Introduction
The debate on child care haunts Canadians. This is because our children are of fundamental importance to the future of our country. It is no exaggeration to state that Canada’s future will be determined not by technology or economics, but by the energy and creativity of its people, which, in turn, depends upon how our children are nurtured in their early years. We have to decide which road to follow in order to raise our children so that they will be able to behave responsibly in the future.
The basic issue we have to decide is whether the state should provide universal, accessible and affordable national child care at a cost of billions of dollars annually for our nation’s children in their early years in order to assist in their development to their full potential. This would be the sole government-funded option available to parents. Alternatively, should parents themselves determine how their children are to be raised choosing from a number of different options, with some financial support from the government, but on terms less costly than that of a national day care program?
This issue has become more urgent in recent years due to the fact that more women are entering the paid work force than previously. Those arguing in support of the government-funded and operated child care facilities point out that in 2006, 64% of women with children under age three were employed outside their home. This statistic is used to lead the public to the conclusion that widespread government programs and services are necessary to meet the needs of women in the paid work force. The fact is that this 64% figure includes women who work from home, those working in family businesses with or without salary, women on maternity leave, women working part-time for even as little as one hour per week, women receiving unemployment insurance, women looking for work, etc. These women do not necessarily require child care services.
Opposing Positions on Child Care Issue
There are compelling arguments for the two choices re child care.
1. National Child Care Program
One perspective is that children require early education by trained experts in order to develop their full potential. To achieve this, a national day care plan would be established which would become an extension of the regular education system, with a readjustment of education budgets in favour of this foundational stage of lifelong learning. This would require extensive government funding to cover the high costs of experts working in regulated facilities in compliance with national standards. Such a service would require that the child care service be subject to federal and provincial human rights legislation, which would preclude any religious input in the instructions. Accordingly, a Jewish or Catholic child care center, for example, would not qualify for funding.
Cost of a National Day Care Program
In 1986, the federal government estimated that the cost of a universal national child care program would be $11.3 billion annually. In 1999, a leaked federal discussion paper from the Department of Health concluded that such a program would cost, at that time, $12 to $15 billion annually. In today’s economy, the cost would be considerably higher.
A national child care program, therefore, is an expensive item on any future federal budget – much like our health care program is today.
2. Parental Decision on Child Care
The opposing perspective rejects universal, government-funded child care programs and believes that parents are the best teachers and experts on the raising of their children, who learn best in a nurturing home environment. Further, it is argued that parents should make all the decisions with regard to the training and educating of children in their early years, without government intervention, although with some government funding available to allow flexibility in child care options.
I. Arguments in Support of a National Child Care Program
One of the most influential proponents of using experts to develop children’s potential by way of a federally funded child care program is Dr. Fraser Mustard, a physician and scientist from McMaster University and founder of the Council for Early Child Development and Parenting. In 2007, he co-authored, with Margaret Norrie McCain, a paper entitled Early Years Study 2, Putting Science Into Action1. They argued that early childhood development, provided by a national day care program, is imperative to develop the child’s full potential. Dr. Mustard states in the paper at page 92:
… We now understand how early child and brain development sets trajectories in the health, learning and behaviour for life.… It is now time to put the science into action for our children – and for the survival of our species.
Dr. Mustard did acknowledge that parents do have a huge impact on brain development, but that poor Canadian parenting skills leave children open to social ills, such as juvenile delinquency, illiteracy and substance abuse. The solution to this, he argues, is government licensed experts who will make up for substandard parenting skills.
Support for this national day care plan also has two other influential supporters in Canada:
1. Feminist Organizations
Feminists argue that real equality for women will only be achieved when child care services are available to allow women to compete with men on an equal level. To achieve this objective, feminists, in 1982, established several official child care lobby associations, such as the Canadian Child Care Federation and the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada to lobby for a national child care program. To assist them with this lobby work and with their research, these child care advocacy groups were awarded millions of dollars annually from the federal Women’s Program, Status of Women.
Between 1992 and 2002, they received $1,362,209 from the Women’s Program. In the fiscal year 2004 – 2005, they received a further $483,713 from the Program. This latter grant was made at the time that former Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin was negotiating with the provinces and territorial governments to establish a national child care program in Canada.
2. Labour Union Movement
Another influential lobby group for a national child care plan is the Canadian Labour movement. Canadian unions have experienced a decline in membership, with only 30% of workers in Canada now unionized. If a national child care program were established, an entirely new class of public–sector jobs – namely, child care workers – would result. It is of benefit for child care workers to become unionized. In the province of Quebec, which established a universal child care program in 1997, child care workers’ salaries increased by 40% due to union-led pressure by way of sit-ins, walkouts and threats of a general strike, which threatened to paralyze the child care system used by working parents. As a result, the Quebec government acceded to the union demands in order to minimize any such disruptions. Unfortunately, this meant rising costs for the child care program in order to pay the increased salaries for the workers. This has precluded funds being directed to make improvements in the program itself.
