PREAMBLE: In this issue we maintain our focus on Canadian policy shifts that are of global interest, assuming Canada’s reputation for enlightened social policy. Unfortunately this reputation is being undermined by a neo-conservative ideology. Over a million Canadian children live in poverty and cannot access child care support. In support of child friendly interventions, we include evidence reviewed by the US-based RAND Corporation showing that childhood intervention programs yield benefits in behavior, educational progression and attainment, delinquency and crime, and labor market success, among other domains. Well-trained caregivers and smaller child-to-staff ratios offer more favorable results. Economic studies have shown that well-designed early childhood interventions generate a favourable economic return on this social investment.
CANADA’s SLIPPAGE ON CHILD CARE PROVISIONS
In 2005, after many years of educational research, advocacy and negotiation, early learning and child care agreements were reached between the Government of Canada and its provinces, laying a foundation for a system to meet the needs of all Canadian families. Canceling them, as the incoming Conservative government did in 2006 in favour of family income supplements only, was a major set-back to the evolution of a national child care program, and represented a net reduction of $4 billion in child care funding. While family income support in itself may be a valid policy goal, it will never substitute for early learning and child care services that are of quality, available and affordable.
EDITORIAL COMMENT: Perhaps the most historically surprising feature of this policy shift is that the idea of a national child care programme was first proposed in 1970 by Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservatives (the “PCs” were an ancestor of the Conservative Party of Canada). Evidently today’s Conservatives are now dominated by the social philosophy of the former far right Alliance Party which cobbled with the former PCs to spawn the party. Unfortunately, the new party seems to lack the capacity to accept a sound initiative launched under the previous Liberal government, even one which originated with the PCs, and that was at its grassroots non-partisan. As noted by the New Democratic Party (Denise Savois MP, personal communication): without child care, many parents (mostly mothers) can’t fully participate in the workforce. This undermines their equality, and many children also lose out on vital early learning opportunities when quality child care is scarce or unavailable.
UPDATE: In response to widespread criticism of it’s lack of coherent policy in this area, in March 2007 the Conservative government announced additional federal-provincial transfers of money ostensibly for child care spaces, and a scheme of tax credits for businesses to create child care; opposition critics note that such transfers can be readily clawed back or reallocated, and reflect a massive cut in the support originally intended for child care, and that such tax credit schemes are an inadequate response to the needs. A private members bill, The Early Learning and Child Care Act, will be studied by a parliamentary committee this month; if not supported in favour of Canada's children, this will become an election issue.
PERSPECTIVE OF THE ORGANIZATION FOR ECONOMIC CO-OPERATION AND DEVELOPMENT (OECD)
In October 2004, the OECD described Canada's child-care system as “a chronically under-funded patchwork of programs with no overarching goals”. It found a shortage of available regulated child-care spaces – enough for fewer than 20 % of children 6 years and younger with working parents. By contrast, the following estimates apply to other OECD countries: UK, 60 %; Belgium, 63%; France, 69%; Denmark, 78%. The OECD recommended that Canada double its child-care spending to reach the OECD average.
For more in-depth on Day Care in Canada: http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/daycare/
THE EVIDENCE – HOW IMPORTANT IS EARLY CHILDHOOD?
As part of a recent study, RAND researchers synthesized what is known from the scientifically sound research literature about the short- and long-term benefits from early intervention programs, the features that are associated with more-effective programs, and the economic gains (attractive benefit: cost ratios) that accrue from investing additional resources in early childhood. There is increasing recognition that the first few years of a child’s life are a particularly sensitive period in the process of human development, laying a foundation in childhood and beyond for cognitive functioning; behavioral, social, and self-regulatory capacities; and physical health. Yet many children face stressors during these years that can impair their healthy development. Early childhood intervention programs are designed to mitigate the factors that place children at risk of poor outcomes. Such programs provide supports for the parents, the children, or the family as a whole. These supports may be in the form of learning activities or other structured experiences that affect a child directly or that have indirect effects through training parents or otherwise enhancing the care-giving environment.
The research brief linked below describes work documented in Early Childhood Interventions: Proven Results, Future Promise by Lynn A. Karoly, M. Rebecca Kilburn, and Jill S. Cannon, MG-341-PNC, 2005, 200 pp, ISBN: 0-8330-3836-2
Source: RAND Corporation. RAND Research Briefs
http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB9145/index1.html
Note: We selected RAND for their review in part because we appreciate that this think tank normally enjoys support from across the political spectrum, including Conservatives.
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