YWCA is at it again

From the Cambridge Times, Monday April 19th:

Suzanne Burns, Cambridge
(Apr 18, 2006)

Stephen Harper and his Conservative government may call their election promise a "Choice in Child Care Allowance", but it is becoming increasingly clear that their $1,200 tax break offers parents less - not more - choice in child care.

The fatal flaw in the Conservative plan is that it ignores Canadians' desire for quality early learning and care programs. Although the government says it will offer tax incentives to businesses so they can create child-care spaces, when the Mike Harris government in Ontario tried this in the 1990s, guess how many spaces the private sector created? None.

The Conservative plan confuses families' legitimate desire for income support with the need for accessible, high-quality child care. We believe that Canada can deliver both. Families need both if they are to help their children get the best start in life and balance the overwhelming demands of work and family life.

We share the government's sentiment that what we have isn't good enough. As one of the largest non-profit providers of child care in the country, YWCA Canada seized the promise of federal funding for child care to move beyond the status quo. Representative panels were convened to plan a comprehensive early childhood system that would meet the unique needs of communities and respond to different family circumstances. Cambridge formed a task force of 28 community representatives to conduct the work in this community.

From coast-to-coast, in a rural, large, suburban and small urban community, a broad range of people including business, labour, aboriginal, ethno-cultural, community, women's and parent groups, service providers and provincial and municipal officials, came together.

Over the course of a year, they produced remarkably similar ideas for child-care services. The plans were designed to respond to all young children, wherever they live, whether their parents are at home or in the labour force or whether mom and dad work on a farm or in an office.

The results of our study, released March 20 at a symposium in Toronto, demonstrate that a national child-care program is both feasible and desirable. The irony is that the report's release comes on the heels of the Conservative government's plan to eliminate the long-awaited national strategy.

Canadians want a child-care system that is open, accessible, of excellent quality, and fits into existing services in their communities - such as their local community centres and schools. National and international studies have repeatedly shown that our country lags behind other industrialized countries on this front. Our governments have been both remiss and stagnant when it comes to a vision for child care - but Cambridge and the Canadian public have not.

Since Feb. 24, more than 22,000 Canadians have signed an online open letter that urges politicians to work together to honour the child-care agreements created last year. At www.buildchildcare.ca, people from all walks of life are saying the same thing: $1,200 a year is not enough. Canada can, and must, do better.

Hayley Wickenheiser, a gold medal mother (and hockey star at the Turin Olympics), signed the child care open letter this week. Municipal mayors and police chiefs have signed the letter.

A recent survey of Canada's 150 top corporate executives shows that only nine per cent thought that axing the federal/provincial child-care agreements should be a top priority.

Parents know the difference between quality care in an early learning centre and the patchwork of unsupported and unmonitored babysitters.

Prime Minister Harper may not have counted the desire for child-care spaces before he decided to scrap child-care agreements. But he will surely be counting votes in the House of Commons as his minority government prepares to rule. Our hope is that Canadian families and children will win the vote.

The same theme runs through her pre-election ramble in the K-W record last January. Then there is the usual line "Canadians want a child-care system that is open, accessible, of excellent quality, and fits into existing services in their communities - such as their local community centres and schools." As Joanne at Joanne's Journey has pointed out previously, nowhere on the study does it indicate what Canadians want.

Simply put the YWCA produced a study that found people want... the YWCA to provide their daycare, thus the government needs to find the YWCA more. The surprise isn't in those results, it's that the YWCA really expects us to buy this line.