In fact, salaries and benefits account for 85% of operating expenses for the Quebec universal child care program. The labour costs have driven the cost of the Quebec day care program from approximately $2,020 per space in 1997 – 1998, to $7,319 per space in 2004-20053 .
International Pressure for Canada to Establish A National Child Care Program
a) Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
In 2005, the Paris-based OECD criticized Canada for its failure to provide a national child care program. The review of Canada’s child care situation was carried out by OECD at the request of the federal Human Resources and Social Development Department, which funded the background research for the OECD Report. This background research for the OECD report was conducted by the Canadian feminist child care lobby organizations. The OECD report merely adapted this background material, with few changes, for inclusion in their report. Significantly, the OECD report stated specifically that it did not endorse the views expressed in the document, which were those of the authors only. The “review team” for OECD consisted of child care advocates from England, Finland, Belgium and France who relied on the Canadian child care lobbyists’ background report, together with their own two-week tour of four provinces – Prince Edward Island, British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Although the report praised Quebec’s “extraordinary advance” in child care, the review team did not visit Quebec.
The OECD report concluded that early childhood education should be “part of national human capital development” in order to “create a universal system in tune with a full employment economy, which would ensure ‘equal access of women to the labour market’ to ‘broaden and strengthen the tax base.’” It could be argued, however, that encouraging mothers to enter the paid work force in order to broaden and strengthen the tax base was not a valid objective for a child care plan, which should be predicated only on the best interests of children.
(b) UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre – December 2008
Canada was criticized for its lack of a national child care plan by UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre in Florence, Italy in December 2008. The report concluded that Canada was tied for last place with Ireland, claiming that Canada met only one of 10 benchmarks setting minimum standards for protecting the rights of children. One of its major criticisms was that Canada did not provide subsidized and regulated child care services for 25% of children under three years of age.
II Parents as the Experts in the Raising of Children
The perspective advocating parents having the major role in the raising of children and opposing a national child care program is supported by such organizations as Vancouver’s Fraser Institute, REAL Women of Canada, the National Citizens Coalition, Focus on the Family, and the C.D. Howe Institute in Toronto.
However, the strongest advocates of the parental role in the raising of children are Canadian parents themselves. The vast majority of parents consistently support the latter position, according to numerous polls and surveys carried out over nearly a twenty year period. For example:
- In 1991 in a Decima poll, women were asked their views on child care. 70% stated that if they had a choice, they would prefer to remain at home to raise their own children.
- In August 2002, the Strategic Council conducted a poll on behalf of Focus on the Family on the issue of parents’ views on child care. According to this poll, 71% of the respondents (43% strongly,) a parent who does not work and stays home to raise the children was the best choice. Even 76% of two-income families, who make use of child care, said they would actually prefer to have one parent stay home.
- In February 2005, The Vanier Institute on the Family released a study on Canadians’ attitude toward child care. In this study, national day care centers ranked a distant fifth when Canadians were asked whom they would prefer to care for pre-school children. Having a parent provide the care came first, a grandparent second, another relative third, and home day care fourth, just as the Bibby poll had found.
- In April 2006, in the GPC Research Survey, Canadian Attitudes on the Family, respondents were asked which child care arrangement they would prefer: over 80% of Canadians preferred to have one parent stay at home with the children.
- In April 2006, a Statistics Canada Child Care Survey indicated that Canadians referred to raise their children at home and that if the parents were unable to do so, their preference was for child care by a relative in the child’s home, not a daycare setting.
- On May 23, 2006, an Ipsos Reid Focus Group on Issues Surrounding Child care was submitted to the Department of Human Resources and Social Development, the result of its poll indicated that individuals outside major urban centers do not want a national child care program.
There is one poll, however, that was inconsistent with the above, and that was a poll conducted by Environics Research Group in June 2006. This poll was commissioned by the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada. According to its press release, dated June 20, 2006, and the press release by the National Union of Public and General Employees dated June 21, 2006, 76% of Canadians supported a national child care program. An analysis of this poll, however, does not support this conclusion. In response to the question, “Should the federal government create a national early learning and child care system, with the goal of providing affordable child care to all parents who need it?” a regional and provincial breakdown indicated that only 43% of respondents supported such a national day care program. Only polling in the Toronto area indicated strong support for a national day care program (55%).
