We talk a lot about heros in our culture, but now that we have had a child and she is 7 now, I see them every day. People who provide care because it is a calling, and single parents who somehow, and now I really have no idea how, mange to get from day to day with basically no suppport and raise good kids. We think a hero has to pull someone out of harms way while parenting is a lifetime of that.
I cannot imagine the task as a single person. And the people in the childcare industry make less money than custodial engineers...or almost anyone really...and for no good reason. I trust my floors to anyone who will give it a go, but my children to a precious few.
The challenge ahead for our social system and culture to respect the people who truly add value to our community is so immense it is troubling.

Good article, but the quote above is a negative matronizing stereotype that should be combatted. Men love kids. Men are great parents. Nurturance of children is a masculine value, every bit as much as it is a feminine value.

I read about a study a while ago which placed a groups of men (no women) in a room with a single infant. After a few minutes of adjustment, the adult men went ga-ga over the kid and interacted freely with each other. It was fascinating and sudden transition. The second component of the scenario had an equal number of women enter the room with the men & the infant. Can you guess what the first thing the women did in every scenario?

The took the child away from the men. Often this action was accompanied by a "cute" verbal put-down that disparaged or ridiculed the men.

After the women asserted maternal dominance over the situation, the men then shuffled uncomfortably to the periphery and reverted to a subdued mode involving arms-length conversation with the other men.

I found the whole thing absolutely fascinating to watch.

Thoughtful and well written. Harper has no committment to well funded, well designed child care. It's every man and woman (and child) for themselves. Taken directly from the US neoconservative agenda. Thus, his policy only favours those who already have weatlh. Great article!

Clarification on my post above - it was a documentary, not an article. I can't remember who produced it, but if it rings any bells with anyone, please let me know. I'd be interested in getting my hands on it.

Another men bashing article on the Tyee... Shocking!!

Reminder: the Liberals have been promising a national childcare program since the 1993 red book. Get a clue.

nightbloom
This piece is supposed to be reporting – a piece of journalism about “Life”. If Good is a 'good' reporter, the quote you posted is just what she heard someone else say, nothing more. It's in quotation marks, after all.

I agree with your assessment of the generalizing and critical nature of the statement she quotes from a woman talking about her own husband; but that's another point entirely.

A good reporter wouldn't be making this stuff up; shouldn’t be bending the facts to make a point. Your observation is the expression of your opinion - I happen to agree with some of what you say – but it's just not relevant in the context and amounts to an unfair criticism of this particular piece of reportage.

Good may have an axe to grind. However, based on what this article says I don't think you can make that case.

Nightbloom wrote:

Links please, especially if you're going to use your recalled study to accuse the author of man hate. It would help to see who conducted and funded the study, otherwise it has about as much relevance as an urban myth.

The author was telling a story, contrasting her experiences. The wife of the pot-bellied man didn't come off looking any better. Why get so twittery about the man and not her? Besides don't you think the fact that men don't gravitate to early child care professions has more to do with the lack of pay than with put downs from women?

I've heard that the per-capita expenditure for the $1200/year is considerably lower than the per-capita expenditure required to create the Lib's national child-care program.

Is that Harper's rationale then? Pretend to be helping those who care for children at home, whilst saving a few billion....

Seems to me that the ideal solution would be to implement the national strategy, and provide some $$ to those who explicitly opt out. At least that would no longer pit stay-at-home caregivers against those who need to go to work.

I have no problem with the anecdotal account of the study that Nightbloom recalls. A link would be nice.

Why don't more men go into Early Childhood Education? Lack of pay may be part of the reason, but as I've posted elsewhere, there aren't many men teaching in the primary grades, either. Personally, I wish there were more gender balance in ECE and primary grade education.

One other variable that I think is worth mentioning has to do with the fact that men, more than women, have the stereotype of the child molester to overcome.

Thanks for the article, Marcie, and good luck.

deeby
Harper's rationale is to reward the stay at home moms from the religious right wing for their support. He knows his support among working moms and dads who need childcare is not as high in those groups and he's philosophically opposed to the idea of the government actually investing in childcare spaces. The best he's ever likely to do is provide some tax credits for businesses who want to set up private spaces. The Liberal plan was much better. In fairness though, the Liberals waited until the very last to commit to it and the best the people who need child care will get is a one-year extension of funding for the Liberal program.

The best bet for parents that need childcare is to move to Quebec where, for political reasons, the PM has agreed to a more generous and extended funding formula - in addition to the $1200.

People, one hopes, will draw the appropriate conclusions.

Yes, i think Nightbloom is projecting here.
The writer was not generalizing or talking about male stereotypes, she was relaying actual events. Huge difference.
I think the wifes comment was telling, because it subtly says to me, that there probably is not a lot of positive conversation in that home between the spouses. Not a place to leave a child.

just another canadian that expects things to be given to her.

this attitude of entitlement makes me sick. go out and get yours.

Capitalism/maybelle
Where in this story do you get that idea?

You really are one sad, angry individual maybel!

A mother looking for quality daycare makes you sick eh? Please do us a favour, restore some semblance of credibility and explain how you drew such a conclusion. Critical analysis really isn't that hard maybel. I know, I know that it's much easier to use buzzwords that you read ad nauseum in the province (entitlement!), but you can do it - give it the ol' college try!

Yup, I said it was a good article, and was only noting that the scenario as described reinforced a negative male stereotype in a marqee journalistic piece on childcare.

I understand that it was only a narration of events by the author. So just to dispell any further confusion on the part of the other posters here: Fantastic article Marcie!

James Burns' suggestion that I'm accusing Marcie Good of "man hate" is absurd - his tone is a little defensive too (ref. his comment that any unreferenced study positing such conclusions should be relegated to "urban myth" status - a little strong - this is a blog not a graduate seminar). It's important to shatter gender stereotypes of all kinds, James.

As I clarifed, I was describing a documentary that was following a study, and which was aired on television. It's also behaviour I've observed in many different variations many times over. In spite of the rhetoric of inclusive parenting, men are actually subjected to a lot of mixed signals about their "proper place" as the male parent....or even the "proper" form of non-parental male interaction with children.

You gotta admit, there's a whole jumble of unexamined issues men have to contend with on the whole child-interaction and parenthood front, which women can easily take for granted on account of their gender.

Well although the Liberals in 2003 did send some money to the Provinces, it was pitiful amount despite their promises and if you pine for the Liberal plan, you are pining for what amounts to slightly more than vapourware. From the sound of it, Harper has not closed the door on further childcare spending, take the $1200 and continue to put pressure on your MP. The Liberal plan would have done little or nothing for us if anything actually came of it, and was aimed at their support base. Childcare is also a Provincial responsibility not Federal.

sez colin

Define 'us' please; also 'their support base'.

Last sentence is a dead fish!
The one province that has really taken its childcare duties seriously is Quebec and that's the province Harper's actually helping - how come?

Capitalism
"just another canadian that expects things to be given to her."

"this attitude of entitlement makes me sick. go out and get yours."

She is trying to go out and get hers. However, the available product is substandard. It would be interesting to know how much money these basement suite child care's were charging?
How much money would it cost for child care in Capitalism neighborhood? I doubt the $100/month would go very far in either situation.
The Harper plans ensures our youth will suffer the negative consequences of inferior child care.
Not everybody can afford quality day care, if we all "went out to get ours", it would be one ugly society, there is only so much wealth to go around, we can't all be rich.

How bout this...when you and your partner decide to have a child, think about this: Can I pay for diapers, can I provide daycare, Am I mature enough, Are we stable enough in our rleationship, Why do I really want this child? And if you can't answer yes, maybe take a cold shower or play XBOX to blow off some steam.

Great article.

Perhaps we should examine the childcare issue from another angle. It seems that the rest of the first world (excepting the USA, of course) chooses a more comprehensive and government subsidized approach.

In my humble view, whenever we find ourselves doing something much differently from the rest of the pack, we should probably question it.

I am not suggesting that we must follow the rest of the gang all of the time, but radicals in any debate have an obligation to defend their position.

And guess what? We're the radicals when it comes to funding childcare.

The mainstream media has been successful in shaping the debate so as to make it appear that the folks arguing for greater public intervention are the radical fringe, but a broader look at the issue would reverse this.

The people defending the Conservative position on childcare should be the ones scrambling to tell us all what a frightening mess the situation is in Belgium, Austria or wherever, rather than painting the Liberal plan as some reckless and irresponsible Big-Brother-esque social experiment that will bankrupt us all.

Childcare is a branch of education. And education is one the brands of socialism that works.

Having said that, I believe we can provide help for low income parents.

Some think that Quebec's system is great. If the new polital party being floated there goes ahead they would sweep the province and that system could be toast.

CTV, last week,
"41 per cent of Quebecers would support a coalition of conservative forces headed by Action democratique du Quebec leader Mario Dumont and former PQ premier Lucien Bouchard."

In a report on the Quebec day-care programme the CBC reported:
"The Action democratique du Quebec called the program a "Soviet-style" service and said the waiting lists are typical of a socialist system. The ADQ's 2003 election platform called for $30-a-day vouchers for parents, which they could spend on public or private care.

Should/can the federal government force the provinces to instigate and provide universal day-care?

Is universal day-care best run by the state?

At what age is it best for the state to take over child raising?

Yikes - that's a scary supposition, if I understand your meaning.

realisticman wrote:

Well daycare is already regulated by the state. All a universal program would have to do is subsidze daycare spaces in licensed businesses. The government wouldn't run daycare at all.

It's rather simple economics that even neoconservatives can, but don't want to, understand. The model isn't any different from the kind of subsidy hi-tech businesses receive, or resource industries, or the auto sector. The government doesn't run those businesses either, but it does provide them with subsidy. In fact, all business receive huge subsidies from public infrastructure.

State run daycare is just a lie used by neoconservatives to distract people, so they can promote their traditional family agenda.

THERE IS NO CHILDCARE SPACE out there.
This is one of the issues....now you can bleet like sheep till the cows come home, but until we adress this situation it will not change or get better.

Childcare providers are not paid enough. Its not like the babysitters club at 50 cents an hour. Qualified childcare providers have to get an education and they have overhead too. Bubble wands and a garden hose wont cut it.

No one has ever ever said that there would be CUPE sweatshops of childcare. When some throw such inane red herrings out there it adds nothing to the conversation except a way to get off the real subject.

Any report I have read supports home based care, or childcare centers. There would be choices. No one has EVER stated that it would be entirely free. Some of you people just like to be the devils advocates constantly, with no real basis of fact. Again its not constructive and is only designed to inflame and draw attention away from reality.
Regulated means that they live up to certain standards, regarding the children.

In order for people like Taxwhatever to get their pensions, (since that seems to be of maximum concern to him) we will need a future generation. If people had to stop having kids until they could afford every part of it there would be a few rich families procreating. The pension gravy train will stop here.

And once again, tax money is like a big pool, and services are distributed from that. If I was to pick out the things that matter to ME, they would probably look far different than YOUR list. Get over it.

Its such a shame that such selfish and unreal attitudes are still out there in this society.

Your Canada is every man for himself. Fine.

A lot of us want a Canada where we take care of our most helpless and help them to be good solid citizens.

