I am glad to hear childcare by another name is the Liberals "No. 1 social priority". It should be. However, Ignatieff is in dreamland if he can sell the same confused mess that the Liberals have tired to sell before.
It always unclear as to what the Liberals are offering. The goal of the program was ostensibly to work with the provinces to set up an early childhood education program for children under 6. However, to the average voter this amounted to little more than a vague promise to provide more daycare -- which the Liberals said early childhood education was not --- at sometime in the future; they could not figure out what this would mean for their lives. To add insult to injury, Liberals willingness to consider different deals for different provinces has muddied things all the more.
If the Liberals reintroduce such a program in the future, they need to present it in a form in which voters can understand. This is what they should do. They should promise to provide all day preschool and kindergarten for every 4 and 5 year old in Canada.
Of course, it will be said that the Liberals can not do this; education is under provincial control. It is and so is health care, but never stopped Pearson from introducing Medical Care Act. It is high time this group of Liberals grow some. No one is ever going to vote for a party that is scared of the Conservatives, scared of the provinces and just plain scared period.
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5 comments:
The Liberals made it a foundation of their platform in Redbook 1. The Libs failed.Paul Martin made it a commitment as well. Another failure. Anyone who believes this will have a different result is a bloody fool.
I can support what you say but I dont think that is where iggy is headed? I cant support full Daycare paid by taxes that people who choose to keep their kids at home pay. Perhaps a tax credit = to the govt's savings if you choose to take care of the kids on your own. It is equivalent to punishing people (double billing)if they have a stay at home mom and pay for their neighbors day care? or am i missing something?
What about those people who do not have kids? Their tax dollars are paying to send kids to school for 12 long years as it is. Trust me this is not an argument you want to run with.
Kindergarten is not mandatory, but governments throughout the land provide universal access. Why should Governments spend the money provide such an option and then reward those choose not avail themselves of that option? Well, for one thing, their tax dollars give them option that would otherwise not have --- and the fact that many people think that kindergarten is mandatory speaks to how wildly popular that option is.
"The Libs failed.Paul Martin made it a commitment as well."
No no Martin stuck to guns on this one. The problem was not that he did not deliver. It was that the Liberal proposal was so underwhelming and drawn out it was almost useless politically.
Not only would working out 13 separate deals, take forever, the actual form of such a policy was never clear. It would differ from province to province.
The Canadian liberals have the same problem the US liberals have. The can't brand a damned thing. They're smart and they're used to navigating product facts to figure out the details. Which is something that the stupid average person just isn't going to do.
And for the record, I'm a big fan of better care for kids and I'm not liberal or conservative.
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