Renegade

Please define what you mean by the "backbone of the economy". I would not single out "working middle-class" parents. I think in general that barrers to parents who can live up to financial and other parental obligations shoudl be reduced. You seem to infer that I think the government should encourage MORE kids. I do not. I don't give a fit whether parents have kids or not, however the parents who have kids have taken up an obligation to provide for them. That's not the government's obligation it's theirs. The end result of what I propose is that the kids would be brought up in a better environment even if there are fewer of them.

Are you kidding me? Banning religion is a different than banning religous groups. How do you ban what people believe? I would say your suggestion is the exact opposite of separation of church and state. In your suggestion, the state is telling you what you can and cannot believe in.

How is this any different than government funding of woman's groups or funding multicultralism or funding native groups? I agree that by making funding choices, the government is showing preferential bais for certain religions, but to prevent that and be consistant, you have to prevent the government from showing ANY bias toward any identifiable group, not just religious. Then you are contradicting your previous assertion that you should get a law 'on th books". My assertion was such a law was probably not possible, which you now seem to agree with.

Just curious. How do you reconcile this statement with your earlier (opening post) statement that you consider yourself a libertarian? Where is the defense of liberty here? I see only an attempt to limit it. Any libertarian woudl agree that been free doesn't mean you are free to walk away from obligations you have freely undertaken. Do you think if you have signed a mortgage, a libertartian would support that you are free to walk away from your mortgage without penalty?

Yes, I agree with that. If rich people have fewer kids and poorer people have more kids, the net effect is that more kids will end up poor. If as you say thigns are "tough enough already", it hasn't been tough enough to disuade the poor from having more kids. Disuading the poor from having more kids would result in less kids being poor. I'm not following why that makes child poverty worse. Yes I realize it is contrary to my priciples. As I said, if I had my way there would be no government intervention AT ALL. However the government seems determined to intervene despite anything I can do. In my view intervention is ineffective when done as a half-measure. That is the current state. If parents expect government to intervene to provide finanicial support for their kids, then they should also expect that government interevene in the decision of who has kids.

Actually in constant dollars income in two-parent families has gone up since the 60s. I think expectations is the biggest reason for the change. In the 60s houses were 1500sq ft, and people had a single car and a single TV. Today they expect more, and are willing to trade one spouse at home in order to get those things. So when people say they can't "afford" to have one spouse stay home, it is usually because of the other choices they make.

I expect you are right. Personally I wouldn't define the problem as eliminating child (or any other) poverty. I would define the problem as how to enforce parental obligations to their kids.

What kind of law are you expecting? The charter already gurantees freedom of religion. Separation of Church and State is a principle but how do you enforce it in law?

I'm certainly not suggesting a one-child policy. I just point to it as an example that it has been effective in reducing population growth, albiet with many sdeeffects. I don't either, but the government seems to see it as a problem which needs to be solved. My point is that there are more effective ways to do so. I don't have one. I used the term in the same context you did.

I haven't thought through all the possible way to introduce or reduce barriers; however the one-child policy in China seems to show that government can be successful in influencing the number of children that a parent can bear. Here are some ideas around barriers: License Parenting. Only parents who meet criteria would be issued a license. Having a child without a license, and lead to the parents being penalized or having the child taken away. Encourage the importation of nannies at low cost to the parent. Right now, the wage standards for imported nannies are higher than most parents can afford. In some countries such as Singapore, it is the norm to import nannies, and they are paid a fraction of the wage in Canada, allowing parents that can afford it to have additional kids. Forced contraception. Community stigma. There used to be a stigma around having a child "out of wedlock". That seems to be gone. Imparired driving and smoking seem to show that community stigma is effective in changing behaviour I know some of these ideas sound "cruel", but we should discuss whether it is more cruel to bring up a child in poverty. I like it, however I'm not sure reducing taxes on the poor will actually make them richer. They pay little in taxes anyway, and they would need to increase spending on services which are government provided under higher tax rates.

Budget to focus on child poverty Over the last several years there have been several half-hearted attempts by different levels of government to reduce child poverty. Most of these have never show any tangible success. It made me wonder if there are more effective ways to eliminate child poverty. Let me start with a couple of statements and suppositions: Parents have a set of obligations to their kids. That obligation includes being able to provide for them the necessary food, shelter, and healthy environment. They accept those obligations when they choose to bear or keep the kids. If they are unable to fulfill those obligations, they should not be parents. The best predictor for the wealth of the child is the wealth of the parents. Governments have for the most part tried the approach of incrementally adding to the wealth of parents. How about if they did this instead: Remove barriers to wealthy parents having kids, in effect encouraging wealthy parents to have more kids. Put barriers in place to prevent poorer parents from bearing or keeping kids. My guess is such an approach would have a noticeable effect on child poverty within a generation. Note that I consider myself a libertarian, and would advocate that government not intervene AT ALL in individual decisions such as child bearing, however since the government seems determined to intervene anyway, I am proposing a more effective way of achieving those aims.