Making families give up work, or go into debt to afford childcare does not help this economy. It just makes the rift between the rich and the working poor wider and wider.
You can not have a booming economy when there are so many living below the poverty line. This makes it harder for everyone, including you.
The taxes alone! that could be collected from everyone living up to their potential make up that dumba** 1200 a year. (Including the taxes collected from childcare providers, who get the supports they need.)Oh. and keep in mind that this plan would create jobs.

The US plan of every man for himself is an utter and dismal and pathetic failure.
You can spout right wing think tank studies until you turn blue, but it isnt going to change the real facts, that are obvious to anyone looking without some inner personal agenda.

Pull up your own goddamned bootstraps, fine.
But leave the real business of humanity to us humans.

and BTW, I have worked on childcare steering commitees, and supported child care commitees. (volunteer) I have worked with childcare providers, and families. (As well as actually having kids.) I would say that im better qualified to talk about many of these things than some guy who has no kids, and just thinks of himself all the time, and the pension he is going to get from MY and every other parents hard work.

Im going to go scream into my pillow now. grrrr.

Maybe we should ask this guy for pointers - he seems to have an opinion on the topic:

Putin warns on population decline
- outlines a national programme to encourage women to have more children, pledging more state help.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4757261.stm

How about this:

We determine the allup cost of the so-called "national childcare plan", then invite Canadians to decide if they're willing to pay for it? As it is now none of our politicians have had the integrity to be upfront about the actual details.

Very well stated Pale!!!

...and leave the maybels of the world to retch because a mother desires quality daycare for her child. Still haven't defended your postition maybel!!!

Why would anyone suggest that professional and available childcare for those who need it are tantamount to the notion that the state is taking over child raising?

The responsibility of parents for raising children remains squarely on their shoulders – childcare is merely a way to enable citizens to have a family given today’s economic reality. It is because parents accept the responsibility to raise their children properly that they are not satisfied with a haphazard and piecemeal approach to the enterprise.

This society has created a situation where the average cost of real property (let's look at Vancouver for example) is so high that it requires two very good incomes to afford to buy a home.

Can we agree on that? It is also true that the highest paying jobs, on average, are also in this same area. It is therefore impossible (without even taking into the equation the facts surrounding other issues like single-parent families) to imagine a couple of middle class (and lower) means being able to have a child at all without both parties continuing to work. This is the reality for 80% of the women currently in the work force – TC’s and Capitalism’s sanguine outlook to the contrary.

I would have thought that the nominally ‘best’ situation for any society to find itself in is one of full or near-full employment where the productive skills of its citizens are employed to the greatest degree. Even if it were possible to convince a mother, or father (I know you’re out there nightbloom) to stay home with his or her child (more than one child is obviously an extravagance and a completely irresponsible choice for anyone with Taxcutter’s blood in her veins) why would the fiscally sensible folks of the capitalist camp be willing to surrender the value of a high earning and productive member of the workforce in return for $1200 per year?

It makes no sense. Even from the capitalist’s point of view, the productive capacity of an earner contributing say, $80,000. to the economy is lost for a measly $1200. At current rates the lost tax revenue is nowhere nearly a saw off (without even considering the economic effect of the additional tax revenues from the extra day care workers who’d be employed under a wider system). Isn’t a solution where the government assists the creation and funding of more daycare spaces – most of which will be paid for out of the $80,000 salary of the parent who continues to work – a much better use of productive capacity?
Quebec’s experience shows that their investment in childcare has already resulted in a significantly better participation of women in the work force and returned roughly half of the provincial investment in tax revenue since that program began 10 years ago. These are not trivial effects.

Clearly, the $7/child /day formula can be adjusted according to need in such a way as to minimize the state’s cost and still provide extra assistance (which even TC99 now says he agrees with) for those who need it. What I can’t understand is why so few advocates have been making the economic case for more available good childcare spaces. The Harper government, if it were not so philosophically opposed to something it sees as inimical to its moral vision, ought to be able to see this. The fact that it is dealing separately with Quebec is only the first example of a kind of schizophrenia one fears will soon be de rigueur in this country.

taxcutter 99:

SSssshhhh!!!! Not so loud! next thing you know, the pope will be banning XBox's and cold showers for Catholics. On second thought, perhaps a good idea on both counts.

Taxcutter’s overly simplistic outlook at child rearing is, unfortunately, an all too common view. Should one not have children if one cannot afford to? It’s really too bad that most people knee-jerk their reactions to such questions with a resounding “yes”. In a previous thread, taxcutter suggests that some women need to “keep their legs shut”. Such statements deserve no response, as I assume, even his allies (maybel, ron erwin, et al.) would feel some discomfort in making such a claim. Nevertheless, the ability to afford having and raising a child is totally relative. My spouse and I, based on our “standard of living”, or perhaps more accurately, our level of need versus our want, can “afford” a child. That probably differs from our resident neocons here who may or may not have a greater list of wants than we do. I even hear this from my own parents who believe that we need the house in the burbs, that we need a car, that we need a cell phone for emergencies, that we need cablevision for children’s programming. We can certainly afford some of these things but choose not to acquire them because we feel our income is better spent on other “things”. Yet there are some things that we cannot afford that some may view as essential for raising a child. Does that mean that we should not have a child? According to taxpayer, the answer is yes. Curiously though, I plan on raising my child to respect others without regard of their sex, race, religion, etc. Taxpayer, do you plan on passing on your disturbing view of women onto your children (if you have or are planning to have any)?

Brace yourself - it's Friday and Nightbloom's gonna say something Chomskyesque:

The fundamental problem for working families is not childcare. It's the post-industrial structure of work and the gradual warping of the financial-reward system and (deeper still) human behaviour itself that has come about as a result of our increasingly perverse & frantic attempts to adapt ourselves to the changing conditions.

I still don't know how a young family starting out can be expected to make it - pay their student loans, buy property and raise a family while they're still young enough to do it.

Pretty hard to know if the "$7/day" is flexible. There was howling in Quebec when the government caused it to skyrocket from $5 so I'd imagine Quebec is pretty unlikely to raise it; then parents elsewhere will be no doubt claim that's the rate they deserve as well. Pretty cool to see what a low price people are willing to pay to cover care for their kids.

Gwest
us= being my family, who decided that a smaller private daycare is better than the larger institutional ones. The type of people ignored by the Liberals.

Support base= Being the people who directly benefit (employment, grants) from overseeing and allocating monies in the Liberal plan, such as YWCA who would have part of the program, therefore making them a “special interest group”

Despite promising billions of dollars towards this (and just about anything else Dithers thought would get him re-elected) Canadians did not believe him.

I don’t know what it is like in the rest of the province, but here in the North Shore most of the people I have met, did not experience problems getting their kids into a daycare. Some daycares are popular and therefore have waiting lists, but when we looked there was 6 possibilities in our immediate area. Also my friend recently took a welfare funded job training course, even the daycare for her daughter was paid for by the government.

I to found the statements about men in this article rather annoying. When I look at the fathers on the street interacting with their kids I see a lot of happy guys who are enjoying themselves and the time they spend with their kids.

Gwest
us= being my family, who decided that a smaller private daycare is better than the larger institutional ones. The type of people ignored by the Liberals.

I do beleive that is not quite correct. The provinces would have been in charge of distribution of these funds, they could allocate it to all Regulated centers, including small private regulated daycares. And the money was not tied to non profit centers. The NDP plan, was tied to non profit centers only.
I think the term "regulated" is misleading to people. It means that they have been checked for safety, and the qualifications of the operator and workers. (on an ongoing basis, its a good thing)

The North Shore is a highly populated middle class area. (my hometown, is North Van) Its not the same all over. Here where I am now, the wait lists at the good centers and small private ones are longer. The sorts of not so good places covered in that article have openings, but a lot of parents arent willing to risk it. Add to that the distances one must travel in some areas. The nearest childcare to me, is about 10 KMS. thats another variable.

I think the problem is at times, that people only apply their own experiences to these scenarios, its too wide open and varied. Gotta walk in someone elses shoes....or, just accept that its not all the same.

sez nightbloom
jeezus, neither do I. That's why all this tooing and frooing about childcare is such utter nonsense - something for which one can't even understand why we are having this bloody debate. You pays your money and you takes your chance.
The current mess is nothing to be proud of: The 12 – 19 demographic is so currently alienated that we are debating how many of them deserve to be thrown into jail on another thread here and we’re pretending we don’t even have a problem with the way kids are growing up and being raised in this society.

Why the government could possibly think otherwise and still manage to eat their dinners without a bib tucked under their chin is what we really should be arguing about.

Colin: I defy you to show me where anybody has suggested that a monolithic approach to child care is necessary. I'd think most parents would want at least some oversight over what kind of operation they are leaving their kids with - that doesn't mean the bloody government is going to run all daycares does it?

Your obvious hatred of whomever you think deserves the appellation Dithers is showing. Harper, on this file, doesn't even rise to the Dagwood level in my opinion.

And this,

What is that all about and why is it relevant? Enlighten us: It's a piece of reporting. Did you not read the comments?

As to John I's marginal contribution.
So what? That's Quebec's program - they are seriously in the business of trying to raise their birth rate and nobody ever likes increases in fees. Setting up similar programs in the rest of Canada is another matter. The point being made was that with that kind of $7/day payment the program was at least 50% along the way to paying for Quebec's costs - just from a tax benefit point of view. I daresay you can understand that a higher fee - even if it wasn't paid by everybody is going to have at least as good results. Look at the $7 as a minimum and realize that Harper's picayune contribution doesn't even meet that goal.

nightbloom,

Sorry, my post was unclear at the finish line. Should have proofed it, I guess.

I can rephrase: childcare is, in the broadest sense, an extension of education. Trust me on this one. My wife teaches kindergarten, where some of the kids arrive in September with a vocabulary of 10 000 words or so, while others have roughly 1000 words. Some have been held and loved, while others come from homes void of positive emotional nurturance, where the only toys to be seen (she visits every home before school starts for the year) are freebies from McDonald's. Some homes have books; others don't. Some kids have been to pre-school; others have not.

Guess what? These things make a huge difference in the educational scheme of things.

We all agree - with the exception of a few posters on this site - that the best societies are a blend of socialism with (so-called) capitalism. But we still disagree about that precise line in the sand. Where does one philosophy yield to the other?

As it turns out, education (like health care) is one of the areas where a hefty dose of socialism brings us closer to utopia. Need proof? Check out any country that shies away from socialistic thinking on educational matters, and you'll see what I'm talking about. The U.S. (for the most part) and Queensland, Australia are examples. These places pay a huge price for their political stupidity.

If childcare is truly part of the overall educational scene (and I am sure that it is), then a more socialized approach to the issue is the best idea.

G West

Seeing as you seem incapable of dealing with anyone without being boorish I'll decline any further discussion, at least with you. Feeding the trolls is never productive.

$40/day/child is, apparently the rough cost of providing the sort of "national childcare plan" we keep hearing about, according to Gordon Cleveland, an economist specializing in childcare. Let's use that as a guide in determining how much things will cost, parental/federal/provincial contributions, etc.

