Apolitical Staples

Canadians prefer Childcare not the giveaway

National

Liberal Plan 50% (+5) Conserv Plan 44% (-4)

Quebec

Liberal Plan 49% Conserv Plan 44%

Ontario

Liberal Plan 53% (+9) Conserv Plan 41% (-8)

West

Liberal Plan 46% (+3) Conserv Plan 48% (-2)

I’m not even sure why I’m calling the Conservative policy a plan.

My apologies for that last comment, Greg.

And I clarifed my post…but please you know the personal bothers me. Attack arguments all you want but no ad hominem.

The reason it won’t die Greg is because the problem of too few daycare spaces won’t go away just because Harper is ignoring it. Also, am I wrong or isn’t this a minority government?

Then don’t lobby PM Harper - it is like the choice in childcare care lobbying Mr. Layton, not going to get you anywhere. Lobby Misters Layton, Duceppe and Graham but that will cause another election and the only ones who want that are the CPC.

Childcare is not the federal government’s responsibility.

“I’m not even sure why I’m calling the Conservative policy a plan.”

Fair enough - so long as you stop calling the Liberal policy a “childcare plan” or referring to it as childcare. It is a plan for providing day care - but for people who either cannot use day care - say due to scheduling constraints - or prefer not to do so, it provides no care for their children, does it?

Oh yeah…Lobby the Premiers.

“The reason it won’t die Greg is because the problem of too few daycare spaces won’t go away just because Harper is ignoring it. Also, am I wrong or isn’t this a minority government?”

It’s not that there aren’t enough day care spaces. It’s that there are too many children. Thank God those prolific social conservatives leave the womenfolk at home to care for the young ‘uns, or this faux-crisis could become even faux-worse.

Never fear though. The low birth rate among “progressives” should solve the problem in another generation or so.

Greg, it is no good pretending there isn’t a federal presence in this area. Harper is promising 125,000 daycare spaces in the next 5 years. The lobbyists think he is going about it the wrong way and will say so.

Thanks for your faux concern, OC.

I am just getting sick and tired of the media trumpeting “women’s groups want daycare”. These groups do not represent the majority of women. The majority of women, studies have clearly shown, would prefer to raise their kids themselves, not foist them off on minimum wage staff at 10-15 to 1 staff to child ratios. Women’s groups should focus on lobbying the government to enable more women to exercise their CHOICE rather than COERCE them into the workforce due to unfavourable tax policy and lack of government support.

The issue is that the Liberal plan is a fallacy. It was never inacted and never woudl be inacted. The point is also taht when has their ever been a demand that private business has not been able to fill? None. Daycares are opening up, just not the unionized ones. The elderly, young parents raising their kids, all sorts of peopel are opening up daycare themselves. We need to make it easier for business to be business and try not to force unionized government run CRAP on people!

For any of the Libcomsimps who think their LIberal Idols did not Loose the election…Count the Seats! And just wait till the NEXT election.

Leadership trumps mindless ideology and we are going to prove it again by dropping the liberals to less than 20 seats. Next………….

do any of you pro liberal supporters own a map??? Okay, look at a city in Ontario like say Callander or maybe Sunridge, or say Parry Sound, then look at anywhere in the praries outside of a major center, now look in the Maritimes where the entire population could be dropped into the greater Toronto region and not a heck of alot of people would really notice them… The Day care plan will only work in cities…large cities…but we all have to pay for it…regardless of where we live… I’d rather pay for something that goes fairly to the people that need it…parents, not buracrats or Gov’t employees that will be protected by unions. I was raised by a mother that took time out of her own career to raise my older brother and sister until we were old enough to be in school. Is $25 a week enough to make a huge difference….probably not… but taking that $25 a week and dumping it into an RRSP or RESP for your kids and double dipping come tax time it starts to add up and over 6 years it’s a hell of alot more cash then you’ll ever see out of any liberal Daycare plan…. but regardless as another person stated above…daycare is a provincial mater…the feds have no business trying to manipulate our money with there greedy fingers. Leave it up to parents and you’ll find the vast majority of parents will know where the money is best spent. and contrary to Liberal belief it won’t be on beer and popcorn

