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Quebec gets high marks for its parental leave and universal child-care programs, but Canada is among the countries that do not provide enough support to working parents, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development concluded in a review of 30 member countries. [...]

Quebec's $7-a-day subsidized daycare provides a Canadian model of the returns that are possible with a policy change, said Jody Dallaire, chairperson of the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada. A 2006 C.D. Howe Institute report found that since the province introduced the program in 1997, the proportion of working mothers in two-parent families rose by 21 per cent - double the growth rate in the rest of the country.

Quebec's investment also created a reversal of the falling birth rate, Dallaire said, but child care continues to be viewed as a frill rather than a necessity in Canada.

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Chretien's Liberals promised a national child care program in 1993.

Parliament supports historic NDP Child Care Act Nov 21, 2007

[ 30 November 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

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Originally posted by Fidel:
Chretien's Liberals promised a national child care program in 1993.

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Originally posted by unionist:

True. But what stops all the other provinces from creating one? And which party has this front and centre as a national priority right now??

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I think that Quebec is one of several provinces not clawing back the Canada Child Benefit from poor families. In 2004, Mel Hurtig said of $9 billion dollars in child benefits, some $3 billion dollar went to families with incomes $90, 000 and above. Those families can well afford child care whereas the vast majority of single parent families and working poor can not.

Fidel, you talk a lot about child poverty, and you now know that "Quebec is the only province where child poverty rates have been consistently declining since 1997".

You also now know that Québec is the only province that has had a cheap universal child-care system since 1997.

You know the story about parental leave, the narrowing gender gap, pharmacare, and all the rest (I'll reproduce the list yet again if you've forgotten it).

No fingers were snapped to bring this about. Social priorities were established. Debt was incurred where necessary to pay for these priorities. Taxes were raised where necessary.

I repeat my question: Where are the other provinces? And where is the NDP?

During the last election campaign, I condemned the NDP's stand on child-care, which was: "We need national child care, but Harper's monthly bonus is good too, it should just be made better!"

This was an opportunistic stand, with one eye to voters, which refused to boldly affirm that a child care infrastructure and no-strings bonuses to parents have nothing to do with each other, indeed they are conflicting demands on scarce resources.

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Originally posted by unionist:
Very convenient explanation for an inconvenient situation

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There are provinces running significant fiscal surpluses due to natural resource exports and buoyed by rising oil and gas prices. But that's not the case in provinces like Ontario, or in Saskatchewan where federal equalization payments were slashed by Harper's conservative government in recent years. Calvert was hopping mad over that one.

To be truthful, Calvert's NDP were perhaps rightfully criticized for not delivering more on the social front. However, the CCF were Keynesians at around the same time New Deal socialists arrived on the scene in the U.S. TC Douglas' government balanced budget after budget as did Calvert's NDP and Doer's NDP in Manitoba. Balanced budgets are not always viewed as Herbert Hoover or RB Bennett reaching out from the grave. It's well known that Keynesians spend in bad times and tax and holdback government spending in good times. With Saskatchewan's bustling economy today, most Keynesian economists would not have recommended that Calvert's government go into debt for whatever reasons. That's another thread.

And Ontario is one of the few provinces running out of capacity to generate electric power, the backbone of economic growth here from turn of the last century until now. So it's not all McGuinty's fault, he's just chosen the wrong environmentally unfriendly path to more power generation. We're at a standstill in this province, and we shouldn't be if our Liberals knew what they were doing. That's another thread. Meanwhile, PQ has enormous hydro-electric power generation from falling water and with it, the ability to electrify economic expansion.

Scandinavian and European countries have national daycare programs. Indeed, socialist Norway has daycare, well-funded socialized medicine, free university tuition for Norwegians(like Sweden and Finland), and they have the largest pension fund slash Petroleum Fund worth more than CPP and Alberta's Heritage Fund combined. I'm not trying to belittle Quebec's achievements on the social front, but child poverty still exists in Quebec and at rates the OECD might describe as 'room for improvement.'

And for the most part, those countries are not fractured by decentralization of federal power and with diminished authority to control natural resource wealth like Canada is with ten provinces and three territories.

In my opinion, and I think the NDP looks at similarly, the feds have the responsibility to create a national daycare program. Provinces don't have the same credit rating as the feds do when borrowing money from private banks. And all borrowing is done through private banks since 1991 or so when Mulroney bailed out Canadian banks for the second time with the elimination of reserve ratios. The feds could conceivably finance what is now become an infrastructure and social spending deficit across Canada, by borrowing from the Bank of Canada at low to zero interest rates. This was done successfully between the years 1938 and 1974 without creating inflation and without running up national debt. Brian Mulroney certainly tried to create Bank of Canada "independence" from federal government in 1982, but an all-parties finance committee rejected his proposal to enshrine Bank independence in the constitution. The Bank law still stands which would enable Ottawa to finance our social and infrastructure needs across the country without having to cut private banks in for a percentage of the action on the backs of Canadian workers.

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The equity question is so obviously violated, we believe there is a strong case to be made in the courts," Calvert said.

He said the new equalization formula, which puts a cap on payments, means Saskatchewan will get $800 million less each year than it would have if Harper had honored his campaign promise.