Again, I point to the "Broken Windows" theory. Parents want to rely on the state, they don't want to make sacrifices and discipline their kids. The kids can no longer punished at home or at school due to the feminization of these institutions in our society. These kids do whatever they want...you see 12 year olds walking down the street with peircings in every hole...dressing like whores, drinking and smoking marijuana (which we tell them is ok and not a criminal act) and we support THEM when they accuse the police of harassment. Of course they're gonna committ crimes when they think they can get away with it. If Daycares are gooing to be run like public schools which are partly responsible for the way these kids are, i'll have to send my kids to private ones.

John I
You might want to take that advice yourself. I meant marginal in no critical sense but only in that your note seemed rather to be scribbled in the margins of the discussion. Your nominal contributions around here, if you actually took the time to read some commentary, would be far more likely to be seen as even less than marginal, however.
Perhaps you should head out after your imaginary Wanda and stop sniveling

Tax Cutter 99
Guess you didn't bother to read the information posted on the prisons/paroles thread about the whole broken windows thing and the much more comprehensive reasearch that has mostly supplanted it. You should check it out!

Girl, 11, will be Britain's youngest mother
By IAN DRURY, Daily Mail

A girl is to become Britain's youngest mother after becoming pregnant at 11.
The girl smokes 20 cigarettes a day despite being eight months' pregnant. She conceived aged 11 when she lost her virginity to a boy of 15 on a drunken night out with friends.

The 15-year-old has since been charged with rape by police, and is due to appear again at Edinburgh sheriff court on July 10.

Her 34-year-old mother, who gave birth to her youngest child eight months ago, said she was 'proud' of her daughter.

She will be 12 years and 8 months when she has the child next month. Jenny Teague, Britain's youngest mother until now, was a month older when she gave birth in 1997.

The youngster, who lives near Edinburgh, says looking after her younger brothers has prepared her for motherhood.

But the girl admits she "panics and cries" when babies are unwell and does not feel able to bathe them.

The mother-to-be, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had unprotected sex with the teenage boy, who also cannot be identified, while drunk last August.

She told the Sun: "I didn't think I'd get pregnant because it was my first time. But I'm really excited and looking forward to being a mum.

"I can't wait to take the baby swimming and out for walks in the pram. I think I'll be able to cope as I've had lots of practice looking after my brothers.

"I know how to feed a baby its bottle and I can change nappies. But I panic and cry if they're sick and I don't like giving them a bath because I'm a bit frightened.

"It's good to know I'll have my mum here to help me if I need her."

Concerned she might be pregnant, the girl visited a GP three times but tests proved negative. She learned the truth after buying a home-testing kit from a supermarket.

After the device displayed two blue lines, indicating she was pregnant, she pleaded with a female relative to break the news to her mother. The girl, who has been suspended from her first year of secondary school for fighting, said: "I was paranoid about what my mum was going to say and just frightened about being pregnant too.

"I knew straight away that I couldn't have an abortion because that's something I don't believe in.

"I was upset and so was my mum, especially as she'd just had my wee brother. We had a big argument and I ended up locking myself in my room and running away to a friend's.

"It was really hard but it's brought me and my mum closer, which is good. I knew my mum would stand by me no matter what, but I told her straight away I was going to keep the baby.

"The social worker suggested I got rid of it but I'd never do that."
The girl, who has shoulder-length dark hair, began smoking at nine and started drinking tonic wine and vodka cocktails at ten. She claimed her cigarette habit was not harming the health of her unborn child.

She said: "I can give up smoking at any time, but I don't find it affects my pregnancy."

The girl, whose parents split up several years ago, said she would like a baby boy - and may call him Leo.

She is currently being educated at a local community centre but knows she must return to school.

She told the Sun: "My mum has said she will look after the baby so I can go to school. I don't know what I want to do with my life when I leave. I used to want to be a nursery nurse, but now I'm not so sure."

Her mum said: "I'm not ashamed of my daughter at all - in fact, I'm proud of her."

"I know she's worried what other people will say but she can walk out there with her head held high.

"At first I wasn't too happy about becoming a gran. But now I'm used to the idea. I'm really looking forward to having another baby in the house."

The Scottish Conservatives has called for society and families to unite to change attitudes towards sex following the news.

Mother's Helper? I don't want to help this idiot or her twit mother!

Jumping in a little late here...

I neither have nor want children, and I'm all for the government subsidizing early childcare. Educated citizens are better informed and less likely to commit criminal acts. The average education level of jail inmates is something like grade 8 (http://www.cea-ace.ca/foo.cfm?subsection=lit&page=pra&subpage=pri). I'd far rather have my taxes subsidizing daycare than prisons. Less expensive and more constructive. And I don't know where people get the idea that government-regulated equates to the government running every single daycare. The government regulates and subsidizes air travel, too, but you don't have to fly "Air Fed" everywhere you go. I do think that having all subsidized daycares (whether home based or larger centres) meet set standards for health and safety in order to receive federal funding is the best plan.

And Davey-boy's comment on education being the most successful form of socialism is 100% correct. The best way to improve quality of life in a society is to educate its citizens.

G WEST That research was done by theorists in Ivory Towers. But when applied on the streets, Broken Windows worked. Giuliani credits it for his success on crime.

There are many ways society can "educate" citizens. There are also many areas where society can usefully spend taxpayer dollars; the issue is whether or not providing really cheap daycare to parents who may or may not need a subsidy is a top priority for everyone else. Some would argue that directing scarce resources into middle-class "entitlements" is not a top priority.

Very Interesting - AD is a conservative federalist group. If this daycare is so expensive that they would prefer give $30 vouchers (daily) - that is $600/month. Or around 7K per year.

Give me a freekin' break! I would go into the business of having kids if that were the case.

People have to accept responsibility in our society, otherwise it doesn't work. It is not society's responsibility to pay to raise your kids.

Kids are expense (I would know), but you make choices. Daycare was expensive, but you can't expect it for free.

$1,200 is not going to pay for daycare - guess what - it was never intended to. However, it will help.

Now - let's see how this Conservative experiment works. 20% of the daycare funding (hundreds of millions) will go to building new daycares.

Universal daycare would be another in a long list of expensive boondoggles. Great in theory, poor in practice.

Entitlement is a very real word, and it is everywhere on the Tyee. Canadians believe they are entitled to good paying jobs, to free daycare, free health care, free post-secondary education, free roads and free public transit.

Guess what - there is an economic system needed to support all that - everybody needs to chip in. Businesses, workers, politicians - and people need to start taking responsibility...

AS for your suggestion John I - let's assume that $40/day is the correct tariff. That nets out to $33/day for the Quebec experience that returns 50% in tax revenue.

If the highly paid parents pay full tick for their child care it amounts to 22 x 40 = $880 per month which on a salary of 80,000 ought to be doable. So what's the problem. Others will pay less, or receive a subsidy but I see no reason why the final costs to the federal treasury won't be less than 50% of the annual outlay. If you take just a moment to look at the alternative of having an $80,000/annum worker sitting out of the economy completely for, say four or five years, I just can't see how the economic case doesn't make a lot of sense. Without even looking at the economic impact of more investment and jobs in the childcare sector.

If you take other considerations into account such as single parents and welfare how is there even an argument to be made? The Quebec experience looks very convincing to me.

john l:

exactly - now i believe we should provide daycare to those who cannot afford it, and provide free daycare to our lowest income earners. however, this should be done in the form of tax credit, not a massive social program.

the middle class (comprising most of society) will reap the benefits, when many won't even use the services. these people in the middle class can afford daycare, and have made choices. they will have to make the choice to buy a smaller SUV or consume less gas.

Tax Cutter 99
No true. I can't post the information for you because it is in a subscription archive. Nothing could be further from the truth; it was an long-term hands on project in Chicago and the results are clear and convincing. Wilson's piece in the Atlantic and his observations are still important but they only describe part of the situation and have never been adequately demonstrated in the field.

G West:

Give me a break - here we go again - make the rich pay their way and everybody else gets a free ride!

Firstly, 80K is hardly a high income earner. Secondly, the less money I get, the less I re-invest. The less I re-invest, the less the economy churns.

I am small business, and we are the economy.

Parents want to rely on the state, they don't want to make sacrifices and discipline their kids. The kids can no longer punished at home or at school due to the feminization of these institutions in our society. These kids do whatever they want...you see 12 year olds walking down the street with peircings in every hole...dressing like whores, drinking and smoking marijuana (which we tell them is ok and not a criminal act) and we support THEM when they accuse the police of harassment.

So much generalization here I don't even know where to start.

The kids can no longer punished at home

Really, cause I know lots of parents who use "time outs" or groundings to punish their kids. Maybe you mean hitting? Is that what you have a problem with, that parents can't hit their kids? IMO, it's not needed to discipline children.

These kids do whatever they want...you see 12 year olds walking down the street with peircings in every hole...dressing like whores, drinking and smoking marijuana

I live downtown and I don't see much of that happening. Sure, the kids dress different and some are pierced, but kids dressing differently is nothing new. Can't say I've seen many, if any 12 year olds drinking or smoking pot walking down the street. I'm sure they're out there, but your definately exaggerating. Most of my friend's have kids around the ages 0f 10-14 -- great bunch of kids and as far as I know, none of them have ever been given a beating, let alone a spanking.

It's okay, TC99, take a deep breath, the world is not coming to an end.

I love how some of these......ummm. men here...pick the MOST EXTREME examples as PROOF! of the downfall of society. They can list the most TERRIBLE occurences that happen in the world. I sometimes think they just look at the news as a self-enforcement of their bigoted-mysoginist veiws.
In the end it just reinforces a lot of other peoples opinions.... one being that they need to shave their knuckles. Too funny.

I had an uncle (by marriage only) who said society was falling down because of all them femnists...and that wimmen should know their place in life. He said it was the fall of religion and family values...he was also a raging pedophile, who raped his own grandaughter when she was three. True story.

Oh and to clarify. Im not accusing anyone of that kind of thing here. Just wanted to illustrate one of the real reasons for the breakdown of society. Kids need to be safe and protected.

Capitalism
You are completely out of your mind. Nowhere did I suggest the whole cost was to be borne by the state. GO back and read what I wrote. You'll see, if you do that that fee, $880./month was what a parent would pay. I was suggesting that such a cost, for someone making $80,000 a year was not something they should be unwilling to pay for child care. You really need to learn to read maybelle - and pay attention. I'll give you a mulligan this time - next time I'll jump all over you for your stupidity.

I think I mentioned a few days ago on here what I'll say here. Y'see, I mention things repeatedly until they make sense to me.

The Conserv childcare has two flaws for me: the $1200 to each kid under six means no day care spaces form that part of the programme. The money won't allow any one not staying home now to stay home from work. It also won't be used to fund spaces. The kids who really need day/educatin spaces will never be touched by that money. The 'beer and popcorn' comment was politically damaging at the time, but I've seen enough to know that some parents won't pass anything on to their kids.

The second (possible)flaw si the plan to give business money to create spaces. Small business can't take advantage of this. Large business can. And I fear that some corporate education businesses will get grants and set up centralized programmes that will dwarf in sterility any of people's fears about a state run programme. It's just a gift to big, likely foreign corporations. Nothing for kids!

Here's how it can work.

Parents form societies in work places, communities, neighbourhoods, 4-H areas, or whatever andall the parents of the kids who will be in the daycare/ed programme are members. They elect their own directors. Only parents(or primary caregivers) of kids in the programme can be in the society or be directors.
They oversee the running of the programme.
They hire people with provincially approved qualifications.
The feds,thru the provincial gvts,fund the programmes.
So...child care and early ed for the kids with parents involved, and quality and funding from the higher levels of gvt.