Position of Political Parties on the Issue of a Day Care Program
On the political level, the platform of the federal political parties on child care is as follows.
The Liberal party in its Red Book, prepared for the 1993 federal election, proposed a national day care program. This policy has been included in the Liberal platform in all the following federal elections.
- The NDP, the Bloc Quebecois and the Green Party all support a national child care program.
- The Conservative Party of Canada opposes a national child care program. In its election campaign in January 2006, it proposed a taxable annual $1,200 Universal Child Care Benefit paid directly to parents with children under six years of age, as well as $250 million dollars annual appropriation over a five year period to create 125,000 more child care spaces. These spaces were to be created by way of tax credit and other financial incentives, such as capital grants and loans to corporations and other organizations to encourage the development of more spaces. Corporations and businesses, however, did not respond favourably to this proposal because it was not cost effective for them. This was due to the fact that an employer providing child care benefits to their employee population would be required to provide that perk to all its employees. This would be very costly for organizations. Consequently, the $250 million dollars for child care spaces, proposed by the Conservative government, was transferred by the federal government to the provinces to enable them to create their own child care spaces. Child care, it is noted, is a matter of provincial jurisdiction.
Changes in Child Care Terminology
It is significant that the language and arguments in support of government supported child care has evolved over the years. In the 1980’s, the child care lobbyists realized that the link between day care and feminism was hurting them. They had been pushing for a national day care program, arguing that women had the right to work outside the home to obtain economic independence and must be released from the obligations of home and children by way of institutionalized day care facilities. This position was based on the book, The Feminine Mystique, by Betty Friedan (1964) who called the home a concentration camp to which women should not be bound. However, this argument was not a winning one with the general public. As a result, the lobbyists changed the expression “day care” to “child care” in order to change the emphasis to the care of a child, rather than freeing the mother from home responsibilities.
In the mid’ 90s the lobbyists changed their focus again to highlight scientific studies which purportedly showed that the first six years of life are crucial to a child’s brain development. “Child care” then was re-named “early childhood education” which required a trained worker with two years education on early child development in order to stimulate and educate the child. It was argued that this care was superior to that provided by parents. It is this argument that is currently prevailing.
Who Is Looking After the Children?
According to Statistics Canada (2002-20034), 46% of children between six months and five years of age were looked after by their parents in the home, that is without substitute care. Of the remaining 54% of children in the same age group, 15% were looked after in day care centers and 39% received other forms of care whether in the home or otherwise by relatives, neighbours, friends, or other care givers.
Quebec’s Child Care Program
In 1997, Quebec established a government operated child care program providing spaces for all children aged 0 – 4 at a parental contribution of $5.00 per day.
In 2004, the price was increased to $7 per day. Children were eligible, whether or not the
parents were working. The cost of this program for the Quebecgovernment was $1.56 billion annually, which, in 2004, represented 45% of Quebec’s entire provincial budget for families. This new child care policy led to a very large increase in the use of government child care, and a sizeable increase in the labour force participation of married women. The rise in the government child care utilization reflected, however, according to analysis, a reduced use of informal child care arrangements which had been “crowded out” by this new subsidized child care. Partly because of this large “crowd out” of private care, the taxes generated by the new maternal labour supply fell far short of paying for the costs of the increased child care subsidies.
The Effect of Child Care Policy in Quebec
- In 2004, a study5 was carried out on 1,500 day care settings inQuebec. This evaluation was conducted within the framework of the Quebec Longitudinal Study of Child Benefits, which annually surveys 2,223 representative children born inQuebec in 1997-98. The study, by Christa Japel, Professor of Education,University of Quebec inMontreal, Richard Tremblay, Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine and Psychology at theUniversity of Montreal, and Sylvana Coté, Assistant Professor at theSchool of Psychoeducation at theUniversity ofMontreal, reached the following conclusions:
a) 61% of the Quebecday care centers met the criteria for minimal only quality in that although they ensured health and safety for children, their educational component was minimal.
b) 12% of the child care centers did not reach the minimal quality and were rated as inadequate.
c) Only one-quarter (27%) of the day care centers provided good quality child care that offered services appropriate to the children’s age.
d) In all types of day care settings, the quality of communication and interaction between staff and children was their greatest strength, but the quality of the educational and hygiene provisions were especially problematic.
e) Children who attended the government operated day care centres were generally from more privileged backgrounds than the children who did not. It found that families earning more than $60,000 used 60% of the government’s child care spaces, and that children from families earning incomes of less than $40,000 a year made up less than 20% of the total enrolments.