Liberal MP Ralph Goodale of Regina said later the lawsuit is evidence the federal-provincial resource file is "wildly out of control" under the Conservative government.

NDP Leader Jack Layton accused Harper of fanning the flames of discontent, and called on him to honour his election promise.

"What the prime minister should be doing is grabbing a hold of the crisis that is unfolding here, that he has helped precipitate, and the flames of which he has been fanning as he threw down a gauntlet and said, 'Sue me,'" Layton declared to reporters.

"Then he said, 'if you don't sue me, I'll sue you.' And then today he said he doesn't understand why someone is suing him. This is about the most bizarre little political play that I have seen unfold. All he had to do was honour the promises he made."

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Calvert Urges Wall To Move Equalization Suit Ahead November

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"I'm absolutely convinced that it will. The legal opinions were prepared by the Department of Justice and they obviously are a very professional group of people that have looked at the constitutional issues here and I am certain that when reviewed by Mr. Wall or whoever he has review them they will find they're very strong legal opinions."

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If it can't be shoehorned into a communications plan of 30 second sound bites over the next two or few weeks- it won't be done.

And I don't blame that on Jack in particular. But Jack can make it happen, and isn't.

It isn't hopeless. Jack is at least capable. But it's time to call the cards that are out there.

Jack knows how to lead. He insisted against a lot of resistance that resources be devoted to building in Quebec long before any signs of visible gains were on the horizon. He got very little enthusiasm and quite a bit of grumbling.

Developing an issue is not the same as developing the party from nothing in Quebec- but the determination to look beyond short term gains IS the same.

Point to any issue other than penny ante motherhood stuff where you can see signs of doing more than picking up the visibility and 'being on the right side' opportunities that are just lying there to be picked up immediately.

And no, I'm not just going to carp.

[ 01 December 2007: Message edited by: KenS ]

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Jack Layton is not into making space for big issues that are not already front burner and where the NDP is easily on the side of the angels. You know child care, climate change action, etc.

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Including climate change action in there probably requires some explanation. After all, it's very front burner, and the NDP is certainly on the right side of the issue- only the government is not.

The NDP politically capitalizing on the climate change issue is not as easy as it looks. Beyond jumping up and down about Harper it would take at least as much work as with child care to leverage a unique position that will work for the NDP.

So not doing that has the same roots.

The NDP can't possibly do more than a fraction of what people think can and should be done about translating saying the right thing into political positions that are taken seriously by more than junkies. [And if you can't rach beyond junkies, its all just pretty words.]

But it can do it with 1 or 2 big issues, and I don't see any of that.

Just a note anticipating cheers from GP partisans. By the same standards, the GP has not done a thing on climate change action either. Last year it ramped up it's 2-3% because of the association of the issue with the Green brand, and right when eMays arrival created a modest buzz. No one but political junkies has a clue what the Green plan is or means- even in the most general way.

[ 01 December 2007: Message edited by: KenS ]

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Originally posted by unionist:
So if I understand your argument, Fidel, provinces like Saskatchewan - which pioneered Medicare under the CCF - are unable to implement universal child care, 10 years after Québec, because they are now too resource-rich to qualify for federal handouts.

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You know, I posted all those comments above for your benefit. So now I'm not so sure you do understand the basic facts of the argument where a province with the second largest tax base in Canada, which would be P.Q. where you live, still owns a child poverty rate somewhere around 9 percent. That's an improvement over British Columbia and Ontario's child poverty under Liberal rule. However, it sounds like Quebec could do with federal help themselves in reducing child poverty to below the OECD average and flattening poverty to levels observed only in countries where social democrats have made it happen nation-wide while in power at the federal level and controlling the purse strings at national levels.

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After the Sask. Party has been in power for a while, will you at least condemn THEM for not taking progressive social measures? How much lead time is required for that?

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Saskatchewan has a large conservative base of voters who often switch back and forth from NDP to SaskaTories. And they prefer balanced budgets in the CCF-NDP tradition. However, I will voluntarily and vigorously condemn the source of equalization payment imbalance across Canada, and that would be Stephane Harper's government at the moment. We can have real social democracy in this country if we just ditch the old line parties in Ottawa for one, maybe two terms for the first time since Confederation as an exercise in quasi, FPTP democracy.

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The Liberals first promised national child care in 1993 — but delivered exactly nothing until the NDP pressed their hand in the last minority Parliament. Now, in a new minority Parliament, the NDP is pressing forward with a 3-point child care plan:

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1Child care spaces. We’re fighting to ensure provinces get the multi-year funding in the 2006 budget so they can plan effectively and create affordable, high-quality child care spaces.

2 A permanent program. We’ve tabled the Early Learning & Child Care Act launching a national program — locking in reliable funding and standards. By skipping this step, the Liberals left early progress on child care vulnerable to political winds.

From last year:

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The OECD recommended that Canada boost its child-care spending to the OECD average of about 0.4 per cent of Gross Domestic Product. It's currently half that.

It also recommended integrating child care with kindergarten, and improving the training and recruitment of workers.

There are calls for even more. The Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada issued a report of its own on the heels of the OECD report. It, too called for more money. . .

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