Does this make sense to anyone?

I know this is somewhat behind the times, but:

Ubiquitous wrote:

ha ha, thank you so much.... classic... hilarious
if i wasn't such an LSD addled, braindead, leftie anarchist, i could imagine writing that myself...
Its amazing how "buzzwords", handed down to us by our Asperian leaders, spread like wildfires through the consciousnesses of the common british columbian jabroni.

inkioko:

Yup! It's all about the meme. In the end, it'll be memes that kill you.

Taxcutter 99:

That icefloe for the very young, the deformed, and the very old, is looking better all the time, nein?

Trouble with the "freemarket" appoach to just about anything more complicatd than direct barter, is that free marketeers must necessarily be anarchist by nature. But free marketeers almost to a man (seems to be a gender gap here) abhore anarchism. That means they want rules and laws and limitations. But they want these rules and laws and limitations to favour them, and their notions, which are "correct", while others' aren't "correct". So this means they aren't free marketeers at all.....just another form of oinker feeding at the trough.

G west
Dithers being Mr Martin as you well know, whom if I remember correctly you called his party “Chintzy” in regard to the limited funding they gave to childcare during the decade they were in office, yet you attack someone who is sticking to their election promise to provide childcare funds directly and has not closed the door to other possibilities.

The preference for a “National Daycare Program” as proposed by the Liberals is quite prolific on this site by most of the left wing posters. That would be rather Monolithic in nature now wouldn’t it?

Colin,

We have national health care too. Doesn't mean doctors don't run their own offices and such. You can have a single payer daycare plan operating on the same principle. Or you could instead make it user pay on a progressive basis where those who can't afford it are covered by the public and those who can only afford to pay a little are partially covered.

The "right" has been freely spending my tax dollars for years. Whether Liberal or Conservative they take the money and put it into projects I don't like or want. If the right want stuff like the Olympics or business subsidies or infrastructure they should pay for it themselves instead of taxing me. I'd rather my tax dollars went to something I support like child care. But the right won't allow that because stealing my money is the only way they have of getting the stuff they want without paying for it. Anytime the right wants to join me in a zero-taxation, zero-infrastructure, survival-of-the-fittest Canada they can. After all, states don't exist to help the poor.

Colin
My point about Dithers was meant, as you well know, to be taken in tandem with my later reference to Dagwood. Lame I know, but put there to illustrate how essentially lame the whole business of name-calling actually is, don’t you know!

The fact that I didn't think the Liberal program went far enough to actually address the real concerns of actual families’ (not the hypothetical families of neo conmen’s imaginations ) concerns, which I spelled out and have been very clear about over and over again, hardly means I'd be excited by a conservative plan which doesn't deserve to be called a plan. No one's ever suggested that the government should be paying for all of this; that's clearly not the point and the right disabuses itself constantly by suggesting it is. It’s interesting indeed that when one points out the economic advantages of having increasing numbers of productive parents in the workforce that rightists revert to other excuses for not supporting more and more-available childcare.

I have just read the article "Mother's Helper" written by Marcie Good.
My first reaction when I read the title, 'thank goodness someone is focusing on the serious issue of lack of daycare, after school care, et al and the issues of affordable needed services.'
Next reaction, what a terrible opening few paragraphs.
General reaction, perhaps some good attention to this issue will help with the necessary awareness on the topic.
Comments: There is no more logic to the Harper/Conservative justification for not funding a national daycare program BECAUSE TAX DOLLARS WOULD NOT BE BEING SPENT ON BEHALF OF ALL CANADIANS is as stupid as saying 'I shouldn't have to pay property taxes for public schools since I do not have any children!'
While parents have long been pushed into having to both be working in order to afford modest living, and while the low-income struggle generally through no fault of their own, we have a City Social Planning Department and Park Board who are suddenly no longer providing indemnity insurance for child care and before/after school programs at community centres which will result in closure of the very limited spaces we have now; and who are likely to close existing 20 spaces at Mt. Pleasant Community Centre next year when the new centre closes and the old one is demolished for no good reason!
Is there no one in charge with any logic or common sense left?
Nancy A. Chiavario, President
Mt. Pleasant Community Centre Association

Frank wrote

True, but then we are having some problems on this front also. Also when the Feds fund a program directly, often several strings follow along even if not intended. Better that the funding flows either through the families or the Provinces.

By the way
I can assure you that not all of us “right wingers” support the Olympics. I might have been able if they had planned them for the Interior where we might have actually had some positive legacy.

I know that I was pissed off that our soldiers weren’t being funded or supported properly by the Liberals, while useless programs were sucking up great gobs of money.

Colin,

Why the provinces? I'm fine if it would be federally funded but delivered at the family and municipal level.

I know a lot of "righties" don't support the big O and frankly I'd be very surprised if you all did. Its just that since the NDP never governs my tax money often goes to things I'm against and yet its the guys who vote for these governments that complain the most about taxes even though most of the programs are ones they asked for and voted for.

A 42-year-old mother of 3 young children in Surrey has created a website to match employers with work-at-home parents. See http://www.beyond9to5.com

Webmaster Sheila Whitehead is an MBA and former marketing manager for a pharmaceuticals company who quit her full-time job because it didn't offer flexible work arrangements.

There's a Sun article about the site here:

http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=711dd5d2-a3ca-4ffe-87fd-ed2cdb27a98d

Corporate management types are usually Conservatives. Here's a chance for them to put their money where their mouth is by offering flex work to accommodate highly-skilled parents of BOTH genders who want to earn a good living while simultaneously raising their own kids. As a bonus, this approach reduces traffic congestion, pollution and road fatalities by NOT wasting 4 hours a day of parents' time riding dirty, polluting "Vomit Comet" diesel buses.

Taxcutter your logic (to insult the very notion) is so flawed that you honestly make me laugh. YOU should go play X-box and leave matters of some import to people (of any political bent) willing to engage in a debate that deals with reality, not your imagined world of twelve year old whores, loose women, and brainwashing daycares.

For starters, you blather about personal responsibility and no kids if you can't support them, then just a few posts later you say you DO support helping low income families. By any standard, one stance negates the other you idiot. Your input on this subject in every thread only makes it harder for people interested in real solutions to have a valuable debate about the nature and price of a much-needed change to the way we treat working parents and their children. Grab a clue and run with it, preferably far from any kids.

Capitalism:

Let me get this straight, you're opposed to national daycare because the middle class, which is most of us -- (your words paraphrased) would benefit? By what logic would you oppose a program which benefits most? Don't say money. Please don't say money. National daycare funding and standards isn't going to break the bank AND it makes good economic sense given the nature of our workforce.

If you're serious about giving people an opportunity to get ahead, you'd be all over this. In fact, it would probably give you more people to choose from when you're hiring. And I don't have to tell you what happens when there's more workers than jobs aka a buyers' market.

Don't be all about soundbites and ideology. Think about what it would actually mean to have child care that addresses the twenty-first century economy where most of us are trying to live and find solutions, not the nineteenth where women stayed home and the men went out to work to busily create wealth for good-old fashioned capitalists busily stripping countries of their natural wealth in the name of King and country. Yeah, I'm lumping you in with Taxcutter. He's your lapdog, you muzzle him if you don't want us to think he speaks for you.

Stump, actually, if we left matters of importance to you people, there'd be no cheques left in the book, and no money left in the bank. Its kinda the same reason why marriage has worked for so long...so dad the conserative makes sure mom the liberal deosn't spend all the money, but she makes sure he spends some...

Now whe I said we could help low income people, and the fact that you are confused by it shows the fact that you spend too much time reading momentum magazine and greasing your bike chain. You should understand that the government already provides childcare help for people with low incomes...this is what I was throwing my support behind. This is help...giving them the ability to help themselves, instead of giving them a freebee at the expense of their neighbours. Its intervention at the minimal amount.

This is reality. I have given examples of all 3 on this board, none of which have been disproven by the Commis here.

Sorry TC, you wouldn't know reality if it bit you on the ass.

Don't you have a witch to burn, or scarlet letters to hand out?

TC99
I'd just be happy if you actually took a moment to consider the economic case for creating more daycare spaces where middle class and other parents could themselves pay to have their children cared for properly while they attempt to make their way through the difficult shoals of a society run according to the principles you claim to believe in. No one has ever suggested that those families who can afford these services shouldn't pay the freight - as, if you'll look back over these posts, several people have acknowledged.

The point is that your 'philosophy' really doesn't have much to do with economics at all. You really belong to that branch of the right that wants to tell people 'how' they should live and what they should believe. True apostles of Stephen Harper.

BTW, I guess all I have to do is find one example each of corporate corruption, imperialist tendencies, and the flaws inherent in trickle down economics and you'll treat it as Gospel and join the rest of the thinking world and advocate for a world that moves beyond the economics of greed yeah?

It's about freedom, more than anything.

Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose.
You want the freedom you think you've earned while you deny its beauty and benefits to others through selfishness and an inability to empathize.

You wouldn't know freedom if it bit you in the ankle.

Freedom. What hogwash.

Are you going to quote crappy songs in every post?

Reason and logic appear to have no effect, might as well try rock and roll.

Quit whining, child care costs only $35.00 per month.

http://www2.worldvision.ca/sponsorship/app?service=page/Child&lang=en&type=R&mc=3292174

Get some today, and you'll still have change for beer & popcorn.

I'm more a UNICEF guy actually.

Socialism is logical? Human beings are naturally competitive my friend.

One would think that. Then they'd click on the link below and find they have to adjust their thinking.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11641621/

First of all, this study proves nothing that you claim it does, although I appreciated it. It shows a natural goodness in everyone, like the Bible says. If a dude drops something, i'll help him pick it up. But we're not competing for anything. These babies were not competing with this man. He was just a random guy in the room. If there was another baby present, I think they would have competed for the clothespins. Now as the study states,

YOU SEE! We don't need government to regulate the amount of money we give to the poor...it's natural. We CAN spend our money in ways better than the government can.

Now there is also a gender issue here...

There was another study...Do Women Shy Away From Competition? Do Men Compete Too Much?. In it co-authors Muriel Niederle and Lise Vesterlund consider another possibility, that women as a group dislike competition more than men, even if they are of the same ability. If women seek to avoid competition, then they may be less successful in obtaining promotions and more lucrative jobs. The authors put 80 paid volunteers through a series of short tasks compensated either on a competitive winner-take-all or on a non-competitive piecework basis.

The payment for the first task was awarded on a non-competitive basis by paying a piece rate of 50 cents for each correct answer. Payment for the second task was a competitive winner-take-all "tournament." Losers received nothing and the person in each group with the largest number of correct answers was awarded $2 per correct answer. For the third task, participants chose either piecework payment or the tournament compensation.

Men and women answered the same number of problems correctly under both compensation systems. But when allowed to choose compensation rates for the third task, 75 percent of the men chose tournament compensation while only 35 percent of the women did so. When the authors compare men and women with the same performance in the second-task tournament, the women have about a 38 percent lower probability of entering the subsequent tournament than the men. This implies that among high performing participants -- that is, participants who earn more money from the tournament than the piece rate -- more men than women enter the tournament.

