While the Liberals have often complained that the Conservative program of giving parents a $100 monthly payment for each child under six is not enough, the truth is that program costs five times what Ignatieff is now offering. The Universal Child Care Benefit cost taxpayers $2.6 billion last year. Ignatieff is promising to do more with just $500 million.This program would just end up being a big government bureaucratic nightmare of a boondoggle. Can you say gun registry program anyone?The money would simply go to unionized bureaucrats and daycare workers and not actually going to care for the children at all.
Advocates of a national program claim it will cost about $10 billion per year, 20 times what Ignatieff is offering. Given that Quebec alone spends more than $1 billion a year on their government-run daycare program, a national system of the type Liberals and daycare activists have called for would likely cost much more.
The count says that's what parents want. Nonsense.
A poll of 2,000 Canadians, taken by Fleishman-Hillard in 2006, showed that by far families would prefer to have one parent stay at home. The poll was taken at the height of the debate over replacing the Liberal plan for a national system with the Conservative plan for the $100-per-month cheques.Conservatives have the best plan that allows choice for parents. That's the way it should be. Children need at least one parent at home during the formative years.
When asked what was best for children, 77.9% of Canadians said having a parent stay home with a child vs. 20.5% who said it was best if the child was looked after by a competent caregiver. When asked what was best for children if both parents had to work, 52.7% said having a relative look after the child followed by using a family-run daycare at 20.4%.
If you want parents to have choice then you have no alternative. Vote for a Conservative majority, they are the only ones who will make sure parents have choice. The other alternative is Count Ignatieff Liberal/NDP/Bloc coalition and a bloated big government nanny state.No thanks!!!!
When it comes to Red Books,check out Gerry Nichols. He has a very good take on it.