canada by international standards. He focuses on two provinces: British Columbia and Alberta.