Kenney is wise to hesitate about the federal childcare plan. It is costly but even if the money is doable, is tilted to only one care style- daycare. It is not really universal and not even accurately labelled childcare since it ignores parent at home, grandma, sitter, nanny, parents who tag-team, work-at-home parents. It is like calling only one food – cheeseburger – ‘nutrition’.
If Ottawa has enough money to put every child in daycare they have the money for every child. Why not send it directly to parents? The issue then is not cost but direction of flow. Letting parents administer it enables them to go cash in hand to any daycare, to fund sitter, nanny, or offset income loss of a parent at home. That’s what universal should mean. It’s what equal means. It’s what choice means.
PS Here is a research website about this argument.
www.equalityandcaregiving.org
Beverley Smith
Calgary