The authors conclude that there are "large gender differences in the propensity to choose competitive environments."

This is why we can't feminize our society...it goes against our nature as men.

I'm trying to convince a misogynist about the need for universal access to daycare! Perhaps I'll just stop now and head to the beach to command the tides to reverse direction. At least there's a slim chance of success

My husband and I could have written the article above, it mirrors our child care search for our son. I have grey hair from it and only have one child because of it. I couldn't face the waiting lists, the uncertainty of losing my career and all those years of hard work and education. Do people really believe most families chose to have both parents in the workforce? Some careers like computers/lawyers require you continue with your career or you lose it. After 5 or 6 years off work you might as well sign up for 3 more years of college education and who can afford child care and college tuition too???

What I really don't get is why every child care discussion on the tyee turns off topic into some ugly debate out of 1984 with Big Brother trying to take over the nurseries of our society. Education yourselves people visit a YWCA daycare for God Sake!!

The issue of child care is very simple, there are people who can afford quality child care and people who can't. The people who can't "choose" poor quality child care in basements with scary caregivers. What choice do they have? People who can afford the excellent high quality child care line up and see if they win the child care lottery. It is very much like standing in the grocery store with money in hand and empty shelves all around. Mr. Harper is standing amid the emptiness saying "I gave you money to buy what you want?" - and you shout "THERE IS NOTHING TO BUY" and he says "but I gave you money???". I paid $1000 a month for infant care when my child was small, I would have paid double that a month for it if I could find the quality care my child needed to be safe and healthy. Not every family has that luxury and my husband had and been able to afford good care. We were "lucky" we won the lottery and got a space in a licensed UWCA centre.

My husband and I could have written the article above, it mirrors our child care search for our son. I have grey hair from it and only have one child because of it. I couldn't face the waiting lists, the uncertainty of losing my career and all those years of hard work and education. Do people really believe most families chose to have both parents in the workforce? Some careers like computers/lawyers require you continue with your career or you lose it. After 5 or 6 years off work you might as well sign up for 3 more years of college education and who can afford child care and college tuition too???

What I really don't get is why every child care discussion on the tyee turns off topic into some ugly debate out of 1984 with Big Brother trying to take over the nurseries of our society. Education yourselves people visit a YWCA daycare for God Sake!!

The issue of child care is very simple, there are people who can afford quality child care and people who can't. The people who can't "choose" poor quality child care in basements with scary caregivers. What choice do they have? People who can afford the excellent high quality child care line up and see if they win the child care lottery. It is very much like standing in the grocery store with money in hand and empty shelves all around. Mr. Harper is standing amid the emptiness saying "I gave you money to buy what you want?" - and you shout "THERE IS NOTHING TO BUY" and he says "but I gave you money???". I paid $1000 a month for infant care when my child was small, I would have paid double that a month for it if I could find the quality care my child needed to be safe and healthy. Not every family has that luxury and my husband had and been able to afford good care. We were "lucky" we won the lottery and got a space in a licensed YWCA centre.

A great analogy redhandjill. Don't expect it to change the mind of Taxcutter. He's the type of person who thinks a twelve year old prostitute is making a career choice. Thankfully he appears at this juncture to either not have kids or be minimally involved in their care, because there's a gap between his perception and reality that could almost accomodate his ego.

Except, buried in the musty pages of some archeological notes, a researcher noted that, in a cave in England, the bones of a sabre-tooth tiger were found, and the remarkable thing about these bones was that the femur had been broken, then healed, a process that took months. During that time, it would have bee impossible for the tiger to feed itself. It was taken care of until it could fend for itself.

You can't get more altruistic than that!

From Taxcutter 99's misinterpretation:

Now, shouldn't this be seen as the glue that binds society together? Without women and their need for cooperation, there would be no society, for men are plainly incapable of building one..............

Our children are a resource. Some of the ugly debate here suggests that canadians should stop having children altogether. Let's let people like taxpayer figure out who is going to support him when he's old and infirm.

Stump I am far from being a misoginyst. I love women. Came from one. By the way, for those of you who love the ladies, Maxim comes out with its Hot 100 women of the year issue tomorrow. Eva Longoria is #1. But I digress...

Redhandjill, as for who is going to support me when i'm old? I'll tell who I WON'T rely on...the state! If the rason you had your child is so you have someone to take care of you in your old age, that's a pretty crappy reason.
I never said Canadians should stop having children...I just think that they should be willing to make sacrifices and pay for their own kids. Mothers should be encouraged to spend more time with their kids from the age of 0-5. The direction nationalized daycare will take us is actually the direction the baby boomers went when it came to taking care of their parents...ship em off to an institution. I have 2 families on my block, one Filipino and one East Indian family. You should see the way these folks care for their parents. In return, their parents help them care for their young. Also, they have systems within their own families and communities for childcare.
Children are a resource? then why do we allow people to kill 110,000 of them a year?

TC99
If that's what you believe, you can add being an insufferable elitist to being a sexist and a misogynist to your Curriculum Vitae. The corollary of what you believe is that the only people who'll make the rational choice to have a child are the wealthy who, under your system, would be able to hang onto and multiply their treasure and tax-free property from one generation to the next while the rest of society that is not so economically 'blessed' live out their miserable existences and die. A recipe for moral disaster and a prescription for revolution. Hang onto that Maxim subscription, when actual women get wind of what you think, it may be the closest you'll ever get to female company.

Is a universal childcare system feasible ?

It would seem to me that it would be nearly equivalent to a 30-50% expansion of the K-12 education system, since adding ages 1-5 to the existing K-12 is 30%, plus the added staff to "student" ratio younger children would require.

K-12 Education Budgets
Quebec 13,000,000,000
Ontario 16,900,000,000
Alberta 4,300,000,000
BC 4,860,000,000
Saskatchewan* 1,460,388,560
Manitoba* 1,670,212,574
Newfoundland* 765,197,520
PEI* 201,833,843
Nova Scotia* 1,354,579,972
New Brunswick* 1,088,277,271
Yukon* 42,776,351
NWT* 55,734,270
Nunavut* 39,898,637
(*- est) Total 45,738,898,998

So, roughly 15-25 billion dollars per year.

According to my calculations, each family of 4 would have to pay about $3000 extra per year in taxes, minus the percentage of unmployed, retired, underemployed, etc.

Frankly, I like the idea. I've done my part, now if we could all simply include an extra 3K$ with our tax returns, the problem will be solved.

Parents already pay taxes jwstewart, why not let them put their contributions into things they want? Then the rest of you can decide if you're that attached to the things you pay for now.

Because the fact is that daycare already costs money. Right now they are spending anywhere from $4,000 to $9,000 a year on daycare using after-tax dollars. $3,000 per year in additional taxes instead? Most parents would consider that a bargain.

As for those who don't want their taxes to increase, well many of us didn't like our taxes going up to support all your wonderful toys and games in the past either.

Just to add, there's also a real shortage of spaces and workers in spite of the high cost. This is a market failure in my opinion.

Why don’t we increase their disposable income by cutting their taxes and letting them use that for childcare?

Frank wrote

I believe it is already a Provincial responsibility. At the Municipal level it may work, although I wonder if you wouldn’t get a lot of complaints of unevenness. Plus what do you do with the family that lives 50m outside of the boundaries of the Municipality? Can they refuse them, or even put them on the bottom of the list based on geographical location?

A lot of lightly populated areas are outside of the Municipalities and how would they determine extra funding to deal with those extra people that may wish to use the spaces? It might be doable, but I can see some bitter fighting over the funding formula. I think I still prefer a Provincial level despite it’s built in flaws.

Frank

Yes, parents already pay taxes, but a universal childcare system would be a new sevice provided by the government, and of neccessity the new service would have to be funded by the same source - new taxes.

And yes, I would trade my $6K childcare bill immediately for a $3K bill, all it would require is shifting some of the cost to those without children 0-5 year of age.

And since the care workers would be part of the education system and payed similarly to teachers instead of "lowly" daycare workers, the shortage of workers would be gone soon.

It is really a choice in the end, everyone agree (or a majority referendum) to pay annually, in perpetuity for the good of society, or everyone agree to support thier own children. (or somewhere in between.)

But the cost will be the same, lots of money, all we are really deciding is who pays and who supplies.

And of course, corporate taxes should be increased as well, they would stand to benefit greatly from an increased labour pool.

Why will none of the right wingers posting here come to grips with the fact that people who support affordable, available and professional child care are also willing to pay the freight for it if they can? In fact, in Quebec, where the direct co-payment by parents amounts to only $7./child/day the results show that the provincial government there is already recouping 50% of its outlay in tax revenue. Under a system where those who can afford it would pay up to $40/day (which is the level that seemingly represents the costs of quality daycare) why are rightwingers so pessimistic about the economic consequences of supporting an 'investment' in a better and more available option for parents?

Isn't that what capitalism is all about?

jwstewart, let's face it, governments often waste tax money. Olympics, expos, ferries, gun registries, stadiums etc. But spending on quality daycares with wages high enough to attract people seems to me will provide a far higher long-term payoff than many of the things gov't currently spends money on. Just as no one would now decide we don't get a good return from an educated population I think good daycares would eventually be seen the same way.

Colin,

If it works sure. But I'd rather it wasn't subject to the endless bickering between provs and feds. Still, your criticisms of municipal level delivery are valid for those outside of the boundaries. If it ensured availability I'd be happy with it bypassing other levels of gov't completely and going to families, but it doesn't.

TC,

If that would work, sure. But it won't because there's lots of people who even if you reduced their taxes 50+% still wouldn't be able to find or pay for daycare.

Furthermore, Frank, the central economic argument is being ignored by those who choose not to support wider availability of affordable daycare. As the Quebec experience proves, making daycare widely available also permits parents to enter or return to the workforce where they seem to become, fairly rapidly, part of a growing cohort of folks who will be able to pay their own way in the world, which is, after all, I should have thought, the objective of all those folks who belong to TC's anti-daycare movement.

It makes no sense from any point of view, least of all the economic, not to extend daycare to more of Canada's young citizens and parents - not just to the ones in the Province of Quebec.

"But it won't because there's lots of people who even if you reduced their taxes 50+% still wouldn't be able to find or pay for daycare."

And this is the point that seems to be missed again and again. THERE IS A SHORTAGE OF GOOD DAYCARE SPACES. People would be happy to pay for them, but they don't exist.

Jesus Murphy, figure it out people.

Sleeping toddler locked in van for 3 hours
Daycare driver wasn't aware boy was in the vehicle

Published: Wednesday, May 17, 2006

A Prince George single dad is looking for a new daycare after his toddler was lost for more than three hours, sound asleep and locked in a van.

"What happened is unacceptable," Alvin Iverson told The Province last night. "Something's got to be done.

"It's very serious. The daycare really screwed up."

Three-year-old Travis Pelland fell asleep in the daycare van on his way home on Monday, missed his stop and wasn't noticed by the driver.

Travis has been attending South Fort George Daycare for three weeks and usually gets home at 4:45 p.m.

When he was late, his father made a number of calls to find him, but couldn't reach anyone at the daycare.

After calling the hospital to see if there had been an accident, Iverson called the police. This set off a frenzied search at about 6:15 p.m.