Of course there could. Many factors can change including the desirability of Canada as an immigration destination.

Personally I don't buy the reason that they don't get it because it's "for their children". Most parents I know would (and do) spend more on their children than they do themselves. In any case, we trust parents to act as proxies for their children and to act in their best interest. What you are suggesting is that parents don't act in the kids best interests. IMV if the expectation is of parents to provide a minimal standard for their kids (ie proper childcare, shelter, education), then parents should either choose to accept those responsibilites or should choose to not accept the role as a parent.

It is worth what people are willing to pay for. If people aren't willing to pay for it, they shouldn't get it.

I really don't understand your point. What blanks are you referring to? Please explain. Of course I plan on retiring, I just don't think it is fair or sustainable to the next working generation to support me beyond what I have contributed. I also don't think it is fair for me to support the current retirees beyond what they have contributed.

Actually yes it is accounted for. I said the average cost. That means the cost across ALL seniors. Some seniors will cost $1million to treat, others will cost nothing at all, but on average it costs $10000 or so. Certainly if it was only a select few who were collecting then your analogy would be correct, but it is not so. The majority consume healthcare and for some it is in far excess of the $10000. So as I stated the $10000 is an average. Certainly as an insurance broker you can understand that if the overall payout is vastly more than the overall contributions, the system is not viable.

I was never a big fan of the $100/month plan. IMO it was simply a great way to pander to voting middle-class parents. I don't know that Harper himself expected that simply paying $100/month would lead to more spaces.

I can certainly understand that childcare won't attract enough of the right people with low wages. Those wages are primarily set so low based upon the price parents are willing to pay for childcare. Perhaps the real issue is, that as parents we expect too much for the price we are willing to pay an as a result suffer from lack of supply.

Thanks that helps. Personally I don't have any problem with the government creating the spaces, however, the funding for creating those spaces should be from the parents who have benefited such as those described by you above. It would seem that they would be more than willing to pay the cost.

In which city? Is cost of the space an issue?

Exactly! So let's call this myth of "needing" population growth out for what it is. It is a pyramid scheme, where those on the top who benefit most, demand that it continue, so that they can continue to reap the beneifts regardless of the long term consequences.

If you take medicare as an example a quick estimate will show you that this is true. I'm doing some of these numbers by memory, and currently don't have the cite, however if you think any of these numbers are unreasonable please say so. The average cost of providing medicare to someone over 65 is $10,000/year The average lifespan is 78 years The average working individual earns $33000/year The average worker works for 30 years The average taxes that individual pays is 25% of income The provincial government spends approximately 33% of its budget on healthcare. The provincial government collects 40% of taxes paid Based upon these you can see that the average senior consumes: 10,000 * 13 = $130,000 of healthcare. On average they contributed $33000 * .25 * .33 * .4 * 30 = $32,620 toward healthcare So you can see that even if you don't include the healthcare they consumed in their working lives, they contributed nowhere near what they consume. Even your assertion that you need a growing working population in order to support the standard of living is proof. If every individual contributed as much as they consumed (on average) why would you need a constantly increasing contribution base? You only need such a base when individually we consume more than we contribute.

The Conservatives like the Liberals are a political party and will "admit" to problems which may or may not exist. I have seen no evidence of such a problem. I'm asking if anyone else has, or are we just going on the assumption that there is a problem because the Liberals or Conservatives "admit" to it?

If you concede that it is a pyramid, you should also realize that at some point all pyramids collapse. The sooner we deal with this situation and make it a sustainable scheme the better rather than perpetuating the pyramid. All three issues can be easily addressed by reducing the incentive to retire early or even retire at 65. Some of this will be done naturally as a labour shortage will also lead to increased wages and thus incent them to stay in the workforce longer. The government can also reduce the rich benefits afforded retirees, and further incent them to continue working longer. Bribe them to stay working longer or import workers or move the plant. The whole pyramid scheme depends upon having an ever larger base of workers to support a smaller number of retirees. Since that larger worker base eventually retires, the problem perpetuates. You wouldn't need this large base of workers if essentially workers paid for their own retirement benefits, instead of expecting the next working generation to pay for them. RRSPs is one example of a program which workers pay for their own retirement. CPP and healthcare are examples of programs which depend upon an ever larger contribution base to sustain programs. Implemeting sustainable programs mean benefits will have to be cut especially for the non-working population. That is what I mean by a more realistic standard of living. Some retireees like to justify the benefits they collect (such as medicare, OAS, etc) on the basis that they contributed their whole lives. This is not really true. Most are collecting benefits far beyond their contributions. If they collected relative to what they contributed, they would be collecting far less and would not need to depend upon a larger contribution base to support them.

I'd be interested to know how many of you actually had trouble getting a daycare space. I've lived in a number of areas and never had trouble providing I was willing to pay the freight.