$1200 x 6 years x 2 for double diping come tax time equals approx 14,400.00 plus whatever other tax breaks through recreation tax breaks etc,… that you can take advantage of… Can you raise a kid on that over 6 years? Probably not without making sacrifices in your own life style and one parents career. Will what amounts to basically $15K help more then some pie in the sky promise of daycare that you may never be able to use because you don’t live in an area thats able to support or even provide it… You’re damn right it will….or at the very least it’ll buy me a heck of a lot of beer and popcorn ;)

“Toronto has a garbage problem. Not enough garbage spaces. What is Harper going to do about it ?” Don’t be ridiculous you say ? Because of course garbage collection is a municipal responsibility, not a federal responsibility. Now replace “garbage” with “child care”. And “municipal” with “provincial”. And its the same stupid argument. Will these socialist agitators please read the constitution. The section where it says that social policy is a provincial responsibility. Enough of this social engineering crap already !

hey mr. ed! the majority of canadians live in urban centres. alot of us are tired of sending our tax dollars to sundridge and parry sound to pave roads for your seasonal residents.

Allow me to repeat what ‘potato’ said:

“Childcare is not the federal government’s responsibility.”

The fact that Harper and the CPC have allowed the debate to shift from “should the gov’t provide day care” to “how best to provide this service” means that conservatism as a whole has been further weakened in Canada. Way to go Harper - go get ‘em tiger. Blah.

What I love about the debate is that there is this “Liberal Plan” people are claimed to like.

Imagine if the question were put: “Would you like one in eight Canadian pre-schoolers to have access to a fully funded, government provided daycare plan or would you like every Canadian preschoolers’ parents to be directly helped.”

The Grits and the womens’ groups and the unions don’t want to talk about the fact the Liberal plan would have left 7 out of 8 Canadian kids in exactly the same position while priviledging a few…and which few would that have been??

Davidson “hey mr. ed! the majority of canadians live in urban centres. alot of us are tired of sending our tax dollars to sundridge and parry sound to pave roads for your seasonal residents.”

I Live in Vancouver Davidson… if there are ~35 million people legally in Canada’s population then quite simply I’d like to know how you figure the magority live in large urban City’s… It’s very cosmopolitan of you and typical of a person in Toronto that’s never really been anywhere else in Canada to complain about tax dollars going to maintain highway infrastructure in rural Canadian area’s, given when they do multi million dollar repairs in Toronto they need to build multi million dollar alternate highways before they can repair the existing road meaning 2x multi million dollar projects for the price of one…but guess what…the ministry of transportation is a Fedral Gov’t responsibility…daycare/child care is the responsibility of the province.

in Canada there are thousands on communities with populations that can’t support a daycare plan simply because for people to drive an hour both ways twice a day to get to the closest daycare is totally impractical. My own commute each day is an hour both ways meaning I spend 2 hours each day in traffic…add 30 minutes to get to and from the closest daycare facility and I’m on the road for 2 1/2 hours.
My wife and I both agreed that it makes more sense for her to stay home and raise our children until they are at the age they can be in school for the middle of the day then her to go back to work. Luckly we have family (Grand parents) that are more then willing to step in and help out. You know, the way many 30 somethings and older were raised… We don’t want some social working 22 year old kid or 40+ shrew that never had kids, protected by a gov’t union, who’s more concerned about the next episode of survivor or desperate housewives then changing a wet diaper raising our kids…

Tories win the election, they get to set the parameters for a childcare plan. End of story. The Liberals won four elections and set their parameters: talk a lot and do nothing concrete. I’ve often wondered when Canada collectively woke up and decided that a national childcare program was an urgent necessity; I can pinpoint when it became one for the Liberals, 24 January 2006, but that’s about all. I’ve got a major problem with people like Caroyln Bennett making the implication that parents who don’t send their kids to daycare are surefire raising future criminals. “I’m from the government and I’m here to raise your kids” is the message. No thanks. My parents did a great job raising six kids (divorce & both re-married), none of us went to daycare, and as of the last time I talked to the folks, none of us have a criminal record. Dr. Bennett owes the parents of Canada an apology, but she can get in line with Bill Graham and Bob Rae at the apology podium, for their words are even worse.