"We flooded the area with as many men as possible," Prince George RCMP Const. Gary Godwin said. "In a situation like this, we prepare for the worst-case scenario."

Iverson and the police called the driver of the 16-passenger van, but she insisted Travis didn't get on.

At 7:45 p.m., moments after police contacted Provincial Emergency Preparedness in the Lower Mainland to co-ordinate a ground search, Travis was found in the van.

With mounting pressure from searchers, the driver returned to check the van, which was parked in a garage near the daycare.

When she unlocked the door it made a click and woke up Travis.

"He sat up in the middle seat of the van looking very sleepy," Godwin said.

Meanwhile, Iverson got through to the daycare worker who had put Travis on the van. Just as Iverson was about to go to the garage, the van pulled up in his driveway, its horn honking.

"I was just elated that nothing happened to my son," Iverson said. "It's amazing what goes through your head in a few hours."

Travis was tired and dehydrated, but fine otherwise.

Carney Hill Neighbourhood Centre, which operates the van, and the daycare centre, say they will look into a more efficient head-count system and have a chaperone on the van.

All daycare worker Adelle Krajci would say was: "Travis is back in our care and he's as happy as can be."

But Iverson is not happy. He reported the incident to the Ministry of Family Services and is looking for a new daycare for Travis.

Tax Cutter:
Thanks for that. What's your message to us idiots that want daycare - that something unfortunate happened to a child? Like that doesn't happen in the big world because of careless mistakes! We all feel terrible when a child is compromised due to human error or malice. Should we expect this at every childcare facility? Please show me the way, I'm confused.

If this kid had a mother this wouldn't have happened

Alcibiades

We also pay daycare from our own pocket. I not against some form of organized daycare, but I didn’t believe the Liberal plan is viable. I also want to see any plan be sustainable and flexaible. I will take the $1200 for now and then see what else is being offered. You can expect an election in the next couple of years and you can bet that more will be put on the table.

TC:
That's not enough to straighten me out. How come that kid's mother has him in daycare when she should have known better? Maybe she should quit her job and go on welfare so you can support her. Have I got your drift correct? Please respond.

Same story, different spin.

------------------

Monday, May 15, 2006 07:43 PM

Prince George RCMP have found a three year old who was the subject of an intense search this evening.

3 year old Travis Pelland, failed to get off the day care bus this evening, and his parents contacted police.

Officers and a Police Service Dog were called in, and they combed the area around the South Fort George Daycare.

Turns out, Travis had gotten on the day care bus ( a 16 passenger van) unbeknownst to the driver, and fell asleep where he couldn't be seen.

Unaware that Travis was on the bus, the driver dropped off the other children and parked the van in a garage at the end of the day.

The Day Care and the Bus system will now be looking at developing a new protocol to track the children boarding the bus each day.

TC? You there? Show me the way to live my life as you see fit, I need your input.

From redhandjill:

Sure, it was posted 20 hours ago, but I still feel the need to comment.

If you knew that:
- the likelihood of having your child on childcare list was quite minimal
- the cost of giving up one household income was impossible
- the career you voluntarily chose still has a long way to go in offering life/work balance and office politics/bureaucracy requires you to be back on the job pretty much after one year of mat. leave

... if you knew all of this BEFORE having a child, would you still go ahead and make the decision of starting a family?

I am baffled as to how people underestimate the cost of raising a child in today's economy. Why can't people invest in some research and number-crunching before having a kid? We spend most of our lives trying to plan for our education, our careers, purchasing our first home, etc. yet somehow we "fail to compute" when it comes to having a family.

I don't believe people when they say there's never a good time to have a child - you will never be fully prepared and so, you just have to let it happen.

I agree w/the part about not being fully prepared in the sense that you never fully grasp what will happen until that moment.

But if you were recently laid off, or haven't paid your student loan, or have a massive debt - is having a child at this moment really a wise thing to do?

If your family income is low, if your parents - who perhaps you had counted on to help watch your child periodically - have health ailments, if you're not sure what you're going to do when that first year of maternity leave is over ... really, should you be having that child?

Why would anyone want to make a stressful situation even more so?

I have two kids myself and I'm not saying that it's easy. But at least my spouse and I always knew when we would choose to start a family. It amazes me to hear first time parents having a child, then popping out another one in less than a year (hey, if Britney can do it, you can too!).

Tonesia:
Please, please, do misinterpret my commenting on your post. I can understand your concern and views, as I was fortunate enough to share them at one time. I think we must also consider, as well, some in our society come from disadvantaged backgrounds, do not ever nail down decent paying jobs, and like as they may, want for their childred what you have, but haven't the money. Should all people below a certain tax bracket forego having children? Or perhaps, they thought of all the things you did but, as fate would have it, fell upon some bad luck or broken relationships with the father of their children. There is as many scenarios as there are people, as you know. The question is, are we a tolerant society?

Stump that story has no details and doesn't even give the parents point of view. No surprise, what would a parent know about his kid anyway? That might be ok for Momentum Magazine but not for real journalism.

TC99 try to stay on topic and drop the b*llshit OK. This next one goes out to you and the rest of the folks wondering how it's possible to have a child without a four year research study into costs and benefits. Yanked from craigslist rants and raves. STFU already about planning for children people

-------------

Fatherhood...I like to call it Sperm Donation

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 2006-05-17, 6:14AM PDT

I tried to contain myself last time this issue was open, but someone had to go and open the can of worms.

When I was 21, I got pregnant. Let's just say it was a SURPRISE!!

I WAS on the pill. Who knew Tetracycline made the pill not work?? NOT ME, let me assure you. *(tetracycline is an often prescribed antibiotic for throat infections and such) ACTUALLY my doc ( when my son was 6 years old ) told me that one. Which solved a mystery for me =)

Anyways, I have raised my son by myself, asking for nothing, EVEN THOUGH his "father" had another son 3 months and 3 days before my son was born, and raised him for the first four years of HIS life. ( Yes, I could make a TV movie about this, the day I found out I was pregnant, before I could even tell him, he confessed SHE was pregnant, and he had been cheating, and he had already decided to "do the right thing" with her.)
I got through many a sleepless night envisioning the look on his face when I told him I was pregnant too. =)
Long story short, he never even bothered to see my son until he was almost 4 years old, came for 2 days, left, and we never heard from him again until my son was 5. Then, he came for 2 weeks, made all sorts of promises, and I actually believed him ( STUPID I KNOW ) and IMAGINE my surprise when the police called here looking for him. Apparently his GIRLFRIEND put a missing persons on him. So, off he went. ( by the way, he denies all this to this day, and said he was in trouble with the police ) His SISTER actually called me and told me the girlfriend/missing persons TRUTH.
Then he came back when my son was 8. He was here for exactly 4 hours, when I finally sent my son up to bed, who was falling asleep on the couch, and being virtually ignored while his father fed me some more lies ( NO I DIDN'T believe him this time ) his "father" said to my son: "Come and give me a hug before you go to bed, BUD" and my son said:
" YEAH,WHATEVER, DAD *(sarcasm here) SEE YOU IN ANOTHER 10 YEARS".
well the look on the "father's" face THAT day may just get me through the teenage years and beyond.
He doesn't pay child support, he owes us over 35000 dollars, most of which I will never see, and when some sort of money DOES come trickling in, I take my son out and buy him some things that otherwise I couldn't afford.
I pay the bills, clothe him, feed him, and take him to the doctor. Thank god I have a job with benefits.

YOU DO NOT NEED A MAN TO RAISE A CHILD, but hey, THE MAN (and I use this term loosely) SHOULDN'T come once every 3 years, make promises he will never keep, and then run away again.

I FOR ONE DID NOT GET PREGNANT ON PURPOSE, BUT I DO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY, AND I DO THE RIGHT THING. MY SON IS THE BEST THING THAT HAS EVER HAPPENED TO ME, AND YES I WISH HIS FATHER COULD BE NORMAL, OR STAY THE HELL AWAY. EVERYTIME HE CALLS OR COMES, HE CAUSES TURMOIL,and I AM THE ONE TO STAY AND FIX IT.

ON THE OTHER HAND, I do not want my son coming to me one day blaming ME for him not seeing his father, so I let him come here, the odd time that he does bother. And now that my son is 12, he is figuring out who the good parent is...although he does not stop hoping his dad will grow up.
and I HAVE NEVER SAID ANYTHING BAD TO MY SON ABOUT HIS FATHER, ALTHOUGH I COULD TELL HIM A TALE OR TWO.

just wanted to get that off my chest.

Stump;
Let me explain my estimates:

I estimated would cost about $750.00 per capita, or about $3000 anually for every family of 4 to have a universal daycare system roughly equal to the current K-12 system.

If only those who currently have children aged 1-5 are going to pay for such as system, it would cost MUCH more than $3000 annually, more like $30,000 per family with daycare aged children.

This is because current daycares are nowhere near enough in quantity and program capability to the current k-12 system.
(computer lab, playground, degree'd staff, gym, etc.)

I submit that there are very few able to find such a resource, let alone pay for it.

Figure this out - no-one wants to work for the current wages earned by daycare workers, and no businesses want to risk their capital on such meager returns, so there is no supply and lots of demand.

And, I should point out, those withoutdaycare aged children and likely going to balk at the cost of a universal program.

How many families have four children needing full-time daycare?

Somebody wants to work for the current wages, because my daughter's daycare isn't staffed by robots.

I don't have time right now to get into this at length but there's two problems with your estimate right off by my reckoning.

TC:
Leave Stump alone! He hasn't seen your brilliance yet. Talk to me some more about how the mother of that child got so screwed up she went out and got a job, putting her child at risk in a daycare, not insightful enough to know he'd be left on those darn leftie buses they all have! Women aren't good decision makers once they step out of the kitchen, right? BTW, keep up the good work keeping the commies in line!

Stump...You say my 12 year old British skank was far fetched, and from mmy "dreamworld." Yet here, you're using an example that is just as extreme. This chick, due to medicine effing up her Birth Control got pregnant. The point is...when you make public policy, you try to help as many people as you can...Not the 12 year old slut, the wealthy woman with nannies, etc. The fact is this lady is not the norm in Canada for women who get pregnant. If you want us to build a Universal program based on the small percentages of medical-failure-unmarried-deadbeat dad births...then say so. Most women in Canada give birth between the ages of 28-34. And almost 70% are married. Which by the way is too low...in 1981 that was almost 85%.
The poorest parents are single mothers. We need to encourage marriage, and to encourage children only in wedlock. The stats are telling that when you have a dad, a mom, they are married in an offical marriage....your socioeconomic status is Mucho better.

TC:
I get it! I get it! Stump won't get it, but I get your hidden meaning...All women need to do is get married as virgins, listen to their husbands (the breadwinner) and if anything goes wrong in this scenerio, it's the slut woman's fault. Thank you! I'm not so confused now.

Colin
Of course it's going to cost some money. But if you look at the Quebec experience it's clear that there is a big payback too. It is an investment, exactly the kind of thing we do when government provides infrastructure that assists business. Why won't you and others confront the economic reality instead of pretending that widely available daycare is likely to be the end of the world?

It's simply an idea whose time has come, given the current economic realities of working and trying to support a family. The payoff will, as it has been in Quebed, be enormous - in my opinion, well worth the tax investment.

Why can't you see that supporting a point of view espoused by someone like TC 99 is ridiculous?

