Public Service Alliance of Canada BC

One of our new Prime Minister’s first acts was to strongly advise another newly-elected government to honour the agreements negotiated and signed by its predecessor.

Yet, that’s what his new government wants to do. It wants to scrap the child care agreements signed last fall by the federal government and each province. Five-year funding deals will be terminated in March 2007, over the strong objections of provincial governments who made plans to better serve young families and their children.

Why do this? What makes the Prime Minister’s own vision of child care so compelling that it should override and cancel the vision each and every premier signed onto in their contract with Ottawa? Why take away badly-needed child care spaces – like the 6000 spaces that would have been created for working families in Toronto alone.

Before the election, the Prime Minister ran on his party’s economic agenda, promising business-friendly policies. He is obviously unaware that many of Canada’s business leaders are on record supporting a reliable child care and early childhood learning system as a sound first step in life-long learning.

Employers know high quality public child care is essential for women to participate fully in the labour force. They also know how good child care programs enhance productivity and help establish a work–life balance. Moreover, for households dependent on welfare, access to proper child care is the only way to make a transition to paid work.

The Prime Minister’s argument of choice is that parents need choice. Here, he has a point. The labour movement has long advocated for programs to support stay-at-home parents as well as high quality, publicly-supported and regulated programs across the country for urban and rural families.

But what choice is there for parents when there are no child care facilities available? Right now, about 67% of mothers with pre-school-age children work outside of home. Yet, only 15% of Canada’s children can be accommodated with safe and accessible child care spaces today. Unilaterally cancelling signed agreements aimed at helping more working mothers and their children, without plans for an alternative, make no sense at all.

Imagine what would happen if a new government cancelled international agreements made by its predecessor. What if they announced, again unilaterally, they were pulling out of the free trade agreement with Korea or cancelling promised disaster relief to Pakistan? There would be chaos and confusion.

For thousands of young working families, chaos and confusion is what replaced their hopes of finding good child care spaces when the March 2007 termination was announced after the new Cabinet’s very first meeting.

These child care agreements do not continue only at the pleasure of the governor-in-council, like some kind of political patronage appointment. Each one was negotiated, in good faith, by the Government of Canada and by the government of each province, which is why they are not all the same. The provinces need the assurance of the five-year deal if they are to keep their own promises to improve the quality of life of their young families.

The Prime Minister should heed his own advice about honouring agreements signed with other governments. If he’s prepared to dish it out…

The Prime Minister can claim all he wants to have a mandate from the people to do this, despite the reality he received only 36% of the popular vote and controls just 41% of the votes in the House of Commons.

If he wants to keep his promise for a new child care allowance, there won’t be much resistance from the labour movement, though we do think there are more efficient and productive ways to raise the standard of living of young families.

But, the labour movement will actively mobilize against the way his minority government tries to snuff out the child care program we, with so many parents, community groups, employers and municipal officials, have worked for years to create.

Ken Georgetti is president of the Canadian Labour Congress, the largest trade union federation in Canada, representing three million workers.