Long lists and climbing costs: The child care fix each party is pledging
As Election Day nears, CTV News Toronto is taking a deeper look into the issues that matter most to local voters, breaking down the party promises as they apply to Battleground: GTA.
THE ISSUE
As her 14-month-old son bounces a ball with staff and other toddlers in the backyard, Toronto parent Lichia Liu is hard at work in the quiet of the shared workspace indoors.
Liu rents a desk at the Workaround, a co-working environment that offers parents office space with on-site child care for $85 a day—much less than the rate of most private daycare centres nearby.
“It’s so difficult, especially for parents whose kids are young,” Liu says of the cost of Toronto child care.
“They’re probably at a stage in their life where they are paying the mortgage, starting out a career and there’s a lot of expenses on top of that. It’s pretty much the most difficult part of your lives, expense-wise,” she said.
“It’s egregious that child care costs as much as it does,” the Workaround’s founder, Amanda Munday, said. Murray started the business while in search of a child-care solution for her own family.
For Munday, like Liu, the federal parties’ child care promises are a major consideration as Election Day nears.
“To me, it’s the Number One issue,” Munday said.
“How can child care not be at the forefront every time our elected officials get up in front of a microphone and all of the candidates get up and make promises?”
THE BACKGROUND
In a city where the cost of child care can easily top $20,000 per year per child—for anyone fortunate enough to secure a spot—the price tag for parents has climbed beyond reach for many.
Families scramble to add their names to daycare waitlists even before their babies are born and are then made to fork over the equivalent of a second mortgage to someone to watch their kids so they can continue to work.
“I think it’s about time that we address that issue,” Liu said.
THE LIBERAL PROMISE
“If you’re a parent, you deserve affordable child care,” Justin Trudeau pledged Aug. 17 on the campaign trail. ”You need affordable early learning and child care.”
The Liberals are promising a $10-a-day national child care system within five years, at a cost of $30 billion. They say they would also reduce child care fees by 50 per cent in the next year, build 250,000 new child care spaces and hire 40,000 more early childhood educators.
THE NDP PROMISE
“If you want, truly want, universal child care—if that is something that matters to you—vote New Democrat,” NDP leader Jagmeet Singh said Sept. 6, alleging the reigning Liberals have had lots of time to implement their plan.
“We’ll get it done. You can’t believe Liberals who promise something and then drag it out.”
In addition to supporting a $10-a-day child care system, the New Democrats are vowing to create more child care spaces and eliminate waitlists, save not-for-profit child care centres that are at risk of closure and ensure that child care workers are paid a fair, living wage.
THE GREEN PROMISE
“It should be without fees,” Green leader Annamie Paul said Aug. 17 of the country’s child care. “It should be universal.”
The Green Party is promising to increase federal child care funding to one per cent of GDP annually, ensure the training, recruitment and retention of well-paid staff and eliminate the GST on all the construction costs related to child care spaces.
THE CONSERVATIVE PROMISE
Instead of a universal child-care program, the Conservatives are promising to convert the existing child-care expense deduction into a refundable tax credit of up to $6,000 per child, to cover up to 75 per cent of the cost of child care, based on income.
“Parents know what’s best, particularly with the flexibility needed for families coming out the pandemic,” leader Erin O’Toole explained on Aug. 16 while on the campaign trail.
The most significant benefit from the proposed Tory tax credit would go to families with income below $50,000. The money would be paid out to parents over the course of the year so there would be no waiting for the refund.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Bodies found by U.S. authorities searching for missing B.C. kayakers
United States authorities who have been searching for a pair of missing kayakers from British Columbia since the weekend have recovered two bodies in the nearby San Juan Islands of Washington state.
Amid concerns over 'collateral damage' Trudeau, Freeland defend capital gains tax change
Facing pushback from physicians and businesspeople over the coming increase to the capital gains inclusion rate, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his deputy Chrystia Freeland are standing by their plan to target Canada's highest earners.
'It's discriminatory': Individuals refused entry to Ontario legislature for wearing keffiyeh
Individuals being barred from entering Ontario’s legislature while wearing a keffiyeh say the garment is part of their cultural identity— and the only ones making it political are the politicians banning it.
BREAKING Police will not be charged in death of Indigenous man in B.C., mother says
Three Mounties in British Columbia will not face charges in the killing of a 38-year-old Indigenous man on Vancouver Island in 2021, according to the man's mother.
Douglas DC-4 plane with 2 people on board crashes into river outside Fairbanks, Alaska
A Douglas C-54 Skymaster airplane crashed into the Tanana River near Fairbanks on Tuesday, Alaska State Troopers said.
Tom Mulcair: Park littered with trash after 'pilot project' is perfect symbol of Trudeau governance
Former NDP leader Tom Mulcair says that what's happening now in a trash-littered federal park in Quebec is a perfect metaphor for how the Trudeau government runs things.
'It's just so hard to let it go': Umar Zameer still haunted by death of Toronto police officer
“It's just so hard to let it go. I mean, everyone is telling me, ‘you have to move on,’ but I know someone is not here [anymore]. So I don't know how I will move on." That’s what Umar Zameer, the man recently acquitted in the death of a Toronto police officer, told CTV News Toronto in a sit-down interview on Tuesday.
NASA hears from Voyager 1, the most distant spacecraft from Earth, after months of quiet
NASA has finally heard back from Voyager 1 again in a way that makes sense. The most distant spacecraft from Earth hadn't sent home any understandable data since last November.
Saskatchewan households will continue to receive carbon tax rebate: Trudeau
Households in Saskatchewan will continue to receive Canada Carbon Rebate payments, despite the province refusing to remit the federal carbon price on natural gas, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Tuesday.