Childcare Lunacy

According to Julie Mason in the Ottawa Citizen (via Norman's Spectator) Harper's move to extract Ottawa from the daycare plans that Martin inked with the provinces about 5 minutes before the election, is causing chaos in Ontario where the province is "ramping up with building renovations, construction and training for early childhood educators. Municipalities were rolling out spaces." If this is true it is the fastest implementation of a program in the history of Canadian politics.

"Harper gave the requisite one-year'’s notice; now provinces must decide whether to abandon their badly needed plans or get stuck with an ongoing bill they can'’t afford."

WAKE UP! Notwithstanding that the agreements didn't really require the money be actually spent on childcare, the structure of Liberal plan is exactly like national healthcare. A federal initiative with a limited funding commitment so that once it becomes firmly entrenched as the publics only alternative they can walk away and leave the provinces holding the bag. Eventually sticking the provinces with the ongoing bill is the whole idea.

"Harper must bring in a budget to pay for his $1,200 stipend. By then, all opposition parties must decide if child care -— and our children'’s future -— is important enough to trigger another election."

Because the future of Canada's children depends on a national childcare bureaucracy that at best might serve 20% of the nations preschoolers.