Damian Brooks boils down the child care debate as well as it can be done.
...If you favour regulated care, if you feel the government should support regulated care over every other childcare option, and if you feel families who don't choose regulated care should subsidize those who do with their tax dollars, then the Liberal plan's for you.
If you prefer that the federal government simply give all families a little more financial help to facilitate whatever choice they've made (including regulated care), if you think a national childcare policy should be truly inclusive of all families, and if you don't think the
government has any business pushing one childcare choice over another, then the Conservative plan wins out.
The Staples household made the descision that, in our family, it was best for Mom to stay home. With this descicion in mind you can see why it is clear that we approve of the Conservative plan.
On another note - the Liberals want to make day care another pillar of our social fabric, such as health care. Is there really an upswell of support for such a system. One that would have children beginning elementary school at 6 months. You would think that the chorus would be huge to make such a fundamental change. Furthermore, health care costs are eating up an ever increasing percentage of provincial budgets. The Quebec day care model, which the Paul Martin plan is modelled after, is incredibly over budget (Roy Green of CHML quotes it as 560% over budget). Can we afford such a universal program?
