Child Care Canada Now

Dear Hillary and Bernie: Can Canada hitch a ride on your child care coat-tails?

Child Care Canada Now — Thu, 19 May 2016 13:54:39 +0000

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As a dual citizen who dutifully votes in U.S. presidential elections, I'm bowled over by the profusion of child-care commitments, comments and analyses emanating from south of the border. Child care is quite the election issue in the U.S., taking up much more space in this election campaign than in any other I remember.

Ontario squandering its chance to be a leader on child care

Child Care Canada Now — Mon, 29 Feb 2016 17:46:28 +0000

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The 2016 Ontario budget wasted a golden opportunity for leadership on developing the national early learning and child care plan that Ontario families need. Chapter four of the Ontario budget is dedicated to detailing Ontario's priorities for collaborative action with the federal government but is silent on the National Early Learning and Child Care Framework promised by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Mansbridge to Trudeau: 'It's 2016. Isn't it time for a national daycare program?'

Child Care Canada Now — Thu, 04 Feb 2016 15:24:48 +0000

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It wasn't surprising that child care was one of the topics Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was pressed about last Sunday on CBC's Face to Face with the Prime Minister.

There are millions of families in all regions -- families like that of the CBC's representative young middle-class parent Jenna Fray -- who are struggling with child care. Parents cannot find and afford good quality child care for love or money.

A national child-care system: 'Because it's 2015'

Child Care Canada Now — Fri, 06 Nov 2015 15:42:56 +0000

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The best line of the Trudeau government's first day -- widely reported and praised in the international media -- was the new PM's. In response to a reporter’s question about why he'd chosen to create a gender-parity cabinet, he rather matter of factly observed "because it's 2015."

Finally. 'Fertile ground' for a national child-care program

Child Care Canada Now — Fri, 16 Oct 2015 15:57:18 +0000

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High-quality national child care needs a workforce to match

Child Care Canada Now — Wed, 07 Oct 2015 15:57:59 +0000

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Finnish child care is a world beater. So why do some critics still say universal care hurts kids?

Child Care Canada Now — Wed, 30 Sep 2015 13:55:26 +0000

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Three out of four: Canada needs a national child-care program

Child Care Canada Now — Wed, 23 Sep 2015 21:24:20 +0000

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Why giving parents cash-for-child-care isn't the answer

Child Care Canada Now — Wed, 09 Sep 2015 19:26:15 +0000

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Child care has become a key issue in Election 2015. To support the public interest and political debate, the Childcare Resource and Research Unit's blog, Child Care Now, will be published each week between August 12 and October 19. This is the fifth entry in the series.

Four decades later, parents still carry most of the responsibility for child care

Child Care Canada Now — Wed, 02 Sep 2015 18:24:07 +0000

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'The more we get together' -- to build a national child-care program

Child Care Canada Now — Wed, 26 Aug 2015 19:16:00 +0000

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Quality child care shouldn't be just a matter of luck

Child Care Canada Now — Wed, 19 Aug 2015 20:01:54 +0000

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A flexible, reliable, national child-care program would bring Canadians together

Child Care Canada Now — Wed, 12 Aug 2015 18:52:30 +0000

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The real issue, then, is not whether mothers should work but rather the need to ensure that children are cared for adequately while mothers are at work.

-- Toronto Social Planning Council, 1960

Pierre Poilievre, you're no Santa Claus.

Child Care Canada Now — Mon, 20 Jul 2015 19:52:27 +0000

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Right-wing think tank miraculously makes child care space shortages disappear

Child Care Canada Now — Mon, 11 May 2015 20:54:21 +0000

How about that? With an exposé by one right-wing think-tank and two comment pieces in a right-wing newspaper about the exposé by the right-wing think-tank, child care space shortages as a problem for parents have been made to disappear! Parents must be rejoicing.

Had we pesky "daycare proponents" only known -- rather than harping on the problems of space shortages, high fees, inequity and uneven quality -- we might have sat at the feet of the miracle workers who managed this, applied their magic and space shortages could have been vanished just like that! Poof! Gone!