Yeah, it's this focus on how much it will cost to the exclusion of all else (well, OK, TC99 has a social agenda he's pushing as well but anyway) that seems to have people missing the key point. Most of us are willing to pay for good daycares, but there aren't enough of them. Further, for those that can't afford them as things now stand, they are stuck in a double bind of not having the spaces, and a big financial dilemma if they could. My family is one of the lucky ones and we know it. I'd like to see all children have the same opportunities mine is getting. Since it's apparently not going to be the 'market' providing the daycares we need, we look to our gov't to listen to us and do something about it. If Stephen Harper wants to make the logical leap that because a percentage of voters wanted the Lieberals out, that it represents a blanket approval of his policies, he's deluded.

TC99: my example is far from extreme. It happens, more than you apparently know. My point was you have to stop blaming people for accidental pregnancies. Sh*t happens. Don't punish the child for its parents' screw-ups. There's nothing that young girl could have done to make Daddy be a man, how is making it even harder for her to make her way in life going to help?

Alcibiades I don't see how its helped per capita GDP in Quebec. Quebec is an underperforming economy by all measures. The given economic realities of working hae been there for a long time. The only difference is, our taxes have gone up exponentially since the 1960's to support fat cat programs. So in order to maintain this spending, we have had to take a large amount of taxes, reduicng our disposable income, and that's why sme dads can't support the family like they used to. This is illustrated by a study by Neil Veldhuis. He finds that the government has been reaching deeper and deeper into taxpayers' pockets since 1961, with the total tax bill for the average family increasing by 1,600 per cent or $26,792.

In 1961, the average household earned $5,000 and paid $1,675, or 33.5 per cent, of that in taxes.
In 2005, the average family earns $60,903, and spends $28,467 of that, 46.7 per cent, on taxes.

Income tax accounts for the largest portion of the tax Canadians pay, at about 32 per cent. Other taxes, however, such as contributions to the Canada Pension Plan, Employment Insurance premiums, and a variety of other taxes including motor vehicle fees and property taxes add up to round out the remaining two thirds of the tax bill.

Another thing shown in the report is the way the Canadian taxation system penalizes ambitious earners who climb the income ladder.

In one example, a fictional Canadian who earned $2,750 in 1961 paid $960 in taxes, equaling 34.9 per cent.

In the following 44 years, however, his income rose steadily until it reached $122,657 per year in 2005. At that point, he would pay $62,278, or 50.8 per cent, in taxes.

Between 1961 and 2005 the subject's income increased by 4,360 per cent, but his tax rate increased by a much higher rate of 6,387 per cent.

Maybe she shouldn't be sleeping with the type of guys who aren't real men...

I have faced adversity in my life too. I overcame. i know immigrants who came to Canada with ten bucks in their pocket. They overcame it.

Each year, over 90% of sexually active women will succeed in preventing unwanted pregnancy during each men-strual cycle. Approximately 8% a year will fail. I think our policies should be geared to the 90% of Canadian women.

Umm Abortion, anyone?

TC99
The supporting materials that reflected the effects of increased women's participation and increases in tax revenue for the province that have flowed from that; as well as the data on the increases in female participation in higher education in Quebec compared with Alberta were posted on the Tyee at least twice. If you really have the slightest interest in learning something instead of quoting your avatars from a right wing think tank in the States, go back and find the information – I’m not willing to waste another moment of my time on you. You have completely ignored any evidence which doesn't support your misogynist, sexist and greed-dominated point of view. I'm not going to post the data again because it wouldn't make any difference. You just won't listen. Why would I, or anyone else bother. Economic arguments and common sense arguments make no sense to someone as full of prejudice as you are. You clearly belong to that angry cohort of individuals who think competition and winning is the only thing that means anything and you are prepared to do whatever it takes to advance your selfish agenda. You're pathetic.

If you can't see how assisting people who are having a hard time coping with the economic reality of working and raising a family in this society is good public policy and good economics too then there is, in my opinion, no hope for you. Literally, dozens of people, many of them women have tried to help you understand the reality families face in this culture at this time. All you care about is some strange concept you think is 'freedom'. Well, go for it fella, go study those actuarial tables and ogle the glossy pictures in your Maxim magazine, confident in the belief that you're right and the rest of us are wrong. Have a nice, lonely, life.

"We need to encourage marriage, and to encourage children only in wedlock"... what century are you living in, TC? Whether you are married or not is irrelevant.

We DO need to educate women... sadly, still. I have a friend who recently went on the pill at my encouragement. She is not Canadian-born, is 42 yrs old and just married a Cdn man who wants a child. She doesn't. She told me she was upset because she "had no choice" because they are married. I told her "Oh no, you do have a choice." So, she went on the pill (her husband is aware of this) and over lunch the other day told me it "wasn't working"... I was a bit confused and asked her why she thought that. Her answer- because she is still menstruating!! To my utter astonishment I realized she doesn't understand how it works, even while she is using it.

And we wonder why young, uneducated girls get pregnant???!!! My friend is neither. There seems to be a giant conspiracy out there to keep girls DUMB about how their own bodies work. It's mind-blowing. I imagine, though, if females weren't kept in the dark birth rates would be plummeting even faster than they already are....

Alcibiades, again if left wingers understood economics, their socioeconomic status as a whole would be higher.

This evidence wasn't accurate. You showed that a University in Quebec had more women in the medical program than the University of Alberta...
So one University has more chicks in ONE program than ONE other University? Have you seen the difference in women in say, engineering programs?

The study that was cited, you moron, said

Now as a businesman,if i'm selling a product that costs me $100 to make. (That hundred is from 80% of the funds from one my major revenue sources.) I get $40 back after accounting for the cost of the good sold...Not good policy. How do I make a profit? Well, I have to increase the revenue, ie: increase the price. In this case the price is $40 all other things being equal (not accounting for overhead and other admin costs which i'm sure there are). So back to Quebec, how do they increase that 40% return? They make up the difference by increasing taxes...the greatest evil.

As far as helping the economy in Quebec...Quebec's economy sucks! Its the fact that the feds give them more cash than Charlie Sheen gives to hookers that keeps them afloat. Show me numbers that the increased revenue from maternal labour out does the subsidies in child care? This program sucks up 80% of Quebec Hydro's profits. To freakin' daycare? So many families raise their kids without daycare and they do just fine. Where will we get the revenue? By the way, more data on the robust Quebec economy: Quebec has the 2nd highest population of any province, free daycare and the 8th ranking GDP in CANADA

Alberta GDP= 66 279
BC's GDP = 39 490
Quebec's GDP = 36 175

As for this helping Quebecs birth rate, Alberta has the lowest percentage of kids in daycare: 42.6%. Alberta, according to stats can has higher birth rates than any province with 12.7.

Yes its true Alberta has less women in the workforce. Not because they have to stay home but because seom women actually want to raise their children. Imagine that. One income in Alberta is taxed less, and with the labour shortage, the salaries are high. You are the misogynist. You don't believe in the ability of women. I believe in women. I believe in motherhood. I believe that only women are able to provide certain needs of a child...and I mean actual mothers...not some 24 year old who learned child rearing from a stupid "let's feminize little boys and read Asha's moms" textbook. Now can we have a little discussion without name calling? (that moron comment makes us even)

Au contraire. According to 1997 data from the US census bureau,13.7% of Americanswere in poverty. But the census also found that just 5.6% of married families were poor. Among married families in which at least one partner works full time, year-round, no matter how menial the job, poverty has almost disappeared: Just 1.8% of those families--less than 1 in 50--were poor. In stark contrast, nearly one-third of families headed by a single woman were poor.

And if right-wingers understood it we'd all be better off.

Scrap the Olympics and RAV and bring the troops home. How much is that? 8 billion? (Polaris says we've spent over 4 billion in Afghanistan).

How do you know Alberta women love their kids more? Since Quebec has a higher population doesn't it mean Quebec women love having kids more? Since the birth rate is higher in Kenya does it mean Kenyan women are the most loving women in the world? They don't have daycare either so does that mean if we get rid of the daycare spaces we already have our GDP will grow to the size of Kenya's? I assume that with such loving women and no daycare they must be a very rich country.

Using the above logic...see what subsidized daycare can do for a province...

TC99 If the Quebec government can recoup 40% of its costs with a minimal co-payment from the whole cohort of daycare users in the province it ought to be elementary, even for someone as simple-minded as you that:
1) a higher co-payment from whatever portion of users can only afford that, plus;
2) a much higher co-payment from middle class parents who would in effect pay their own freight (as was also clearly spelled out in what I'd posted) would certainly exceed the 50% level. Without even considering spinoffs.

In fact, I'd wager it'd go a lot higher than that - that's where the economic stimulation comes from.

You don't actually want women working outside the home, which is dismissive and prejudicial toward 50% of the population in this country. Further, you, as a man, want to tell women what they can do with their wombs and how they should fall into line behind what you 'believe'. That's why you're a dinosaur and a prejudiced one at that.

And yet the GDP per capita since 1961 has almost tripled. Meaning even with increased taxes Canadians are better off. In fact, one could even say because of increased taxes Canadians are better off.

Frank
Not only that, our little friend TC apparently isn't totally up to date on conservatives latest problem with their own neo con agenda.

Richard Kogan from the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities wrote about the same thing some four years.

That was what Jonathan Rauch was writing about in the June Atlantic too. The curious thing is why conservatives support a strategy that is actually counterproductive to their goal of shrinking government.

Even some Democrats now seem willing to inflict pain in the form of spending cuts as long as the rich bear some of the burden in the form of higher taxes and in 1982, 1983, 1990, and 1993, Democrats in large numbers voted for budgets that ratcheted back spending and raised taxes.
Plopping for tax cuts weakens fiscal restraint all around. Because he looked after the rich with tax cuts, Bush had to hike spending to buy enough votes to win reelection and Harper is going to do exactly the same thing, in my opinion.
The neocons are so religiously fascinated by tax cuts that they don't really seem to care about spending cuts and they ironically ignore the evidence that weakens their case.

Therefore, supply-siders are dragging the conservatives with them, whether they like it or not. The nuts in Tax Cutter’s little sodality will eventually bring the house crashing down around all our ears, sadly.

Excuse me? Bring the troops home? We are fighting the greatest evil the free world has ever faced. We have to destroy the enemy. What good is a child care center when some guy comes here and blows it up. We are doing more for the world than foreign aid ever could.

Rav is necessary for transporting those kids parents.

and the Olympics is good for business. I dare you to phone any construction company in this province and poll them. DARE YOU. And since they are a huge sector, this is good for our economy.

Small potatoes my friend. By the way, you must have trouble with numbers. After the Paul Martin taxcuts were brought in from 1995 on, our GPD per capita had an increase of 3.0. The highest ever. In fact from 1985 to 1988 when Mulroney came in, and in the period after the Martin tax cuts, we saw the biggest increases. So if we wanna grow, we gotta cut taxes.

Alcibiades, I honestly think you should just sit this one out and let the guys with some intelligence talk about it. You haven't read half the stuff you quote from. You cut and paste everything from The New Republic...and the funny thing is, I have read them! In fact, you might say Niskanen and Rauch helped "indoctrinate me" as a lad. I was a liberal too once...we all are when we are young and stupid and uninformed, go to all day rock concerts, wear our hair in weird ways and don't know any better. But I grew up. And I pray you will too one day.

