I admit it. Day care is a personal issue for me...and my wife. It is a ballot box issue. And Minister Dryden's rhetoric on this issue makes my blood boil.
- "We need to find as good ways as possible of helping younger kids develop as well as they can develop," he said. "So wishing things were the way they were 30 years ago or 50 years ago is just that -- it's just wishing. And all the time you are wishing is time that is passing where kids aren't getting the kind of support that they need." (National Post, October 11, 2004)
- Appearing on CFRA, Dryden dismissed helping stay-at-home parents by comparing it to parents who tried to treat their children at home rather than take them to a doctor or to the hospital (CFRA, November 18, 2004)
- "A recent study, as was cited, by the Vanier Institute of the Family has found that most moms and dads with pre-school children would prefer that one parent stay home and take primary responsibility for raising the children. Again that is not surprising. As parents we all feel guilty about the time we are not spending with our kids, but if we asked the same group of people or any group of people if they would like to lose weight, 90% would say yes. If we asked them if they would like ice cream once a week and chocolate twice a day, about the same percentage would say the same. The question, as in all of these questions, is not what we would like to do but what we will do, and what we do." (Hansard, February 15, 2005)
Where do I start? First of all you connect disconnect "what we would like to do" from "what we do". It is official government policy to punish families who choose to have a single-income family. If our taxation system weren't as biased as it was more people would do what they would like to do. Furthermore, very many Canadian families do have "one parent stay home and take primary responsibility for raising the children". Why is it the "primary responsibility" of families with a stay at home parent to provide institutionalized day care for those who have two incomes.
It what system of progressive taxation does it make sense to enact a massive transfer of wealth single-income (read lower) families to double-income (read higher) families? Isn't this fundamentally backwards. But that being said, I am not in favour of wealth redistribution in this case (and most others). Why can't we have a fair taxation system that allows families to have a full complement of choices in child rearing? If governments must (and I don't think they should) spend billions on early childhood development should not a situation where there is a one-to-one parental-child loving bond be given just as much funding as to a situation where a child is a group setting with a child care professional?
Finally, has there been any public outcry to reduce the age from kindergarten from 4 years old to six months old? Because in the end this is the corner that Minister Dryden wants to paint the country into. Shouldn't this type of fundamental restructuring come from the bottom up as opposed to child care unions?
I have written more on the subject here.
