"Something That Has Ambition"

If polls are any indication, a significant number of Canadians want child care. And as product of their political ignorance, they expect the federal government to deliver it. These might be the same people who phone MPs offices complaining that the lighting on their street is not working, or that they need their sidewalk repaired. The federal government has become the level of government expected to do almost everything for Canadians.

If confronted with BNA 101, they will typically say that they don't really care, as long as someone gives them what they want. This attitude validates Dostoevsky insight that some people are willing to trade their freedom or autonomy for a piece of bread --or in this case, for a $10/day child care. We are once again sacrificing significant provincial jurisdiction to expediency and convenience. Power tends to growth and expansion. So it is not a surprise that the Liberals want to grab the opportunity to incur into provincial power. Provinces like it because they will get money for it: five billion of our tax dollars in the next five years!

Childcare is the newest instrument of federal intrusion. Quebec has seen the writing on the wall for a while and started its own heavily-subsidized childcare system several years ago charging $7 per day per child. They will resist the federal dictum, and will likely opt out of any deal, but they will take all the money that they can get: they already anticipate they will receive 250 million from this year's federal budget, and $1.2 billion in total in the next five years, for their version of distinct homogeneity.

Alberta is another of the hold outs, but not as one would expect in defense of the principle of provincial jurisdiction and autonomy. Instead, Alberta wants to make sure that Ken Dryden will accept private delivery of the service in his proposed national standards. So-called child advocates are pressuring the minister to grant federal funding to non-profit operations only. Since so many of these child advocates work for such operations, they would like to receive more of the federal largesse to do what they already do. If Dryden caves in, we will all feel better in the knowledge that we are leaving our children in the care of strangers that have no desire to profit from their own labor and efforts.

Statscan tells us that the number of children being cared for by strangers has increased significantly in the last decade. But that does not mean that parents necessarily want more government intervention, as the child advocates claim incessantly. Of those interviewed by EKOS Research recently, 67% did not find favor with the prospect of an expansive program, it seems, if we aggregate the numbers of those who do favor such program, 30%. Nearly half of the respondents, 49%, agreed that the parents should receive "direct financial assistance" or some form of "tax breaks." The majority of respondents are satisfied with their present arrangements, EKOS found.

Like a nineteenth-century Comtean acolyte, Minister Dryden wants a centrally-inspired national monument: "We are looking to create a system, and a system is something that has ambition," he declared. The homogeneization of our children is their ambition. Systems are inanimate things; they are sets of relationships created by humans. Systems do not possess will and they do not possess ambition. Ambition is a human quality (some would say a vice). So, whose ambition is exactly the Minister referring to? We can only guess.

So far, the Conservatives are the only ones that come close to the sentiments of this half of the respondents. Conservatives want to offer tax breaks to parents, which will not discriminate against nor punish those who wish to care for their own children. The Liberal way will have stay at home parents pay tax to subsidize the care of other people's children while they receive no help with the care of their own.

The Liberal policy will also make the numbers of children in day care swell, as it economically encourages people to leave their children in the care of strangers.

A child born in the Fall of 1993 or shortly thereafter, when the Liberals defeated Kim Campbell, is now more than 12 years old. If you voted for the Liberals back then on the basis of their child care policy, you are in luck. It may be finally coming, except that by now your child is now able to be baby sitter. S/he will get a chance effectively to profit from the new ambition.