When Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper announced his party’s policy on child-care, he did something that was a long time coming. The Conservative Party actually came up with a conservative policy. Despite the rantings of Prime Minister Paul Martin about Harper’s secret agenda that presumably includes jail for women seeking abortions and concentration camps to house gays and lesbians, the Conservative Party is really Liberal-lite. The Conservatives stand on health care, the issue that most Canadians continually rank as their number one concern, is almost identical to that of the ruling Liberals. The only difference, of course is that the Tories say that they can administer health care, quicker, cheaper and more efficiently than the current government is now doing. as far as introducing tax cuts are concerned, yes tax cuts can be considered a conservative policy. But in an effort to save his political hide, Paul Martin can cut taxes with the best of those right wing Republicans south of the border that he and his party detests so much.
Harper’s proposal calls for parents to receive $1,200 a year for each child that they have under the age of 6. The money can be used towards the cost of daycare, to raise the children in the home or to be blown by the parents on beer and lottery tickets if they so desire. Canadians with young children will be given choices.
Paul Martin’s Liberals had promised to spend $5 billion over 5 years towards state-controlled child-care. as soon as he heard the Conservative proposal, he upped the ante to $10 billion over 10 years, causing Stephen Harper to question why he wasn’t promising to spend $100 billion over 100 years. and when Martin found out that the Harper plan would cost $10.9 billion, he pledged that the Liberals would spend $11 billion. You can tell that this guy has been a Minister of Finance--he’s just so good with numbers.
Paul Martin characterized the difference between his party’s child-care platform and that of the Conservatives as "stark". This observation leads even the most diehard Martin-hater to have to admit he’s right. It’s the difference between parents being responsible for raising their own children or leaving that dreadful task to the state, much like we do with garbage collection and snow removal.
The Liberals define choice as the right of a woman to have an abortion. Other than that, they don’t very much like Canadians to have choices. We are a nation of rights but one in which people are considered better off if they have as little personal responsibility as possible. The Liberal Party--the gang that brought you the sponsorship scandal where Paul Martin was completely oblivious to the corruption taking place all around him, genuinely believes that they can raise children better than the unwashed masses can. Nothing in this country is worth anything unless it can be provided by the state.
There is another reason why the Liberals want full control of the supervision of children. They want to ensure that children will grow up holding proper Canadian values. and we all know that Paul Martin’s definition of Canadian values is the same as Liberal Party values. as he has often told us, anyone who differs from what he believes to be right is "un-Canadian". although his predecessor, Jean Chrètien, would laugh and scoff at suggestions made by the various right of centre parties, he never questioned the patriotism of their supporters.
Unfortunately, there are many Canadians that are far too dependent upon the state and they will gladly hand over their children to state-run institutions without regard for what’s best for these children. This becomes evident in the argument that some are making that they would like to have a choice in daycare but the $1,200 doesn’t cover the entire cost of child-care. They want to have choice but only if the government pays the entire shot.
If people actually have to pay money to look after their children, can having to pay a doctor cash for an office visit be far off? Choice in child-care--it’s a slippery slope.