Confused and Concerned

[Hydraboss]

Nice.

Very nice.

[mar]

Nice.

Very nice.

Thank you.

Not being a politician I won't claim I made it up myself.

[Canuck E Stan]

But the Caledon Institute is a well respected, non partisan think tank that doesn't just pull these things out of its hat. Their credibility is not in question for me.

I'm not going to question the Caledon credibility but I was hoping to see a comparision to the Consrvative plan and to the Liberal and NDP plan.I've read it three times and all I found was why the Conservative plan wasn't any good.Where is the comparison to the other parties.Apples to Apples.

I did see some numbers that were interesting from the report.

the most recent figures for (2003-2004 in most cases) indicate that parent fees for full time centre-based care range, for infants, between around $6,000 to $12,000, and for toddlers and preschoolers between$5,000 and $8,000. These figures exclude Quebec, which offers a relatively low $7.00 per child per day fee.)

Most families continue to use private child care, who's cost is unknown but doubtless ranges from modest for some family based care to expensive for nannies and designer child care centres.The proposed childcare Allowance would provide an unnecessary subsidy of upper income families on top of their existing child care expense deduction doing little to ease the often heavy burden of child care for the large majority of families with low or middle incomes that do not have access to subsidized child care and often cannot find affordable, good quality care.

So I guess the first question is, if they had compared,apples to apples, to the other parties what would the advantage be to the parent of these different income groups by going to each party plan,based on a weekly or monthly cost.

The second question is in regards to the study being done without knowing what most families use or how much it is costing them.

The study to me is incomplete if they don't have the numbers for private child care that they say MOST families use(ranges from modest for some family based care to expensive for nannies and designer child care centres) and who's COST THEY DON'T KNOW.

This is where most of the families use daycare and it should be a known in making judgements in this study.

Without these two questions answered I don't believe a judgement can be made that the Conservative program isn't any good.

I would want a comparision to be between all the parties and done including the figures for the majority of childcare users.

Then there is the question of lack of access that even Quebec's $7.00 a child per day has for a lot of families.

How would that be resoved by the Liberals and NDP?

Just looking for answers.

[Hydraboss]

"Then there is the question of lack of access that even Quebec's $7.00 a child per day has for a lot of families."

$7.00 a child per day? Man, here in AB you'd be lucky to rent a couple kids for under $20-25 per day. I'm going to Quebec.

Seriously though, I agree with you completely. You can't make a "fair comparison" without COMPARING. Put the numbers together, and then we'll see.

[Melanie_]

CES - but how do you find out? The majority of the child care you are questioning is under the table, as most families end up using patchwork child care of neighbours, grandparents, the nice lady down the street, etc. If they pay for these services (and I doubt many grandparents are being paid) it is undeclared income for most of the providers, so we are not going to see a lot of disclosure.

This leads to the question of the underground economy the Conservative plan would perpetuate. Aside from the fact that most of the providers don't pay taxes on the under the table income they receive, they also are ineligible for employment benefits. That means that these providers, the majority of them women, would not be paying into CPP, EI, Worker's Compensation, etc. They are ineligible for maternity leave, even though it is reasonable to expect that many of them will have babies during the time they are providing care. We're talking about the ghettoization (is that a word?) of a segment of the population that is necessary for people to be able to work and earn the benefits that are being denied child care providers.

[cybercoma]

Hello There, I'm a new user here at these forums as of today. I'm 19 years old and from Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. I came to these forums as a result of searching for information on the parties running in the elections takings place this month. My concern is that I'm not very knowledgable in the political department and I'd like to learn more about what truly is an important subject. I've seen a lot of the commercials and read a few headlines, but other than that I'm a bit confused as to where to get more information on the pros and cons of each of the political parties. I have tried visiting the home sites of the Liberal, Conservative, and NDP parties, but my biggest fear about getting information from those sites is that they might be a little too biased to tell the whole story so-to-speak. For this reason I began looking for a more neutral site that might carry information on the pros and cons of all parties, and that search led me here.

So my question is this: can anyone provide me, if it's not too much trouble, with a reasonable amount of information on the pros and cons of all parties?

Here's a nutshell, oversimplified response...

The government provides services that everyone, people and business, pay for through taxes. So it boils down to two ideas.

Liberals - Charge you more but provide more services.

Conservatives - Charge you less but provide less services.

NDP - Charge you WAY more and provide as much as possible to people.

Peresonally, I prefer keeping my own money and deciding what to do with it and providing for myself. Other people think we should all give as much possible to the government, so everyone becomes "equal".

The choice is yours. You have to decide what's important for you.

[Hydraboss]

Well said.

Hand out

Hand up

Hand in my pocket

[Guest eureka]

Quebec's plan is inadequate because there is not enough money for the number of spaces needed. That is why Quebec has signed on to the Liberal agreements. Ottawa is putting up the extra money.

What is pertinent to the discussion about the Quebec experience is the demonstrated need that both the Liberal and NDP plans are designed to meet. It is the same need that is countrywide and, for the life of me I cannot see how there could be support for the Conservative alternative. Other than that altruism is not a Conservative virtue. It used to be a conservative value but that dissapeared with Thatcher and Reagan and, as usual, Canada is a decade or so behind.

[Harare]

Since when did it become the Government's job to baby sit the kids that two people decided to have ?

I raised 4 kids without any hand outs and they now all work, pay taxes vote PC and raise their own kids.

You have to get a license to drive or have a dog but not a kid, why is that ?

I demand to have a Dipper follow my dog around with a shovel and plastic bag - great "make work plan, huh ?

[geoffrey]

I'm not going to claim I did the math, because I am no mathematician. But the Caledon Institute is a well respected, non partisan think tank that doesn't just pull these things out of its hat. Their credibility is not in question for me.

I'm not a mathematician either, but I am a finance/economics major and I can tell you our tax system doesn't work like that. It's misleading in some aspects and completely false in others.

Just because a group is non-partisan doesn't mean they are right.

And for the other neh-sayers, I'm equally critical of the CPC numbers, though they tend to just be over zealous in estimation, not in actual fact.

Theres a huge difference between being a poor estimator of revenue (which is always subjective anyways) and manufacturing numbers that can be found quite easily (of which there can only be one right answer).

[mar]

"Then there is the question of lack of access that even Quebec's $7.00 a child per day has for a lot of families."

$7.00 a child per day? Man, here in AB you'd be lucky to rent a couple kids for under $20-25 per day. I'm going to Quebec....

LMAO

We have a winner for best humour post of the day!

Wait til the next big drop in oil prices tho, you'll be able to pick up those kids for $15.

[mowich]

Well Proud by now you must either thoroughly confused or wondering why you ever hoped to get factual, salient points about each of the parties, especially when the thread seems to wander off into other discussions. It is a little late now but I found that CPAC has excellent coverage of the entire campaign. Being independent of all political parties it has no axe to grind. There are call-in shows, on the street interviews with voters, interviews with all the candidates in constituencies across Canada and other programs that will inform your vote. With the time remaining you may want to catch some of their programming. You can find a list of their programs on their web-site. I applaud you for showing such an interest in the electoral process.