f) The overall quality of the day care attended by children from less privileged families was significantly lower than that of those attended by children from more privileged families. In this regard, in a previous study, published two years ago in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry6, Ms. Coté found that children from troubled high-risk families did benefit from “quality” daycare. However, such “quality” child care for these at-risk children was usually not available. That is, it appears that children from dysfunctional homes who would benefit from high quality child care, did not have such facilities available to them.
g) The staff to child ratio in the Quebec day care system is extraordinarily high:
- 1 year old – one worker for five (5) children
- 3 year old – one worker for eight (8) children
- 5 year old – one worker for ten (10) children
In July 2005, a study was released, carried out on behalf of the think tank, C.D. Howe Institute, by economic professor Michael Baker, from the University of Toronto, Professor Kevin Milligan, University of British Columbia, and Jonathan Gruber of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology7 . The study was based on the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth which follows the progress of a large, nationally representative sample of Canadian children. This study found “robust evidence” of marked negative effects on children placed in the Quebec child care facilities. These negative effects included hyperactivity, inattention, aggressiveness, motor/social skills, child health status and illness. Moreover, the analysis found that the child care program led to more hostile, less consistent parenting, worse parental health and lower quality parental relationships.
It should be pointed out that even though the Quebec government was spending $1.5 billion annually on child care, fully half of the children under four years of age had not been accommodated in the government regulated child care plan.
Further, the $7-a-day child care system created the situation that unsubsidized private day care operators could not compete with the government’s much less expensive program. Consequently, most were forced to close, limiting parents’ choices. Since 1997, the private child care market share has become negligible. They accounted for only 1.7% of all spaces in Quebec in 2006.
Analyses on the Effect of Child Care on Children
- The American National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) (2007)8 , conducted a study on long term effects of child care and is the only peer reviewed longitudinal study of its kind in the world. It concluded that the more time children spent in day care centers, the more likely they were to exhibit behaviour problems, some lasting up to the level of Grade 6. While the authors point out that these problems by no means reached pathological levels, they strongly suggest that this phenomenon be more carefully investigated for the sake of public policy development.
Another conclusion found in the NICHD study is that the effects of all outside early learning and care, good, bad or otherwise, consistently pale in comparison to the impact that parenting has on a child. - Jean Francois Chicoine and Natalie Collard, The Baby and the Bathwater: How Daycare Changes the Lives of Your Children9.
According to Dr. Chicoine, child care is not the best solution for children under 18 months of age. According to Dr. Chicoine, the child’s brain requires sensations, emotions, space and movement which can best be obtained within the emotional security of a bonded family. He did state, however, that children of impoverished families should have access to day care of excellent quality, which, unfortunately, is rare in the province of Quebec at the present time. Further, according to Dr. Chicoine, research shows that children’s insecurity increases if placed in day care for over 10 hours a week. If a child stays for 10 or 12 hrs a day, the child becomes at risk. - Dr. Allan Schore, in his book, Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self, published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associations, Inc. New Jersey10 has collected the most significant new data involving the human brain and human emotions. He concluded that mothers in constant contact with their babies form their brains, particularly in the right hemispheric oritofrontal cortex … those cortico-limbic lobes and intricate connections determine the child’s emotional well-being and sense of self for the remainder of its life. According to Dr. Schore, this brain growth cannot be achieved by part time care givers, who although they do an excellent job fulfilling the child’s bodily needs, do not provide the emotional component necessary for development to a child’s full emotional and intellectual potential.
- In 2009, the Good Childhood Inquiry by the Children’s Society in the U.K.published its inquiry of early childhood in the UK. Its report, entitled “A Good Childhood: Searching for Values in a Competitive Age” 11, concluded that excessive individualism by parents was causing a range of problems for children. Its 14 recommendations for the government did not include the establishment of a national day care plan. Its recommendation for the government included, inter alia, “offer high quality parenting classes, psychological support and adolescent mental health services throughout the country.”
The above references should not be taken to mean that there is never a role for government funded child care. It should be available as one option for parents – but only as an option. The government option should be especially available to severely disadvantaged children, as early intervention is helpful to them.
That is, according to the Institute for Research on Public Policy in Montreal12, it is often forgotten, in the current public policy discussion about early childhood education, that data regarding the benefits of high-quality programs were collected from low-income and significantly disadvantaged children. Far less, however, is known about the impact of similar child care for non- or less disadvantaged children.
What Have Other Countries Done About Child Care?
Many countries have opted for a flexible child care program. For example:
Australia:
- Australiaabandoned its day care policy in 1991 and, instead, gave parents vouchers that they may use for the child care of their choice. The Australian Government also provides a family tax benefit to stay-at-home parents and a $3,000 grant to new parents. The result? Only 18% of children are in formal day care.
