I am still trying to figure out the Harper plan for child care and, without getting political just now, just want to make sure I have the math right. So this is what I understand today:
32,805,041 Canadians
2,057,848 Canadians 5 and under
6.27% of Canadian population is under six and eligible
There are roughly 116,000 people in Kingston
6.27% x 116,000 = 7,273 people in Kingston 5 and under
7,273 x 1,200 per year per child 5 and under = $8,607,600 per year
Is that right? I keep doing the math and it seems to be. While I do understand (though do not agree with) the policy of stopping public child care expansion, the new evil for our new rural overlords’ social theorists, but I do not understand doing so at a cost of around 400% the cost of that increased public child care, as this morning’s Whig-Standard illustrates for Kingston:
Under the scheme, Kingston and Frontenac County were to get millions annually in federal money to create new child care spaces, improve services in schools and provide more early intervention programs for children in need. The city has the first-year funding, $2.32 million, in the bank, but has not yet spent any of the cash. We’ve got the money and we’re not giving it back,” Lance Thurston, Kingston’s commissioner of community development services, said in an interview yesterday. Thurston said the outgoing Liberal administration knew that a policy shift might come after the election, so they passed on the cash some time ago.
So if the Federal Government’s plan costs four times as much and takes away the realistic ability to provide more child care spaces – what does it actually provide? It doesn’t create a level playing field as the people that don’t need it still don’t get it – only those that do need it lose. In return every little kid gets some money in pocket that will not add up to child care or any thing else other than 25 bucks more a week for groceries for toddlers. Was there a suffering in the nation? Was there a mischief to be corrected through increasing spending 400%? Did every toddler need 25 bucks more? How is this not like a promise of free mustard for all when some people need food? Keep you danged mustard. Any why should I pay for the mustard of others through my tax dollars anyway? Let folks buy their own mustard. Except if you can’t afford mustard. But our new rural overlords do not like that idea so much. Prairie mustard farmers vote conservative for the most part.
So please correct me if you can but I still just don’t get this at all. And saying Tory bad or Liberal bad is not helping anything.