Yes, it's a classic boondoggle but surely an $8-billion expenditure deserves some evidence

Child Care Canada Now — Mon, 06 Apr 2015 14:02:46 +0000

Probably shouldn't say "we told you so" but last Tuesday a Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) report confirmed what many have said since 2006: the UCCB cheque through the mail slot isn't child care. The PBO's analysis showed that more than half the "child care benefit" money (most of which is the Universal "Child Care" Benefit) will go to families who don't spend anything on child care.

Moreover, the PBO calculated that these expenditures would reach $8 billion a year by 2017.

The PBO's most recent report book-ended a PBO analysis on income-splitting, another scheme touted as "family friendly." Income-splitting will benefit only 15 per cent of families, with the affluent making out best but will cost Canadians an additional $2.2 billion foregone taxes a year.

One more year without a national child care program

Child Care Canada Now — Fri, 06 Feb 2015 19:52:17 +0000

Last February 6, we posted a blog commemorating the eight year mark since the Harper government’s cancellation of Canada’s first national child care program. This year, while the story is still the same, there are some new and hopeful developments. With this in mind, we are reposting last February 6’s commemorative blog together with comments about how the child care debate is shaping up in 2015.

Data crimes and misdemeanors: Why child care, too, needs the long-form census

Child Care Canada Now — Mon, 02 Feb 2015 19:36:03 +0000

In the first week of February 2015, the House of Commons will vote on Kingston MP Ted Hsu's private member's bill calling for restoration of Canada's long-form census. Although research methods and data analysis are not ordinarily popular or newsworthy topics, there has been considerable media and public attention to the details of how Canada has turned its data clock back to the year 1956, or 1871, or 1666, depending on how you look at it.

Are we there yet? Reflections on universal child care in 2015

Child Care Canada Now — Wed, 21 Jan 2015 17:12:11 +0000

After the overstuffed turkey dinners, eggnog and latkes, the holidays are a perfect time to reflect on the past year before gearing up for the new one. This year, with a federal election looming and ChildCare 2020, Canada's first child care policy conference in ten years just behind us, the holiday was an opportunity for heavy-duty musings about child care in 2015.

Canadians are hyper-aware that the next federal election is imminent with October 19 the fixed date and a spring election evermore improbable as the economy slips and slides. Whenever it is, child care will be an ardently debated election issue, likely to be influenced by the considerable food-for-thought coming from ChildCare 2020.

Double whammy: Why we're crowdfunding for child-care data

Child Care Canada Now — Wed, 10 Sep 2014 15:39:56 +0000

It's probably not surprising that childcare data was one of the first casualties of the data crimes and misdemeanors that have swamped Canada's stock of valuable information used by social groups, business analysts and policy makers to understand critical issues.

Child care was a particularly unpopular topic with the current Government of Canada even before their election in 2006. However, it's become obvious that evidence-based policy making generally-backed by data and research-is remarkably out of favour as well. Based on these two circumstances, one could say that Canada's child-care data has been hit by a "double whammy".

Child care's rough ride

Child Care Canada Now — Fri, 09 May 2014 12:08:56 +0000

Child care in Ontario has been having a rough ride for some years. Most recently, the current election call illustrates the precariousness of child care in the absence of a federal role and without solid, well-developed provincial policy. In Ontario and Canada-wide, the state of child care is dismal in just about every way -- spaces unavailable, quality uneven, wildly varied but mostly unaffordable parent fees, low staff wages, weak regulation. Full-day kindergarten -- now in seven provinces -- follows schedules that leave child-care needs unmet while children younger than five (or four in Ontario) are left out. Integration of kindergarten and child care is at best superficial -- not the "strong and equal partnership" we'd hoped for.

Childcare community asks: What have we done to deserve this?!

Child Care Canada Now — Fri, 14 Feb 2014 21:28:50 +0000

GUEST POST BY ADVOCATES FOR PROGRESSIVE CHILD CARE POLICY:

We’re Advocates for Progressive Childcare Policy (APCP) and we organized our first event last night.

Another February 6: One more year -- and what do we get? (Not more and better child care)

Child Care Canada Now — Thu, 06 Feb 2014 17:46:36 +0000

Another February 6th, and for those of us in the child care community, it’s a time to reflect on Canada’s close-but-no-cigar national child care program. You remember, right?

