Childcare: standing up for children.

After Stephen Harper and the Conservatives took power in Ottawa one year ago, they made good on their promise to deep-six the previous Liberal government's promised universal child-care program. The liberal bureaucratic leviathan would have given the provinces $5 billion (yes, that's right, $5 billion) over 5 years to create 100,000 new regulated (i.e. government controlled) child-care spaces. Instead, Harper established a grant program whereby parents are given $1,200 a year for each child under the age of six. Parents choose how to spend the money. The plan also provides up to $250-million a year in tax credits to businesses and community organizations to create childcare spaces.

Opponents of the Conservative program include teachers' unions, public sector trade unions, most of the big media, organizations like the YWCA (one of Canada's biggest providers of non-profit daycare), the NDP and Liberal parties, and other left-wing activists. For them, at stake in the childcare debate is not the needs of the child, nor the needs of the parents, but rather the flow of female workers into the economy.

Some of those groups have now formed a coalition called Code Blue for Childcare to lobby the present government to 'make good' on the Liberals' promise. They were rebuffed when they tried to petition the provincial premiers at their annual conference in Newfoundland this summer. Not to be discouraged, the executive coordinator of Code Blue subsequently wrote each premier to ask that they work with the coalition to force the government to "honour the federal childcare promise--a deal is a deal" (Toronto Star Aug. 2, 2006).

These liberal advocates just don't get it: an overwhelming percentage of 'ordinary' Canadians, i.e. moms and dads and their family supporters, prefer to raise their pre-schoolers at home either personally, or with the help of a family member, or someone hired by the parents themselves. (In fact, only about 15% of Canadians will even choose to use daycare.) They are supported by conservative family groups like Focus on the Family, Real Women, Kids First, pro-life groups and the Conservative Party of Canada.

A recent C.D. Howe report on Quebec's ten-year-old daycare system found that "children are worse off [in daycare] in a variety of behavioural and health dimensions, ranging from aggression to motor-skills to illness." The study also found that the Quebec program led to "more hostile, less consistent parenting, worse parental health and lower-quality parental relationships." Although more women were able to enter the workforce, they suffered a higher incidence of depression.

Although the C.D. Howe report does not advocate universal childcare, it does suggest that 'at risk' families--poor or troubled families--receive the focus of childcare, so that their children would gain at least modest benefits.

Weighing in on the socialist wing is Roy Romanow, former premier of Saskatchewan, who argues in an essay Childcare and the future of Canada, that "to strengthen our common commitment to early learning and child care is to advance our individual and collective well-being and, in turn, the building of a better Canada." He speaks about "good early learning;" but daycare is group babysitting, not school, and does not generally lead to healthy, educated young Canadians.

Of course, the Toronto Star supports Romanow's socialist ideas--"The future of Canada depends on it" (Aug. 12, 2006). Not to be outdone, the Globe and Mail now suggests that rather than universal daycare, Canada should adopt a childcare system that would be restricted to children 'at risk,' i.e. children from poor or troubled families (as advocated by the C.D. Howe Institute).

Speaking with credibility for children and their parents is Dr. Jean-Francois Chicoine, a young pediatrician at Sainte Justine Hospital in Montreal, an associate professor at the medical faculty of the University of Montreal and vice-president of the Societe de pediatrie internationel. In his recently published book Le bebe et l'eau du bain (The baby and the bathwater), Dr. Chicoine writes that parents routinely "parachute" their children into daycare at too young an age. According to Dr. Chicoine, dropping months-old children off at daycare prevents both them and their parents from forging the strong maternal and paternal bonds needed for healthy development. "It's best for a child to be with its biological parents as much as possible during the first 24 months of life. Kids who go to daycare before 15 months have too many people involved with their lives," which can lead to attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and aggressive behaviour, troubled adolescent behaviour, and a lack of trust in their parents, all of which can be permanent. Dr. Chicoine estimates that 1 in 4 children who attend daycare "will be lost."

Although the issue has been settled, for now, with the election of the Conservative Party, the debate continues. A question that we all need to ask is, given the information available about the impact of daycare on children, their parents, and ultimately Canadian society, are we willing to sacrifice even 25% of our children to daycare knowing that they stand a good chance of turning out as "troubled" children? Or are there better ways of assisting the small minority of parents (usually in our large cities) who desperately need help, often because of the unavailability of family members, in the early years of their childrens' lives?

Although not a parent herself, Janice Glover is aunt to 21 children, not one of whom was 'raised' in a daycare setting. The parents employed various means to ensure that their childrens' needs came first, even if that meant 'going without' or putting their own career plans on hold.