Nationalized baby and child care.

Ottawa -- In the waning hours of the Liberal government's control over the country's expenditures at the end of November, 2005, Social Development Minister Ken Dryden achieved his goal of obtaining a child care deal with all ten provinces. Only the territories were left to sign on. The deal would cost Canadian taxpayers $5 billion over 5 years. Although some of the provinces were holdouts until the last minute, fearing the government would not inject enough money into the scheme, they all fell into line, each with its own bilateral agreement, when Dryden lured them with lots of money. As Bernard Lord, premier of New Brunswick, put it: "They (the Liberals) clearly wanted to get these things signed before the campaign is called. In the end, I felt this was good and what we needed for New Brunswick" (Globe and Mail, 25 Nov. 2005, p. A12). Clearly Lord was pleased with what he got for his province--$20.5 million over 5 years!

But did he and his provincial colleagues consider the implications of the social and psychological harm that might accrue to babies (children at age 3 are still babies) and young children raised in an institutional setting by paid babysitters and controlled by bureaucrats? Or were these provincial legislators and their minions looking at the financial gains they would make with increased money flowing into the provinces and thus raising their status as controllers of Canadian life? Nor should we overlook those who stand to gain the most from the deals--teachers, unionized daycare workers (that's a given), social workers, and other professionals who will spew out their gobbledygook on how our precious children are better off without parental interference.

Dryden refused to consider tax cuts for parents who prefer to raise their preschool children at home. In fact, he compared those who keep their young at home 'to those who refuse to take their children to a doctor when they are sick' (LifeSite News, Nov. 24, 2005). Earlier, Toronto Liberal MP Maria Minna stressed state-controlled "early education" as "fundamental to the development of the child" (LifeSite News, Nov. 10, 2005).

There are no data to support Dryden's claims that children are better off in daycare rather than being taken care of in their home by a parent, or someone chosen by the parents.

New research from the University of California at Berkeley and Stanford University has found that the social skills of white, middle-class children suffer--in terms of co-operation, sharing and engagement in classroom tasks--alter attending preschool centres for more than six hours a day, compared to similar children who remain in the home with a parent prior to starting school. The report found that the earlier a child enters a preschool centre, the slower his or her pace of social development. Another longitudinal study, this time at Harvard University, found that daycare children are significantly disadvantaged in later life by their inability to form psychological attachments (Time, Dec. 2003; LifeSite News, Nov. 10, 2005). Put another way, the earlier the child is put in daycare, the worse the effect.

Those in government and elsewhere who think that daycare will make children smarter and more competitive when they hit the job market are in for a shock. No research has found such results. In fact, a massive British study of its hugely expensive early childhood program showed no positive results at all for disadvantaged kids, to whom the program had mainly been targeted.

In contrast, the Dryden advisors seem to have relied on just one study--the Perry Preschool--a longitudinal study of only 123 children to substantiate their claim that the more money spent on early childhood education, the more money (seven times as much) will be saved in social services costs later on. That study has never been replicated, and it only included children at risk of "retarded-intellectual functioning."

When, during the elections, the Conservatives recommended tax credits so parents could choose child-care in the best interests of their children, the Liberals, revealing their true colours, proclaimed that parents would waste the money on "beer" and "popcorn."