Everyone knows the story -- after years of advocacy for a national child care program, it seemed that one would really materialize. But the story ended with a clunk for children and families when the Harper Conservatives won the January 2006 federal election and cancelled the bilateral agreements between the federal government and the provinces/territories that Ken Dryden had spent months negotiating.

Buyer beware: What parents navigating Canada's child-care market need to know

Child Care Canada Now — Tue, 01 Oct 2013 13:55:52 +0000

Recognizing that parents navigating Canada’s hit-and-miss patchwork of regulated and unregulated child care are on their own, a comprehensive website for parents has been developed by the Childcare Resource and Research Unit and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers. findingqualitychildcare.ca provides detailed information about child care in each province/territory; key regulations; which kinds of child care are required to be regulated; how to recognize good quality and how improve the chances of accessing it. It includes a 20-minute video showing good quality in centres, provincial/territorial search tools and contacts, “dos and don’ts”, and a checklist to use to help assess potential child care.

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Look in the mirror: Just substitute 'Canadian' for 'American child-care hell'

Child Care Canada Now — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 14:23:06 +0000

An article in the April 29 issue of The New Republic has generated considerable interest in U.S. child care as its content and perspective have been picked up and extended in social media, other magazines, U.S. TV, radio and daily newspapers and even in offshore news media. The hell of American daycare: the barely regulated, unsafe business of looking after our children describes a case of a fire in a family child-care home caring for seven very young children.

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Think child care is no longer a women's issue?

Child Care Canada Now — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 21:06:20 +0000

On this International Women's Day, think again...

Here are ten indications that Canada's lack of action on universal child care continues to have a profound impact on women in all regions of Canada -- across the life span, across diverse groups and across the economic spectrum:

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Why universal childcare is essential for a more equal Canada

Child Care Canada Now — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 13:47:04 +0000

If anything positive has emerged from Canada's growing inequality, it is that a conversation about "the Canada we want" has begun, as pundits and ordinary Canadians have begun to make the connections between health and wealth, public services and social justice, economics and democracy, taxes, inequality and social programs. Over the past year, public forums, blogs, conferences, and the media have explored these issues that came to full public attention when the Occupy Movement shone a spotlight on inequality. As this debate has gained strength, the idea that a national childcare program is a key piece of a more equal Canada has become part of the discourse.

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It's time for the Ontario government to deliver on child care

Child Care Canada Now — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 21:23:29 +0000

Those of us who regularly Google "child care Ontario" can't help but notice the growing number of local news items that describe the pandemonium threatening child care across the province. This includes not only last week's major report from Toronto Children's Services but news items in local media outlets in Waterloo, Ottawa, Parry Sound, Cambridge, Sudbury, Sault Ste Marie, Cornwall (and probably others that I haven't seen). These calculate coming centre closures and cuts, exploding parent fees, burgeoning space and subsidy waiting lists, centre vacancies in high need neighbourhoods while children go un-served-all the signs of a collapsing child care free-market that doesn't work.

It's time for the Ontario government to step up to prevent this from continuing.

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Pass the gravy

Child Care Canada Now — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 14:05:56 +0000

I'm sure I'm not alone in that young children and low income single mothers don't immediately leap to mind when I hear "stop the gravy train." "Stop the gravy train" elicits images of highly-paid executives or well-pensioned fat-cat employees drawing high salaries and not putting in a decent day's work. But for most Canadians, three-year-olds in child care, single mothers struggling to pay the rent and feed the kids, and notoriously poorly-paid early childhood educators would hardly seem to be cruising along on any kind of gravy train, even in the caboose.

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News flash: Mothers still need child care -- straight from the horse's mouth

Child Care Canada Now — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 19:36:58 +0000

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the mountain of evidence about the value of good child care should be more than enough to convince Canadian policy makers to act -- if there's any interest out there in evidence-based policy making. Early childhood education and care (ECEC) has been studied from the perspective of child development and early educational advantage, anti-poverty, balancing work and family, human rights/children's rights, women's equality and smart economics. New studies looking at child care every which way appear with exasperating regularity.

But few analyses have asked mothers of young children what they need, what's missing and what they think should be done about child care.

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