Finland
- Finlandgives $500 per month to stay-at-home parents and the vast majority of Finnish parents opt for this rather than formal day care.
France
- Franceprovides additional benefits for larger families. These benefits include 30% reduction in train fares; $300 per year for extracurricular arts and sports activities; a calibrated income tax rate: the more children, the less tax paid; a monthly allowance of $360. for families with 3 children (this grant increases when children reach 11 years of age); a tax deduction for housekeeping help; an option of receiving $1,160 per month for 1 year after the birth of a third child or $690 per moth for three years after the birth; tax credits for babysitting fees; 15,000 new crèche places, double tax credits for some child care costs, and financial benefits for parents looking after a sick child.
Norway
- option of receiving $550 per month to look after their own children at home and other welfare benefits, providing that they did not use public day care subsidized by the government.
Bulgaria
- Grandparents are being paid a minimum wage by the government, commencing January 1, 2009, to look after their grandchildren during the child’s first three years.Bulgariaalso introduced measures in 2006 allowing parents to take 315 days leave – the longest inEurope – while continuing to earn 90% of their salary.
What Canada Should Do About Child Care
In view of the fact that parents, according to the polls, do not want a national child day care program, other options should be made available to assist them in the important work of raising their children. It is important to allow for flexibility in child care options. This would include the following:
a) End Tax Discrimination Against Single Income Families
The first measure is to change our tax structure, to eliminate the inequities between single and dual income families.
The current federal tax policy discriminates against the career choice made by women who choose the career of full-time homemaker. For example, in 2003 an average single-income family earning $80,000 per year paid $2,743 more in federal income tax than an average double-income family earning the same amount.
Also, a Child Care Expense Deduction program ($7,000 per year for children under seven and $4,000 for children seven to 16 years of age) is only available to parents with children in commercial substitute day care. It is based on the false assumption that parent-based child care has no expenses. All forms of child care have associated expenses. Child care costs exist because children exist, not because both parents work outside the home.
b) The Family Unit Be Recognized for Tax Purposes
The fairest way to achieve equality for families is to recognize the family unit, rather than the individual, for tax purposes, as is currently the practice. This is not a new concept. The government already recognizes the family unit when paying out benefits, such as the GST credit, the Canada Pension Plan (CPP), and Old Age Security. Potential rebates from the recently proposed Surplus Allocation Act will also be based on family income.
This inequity between single and dual income families can also be eliminated by allowing the single income family to split the family income to file separate income tax returns or by allowing joint tax filing. This would then give the single income family the same tax advantages as the dual income family.
c) Increase Parental Maternal Leave
At the present time, a mother is entitled to a maternity leave of one year, during which she is
entitled to a basic benefit rate of 55% of her average insured earnings up to a yearly maximum insurable amount of $42,300. This means she can receive a maximum benefit of $447 per week for 15 weeks. This payment is taxable income. In order to receive this maternity benefit, the mother is required to have worked for 600 hours in the year prior to her claim.
The mother can share her leave with the other parent (if she does not want to continue the leave herself) providing it does not exceed a combined maximum of 35 weeks.
Quebec, however, effective January 1, 2006, developed its own parental leave program, which is the most generous in the country. Under Quebec’s plan, parents can receive 75% of their salary over 40 weeks, or they can take 70% of their salary for 25 weeks and then 55% for another 25 weeks.
This program, however, costs the Quebec government $1.464 billion a year. Although this program is costly, it does, nonetheless, appear to be having a salutary side effect in that it appears to have increased the birth rate in Quebec. Where Quebec was expecting about 75,000 births in 2006, there were 82,500 births in 2007, and 84,200 in 2008. As a result, Quebec’s birth rate has caught up with the Canadian average, where it had once trailed badly in this regard.
Conclusion
Due to our present economic difficulties, it appears that a national child care program will not be accommodated in the near future. Moreover, even if the financial concerns were not a consideration, such a program would probably not be acceptable to the public. Rather, a flexible child care program, providing parents with several options seems to be a more acceptable approach.
Child care is a matter of provincial jurisdiction. The needs of families in each province are different as the needs of rural and urban parents are different. The federal government has already taken an asymmetrical approach to child care in regard to the province of Quebec, permitting it to operate its own program without any strings attached. It is only fair that the other provinces be provided with similar consideration by the federal government.
Child care is of quintessential importance to our future. It’s trite, but true, to state that a nation’s children are its most important asset. It is essential that we carefully think through the options available to parents so as to serve the best interests of children – and the country too.