Anyhow, first of all on Rauch's article in the Atlantic, you never read it. period. full stop. If you did you would realize Rauch (who is a staunch Conservative despite what TNR says) writes in that article that cutting taxes BEFORE cutting spending in order to reduce the size of government is wrong. I actually have stated that on this site, and that's actually what Martin did in Canada...cut programs and then delivered on tax cuts...As opposed to cutting taxes without cutting programs first. If you read the article, you'd see that he says Conservatives who want to cut taxes BEFORE cutting any spending are TURNING INTO LIBERALS. He says the goal shouldn't be just to cut taxes but to create what he calls "Limited Government." I'm glad you agree program spending should be cut...

His article was called Starving the Beast and in the magazine it says:

So cut taxes ONLY when you cut SPENDING TOO! Cutting spending = creating a Nationalized daycare program? huh?

As for Niskanen, you copied that from TNR word for word. And you have no idea who Nisky is or what he stands for. he has actually written many papers DEFENDING the Reagan tax cuts (after all he was an economic advisor to the man). Drop by the Fraser Institute and talk to Jason Clements, he'll hook you up with some articles if you wanna know more about him.
Anyway, before you drag Niskanen's good name through the mud, i'll tell you (from the perspective of someone who has actually READ his stuff, not just copied and pasted it from a blog) what he supports. Niskanen actually asked Bush to increase taxes so high that people would be pissed off enough to demand the stop of what he calls government expansion. In one editorial he wrote

Yeah, sounds like a real socialist. In fact, he supports tax cuts sooooooo much, that he co-authored this paper http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-261es.html on why Reagonomics was so good. If you READ it, you'll see that he calls the idea that the Reagan tax cuts caused the deficit to explode a "FABLE."

But i'm glad you quoted him. He is a great man. Afterall, his oranization gets his funding from Philp Morris and Rupert Murdoch.

By the way, this misogynist just made you his bitch.

TC
Sorry dude, Rauch is a 'Libertarian'.
I've subscribed to and read, from cover to cover, Atlantic for decades.

You won't listen to sensible arguments from the left or even try to understand the function of an economic system like that of the United States which is busy destroying itself. The only way anyone can get your attention is to demonstrate how conflicted your own "theories" really are.

The whole point, my woman hating enemy, is that you are the guy who bills himself a Tax Cutter. All I was doing yesterday was pointing out the contradictions within your own compromised neo con department.

Because I'm in favour of 'real' tax reform. Actually taxing fairly the elements of corporate welfare and personal greed represented by ideologues like you that are getting all the real breaks in this society and begrudgingly refusing to surrender any of your stolen and misappropriated public resources to the actual 'people' who need real help and encouragement.

I want to take away your stolen privileges and the share of national resources you have misappropriated to your own selfish use and return them both to people who actually would use them for the public good.

Even your childish language indicates how pathetic and vacant your selfish attitude is. You don't care about anything but yourself. That's a shame, really.

Really? Worse than Ghengis Khan? Worse than Attila? Worse then the Iroqoius? Worse than Hitler? Tojo? Worse than the Assyrians? Worse than the slavers of west Africa?

If you think a few guys in the hills of Afghanistan constitute the greatest evil known to mankind you're deluded. But it only confirms my belief that history for the right-wing began in 1979.

Fact is, I don't want the Olympics, RAV or the Afghan adventure but yet you feel its okay to tax me anyway. You see, I'm being taxed to support 3 of your many pet programs. And yet you guys pull a new pet program out of your ass every few months which you also want me to pay for while at the same time bemoaning the potential cost of child care.

We can't, you right-wingers want too many toys and games for us to cut taxes. If you wanna cut taxes cut all your own pet projects first.

Heady times was it? Doesn't explain why Stats-Canada says the period from 1961 to 1979 had a higher labour productivity increase and higher real wage gains than at any time since under your Mulroney and Martin.

TC99sez

When exactly did the first terrorist bomb explode here in Canada? I missed it! Big blast was it?

American hegemony and nuclear brinkmanship is every bit as big an evil threat to the free world as anything a tall thin ghost from Saudi ever dreamed up.

If we're under any threat from international terrorism, which I'd suggest is pretty small and mainly generated in the fevered imaginations of people like you who want to protect their stolen treasure, it is much greater as long as we continue to be a part of pee wees big adventure in Afghanistan. If we actually cared about those people we could find lots of ways to help them that don't include military action.

The point is, you see it as something to protect you - not something to do any good for 'them' - a people and a society you're more than happy to demonize and certainly don't understand. If you really wanted to help people you'd be calling for a withdrawal of our forces from Afghanistan and a transfer to Somalia and the Congo.

SO far as I know, Al Qaeda hasn’t been targeting child care centres – in fact, the only people targeting child care centres and the parents and children who need them and who would like to have more of them available, is People like you.

Sheesh. The US has had ONE large scale terrorist attack on domestic soil perpetrated by foreign terrorists in the past 10 years. ONE. It killed less than 5000 people. The US, meanwhile, has killed upwards of 25,000 civiians in Iraq since 2003.(BBC News, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4692589.stm) If anyone should be worried about their daycares being blown up by terrorists, it's the Iraqi civilians. But no, all you ever hear from the right is how the evil terrorists are coming to get us, and we should all give the government all the money they want to protect us based on a pack of lies they pass off as news. Uh-huh.

I hear tinfoil hats are on sale today - they might protect you from the terrorists' top-secret evil mind control weapon.

Alcibiades

While I support the investment idea in primary through to university, I have to wonder how effective daycare will be as an “investment in the future”. I will agree that the child does get something out of it, mainly some socializing skills and play skills. I personally don’t think the rigid “developmental” teaching of very young kids is to healthy, I look at my nephew who went through this and although very bright and able, literally doesn’t know how to just play, because he was never given the chance to. How will he be able to balance work and life I am not sure.

It seems to me that most people expect daycare to be more of a “holding area” that is hopefully relatively safe and enjoyable for the child while they go to work. Plus daycares cannot afford to pay staff anything more than a basic wage and therefore will likely have a revolving staff of generally young and inexperienced workers with only a small core of older workers to manage the operation.

So I would argue that if you consider the main benefit of the investment is that the parents can go to work, then yes I think you have an argument there, but if you want to say that the “investment” is flowing through the child, then I would have to disagree, most of what the child picks up in daycare can also be learned at home, neighbourhood and elementary school.

Colin
DO children benefit from having a parent(s) who aren't constantly trying to juggle all the responsibilities of working, caring for a family and the rest? DO children benefit from an investment in stable consistent and professional daycare? I'd say they do. If the parents can't afford to be home caring for the child because they need at least two incomes to pay the bloody bills - which is the whole point of this crazy argument - how is it not an investment in the child's future to try and solve that problem?

As far as the pay for childcare workers is concerned, I understand the workers in Quebec are doing very nicely. I also made it clear that I think parents who can afford it should pay their own way. And that the maximum co-payment in Quebec is way too low. Even those parents who can pay full tick and are willing to are currently frustrated, not by the fact that they can't afford good day care, but by the fact they can't find any.

You clearly haven't been paying attention. Lots of women have posted to this thread and others with this information. Why do I have to beat you over the head with it? If you can see it as a good economic investment to increase productivity and provide opportunities for women, why do you have to be so damned parochial to see that same thing is true for fathers and children too?
No one ever suggested day care was going to take over from the schools, so where did that come from?

Again, you get that information from TNR. You read the Atlantic articles but you didn't understand them. Honestly man, you're out of your league right now. You sound so ridiculous. Don't even argue the points until you read the material. The only reason they call him libertarian is because he supports Gay marriage. But on economic issues, this guys so far right you guys would scream bloody murder if Campbell enacted his policies. Anyway I find it interesting that its the only point of my post you could argue and you took it from another site! Everytime I use numbers and stats, Lefties shut up.

It's a mutual benefit. And yes, i do wanna protect all Canadians. Hug a soldier.

Especially the tax bill! Reduce it! But as Rauch says, cut spending first!

TC99
Baloney!
You haven't posted a convincing argument that hasn't been refuted and negated since I've been observing you TC.
You're the one who's out of your depth. You have no idea what I read and what I know. I never suggested Rauch was a hero of mine and I certainly knew he was gay - not that I care ---does it somehow disqualify him from your point of view? I suppose that you hate women so much I shouldn't be surprised if you hated gays too. I only quoted him and the other 'right wing jackasses’ to point out how conflicted and incoherent everything you and the right say actually are.

You're so compromised you can't even tell the difference. Satire and irony are lost on your MBA polluted brain. I was just pointing out the inconsistencies within your world view. If I ever find anything I agree with among your posts I'll let you know. Don’t hold your breath.

It’s people like you who get the most benefit out of corporate welfare and who think the system owes them a living. You guys start paying taxes on all your capital gains, dividend income and forego corporate welfare, give up your sinecures and inheritance holidays and we'll make the world a better place for 'real' people who actually know what a day's work is all about and don't spend their time gazing at women in Lad magazines and pretending…trying to type while you’re talking on the phone.

You're the parasite and you’re the one who needs to change. Sooner, I hope, rather than later.

Do u know how much the capital gains tax is? When the NDP was in power in BC, they had the Corporate Capital Tax. It killed so many businesses. 50 Mining companies left the province. Thank god we removed it.

Why do you want to punish the accomplished?

TC99:

You've been made the 'bitch' in every discussion about childcare. You've used your opinion to form the facts (in your mind) instead of vice versa. You should stop talking and start listening. Prick up your ears and learn, instead of declaiming in ignorance.

Alcibiades has owned you from day one. I'm just a goof who knows a little and even I've kicked your sorry ass all over this playground. It would be funny if it weren't so pathetic. I feel sorry for you, but I have hope you'll grow up one day.

Colin:

We learn all the way thru life. Our youngest years are the most crucial. Let's give our children the best opportunities while we can. The most important lessons are pretty simple. Play nice. Share. Show respect. The golden rule type stuff. There's no better place to learn it than in a group setting, no better time than when you're little. Let's raise our kids to be better at it than we are. Let's use people who've been trained to do the job. Most parents love their kids to pieces, but it doesn't necessarily qualify them to teach all the lessons in life they need.

As to transient day care workers, perhaps if we paid a good wage to these tireless people there might be more men involved, there wouldn't be burn out (an assumption I haven't seen in action in the real world btw). In other words, it seems the critics don't want to pay for the very improvements they say the system needs. It speaks more to me of ideology than a desire to give children what they deserve and require. Who would discount a solution simply because it doesn't fit their pre-conceived notion of the world? No one with an open mind IMO.

Stump I have owned, you, Alcibiades, Aalborg and his slut daughter, G West, and even Frank who put up the best fight. But you're right, you are a goof. And if you knew more, you wouldn't need an institution to raise your daughter for you. Alcibiades copies his posts from The New Republic by the way.

How dare you insult our mothers and grandmothers who didn't rely on the nanny state teat. You are a sick human being!

LOL, please try again. LAUGHING. AT. YOU.

You can't pay someone to do for a child what a parent will do for free. Even excellent child care can never do what a good parent can do.
--Urie Bronfenbrenner

What's truly laughable is the fact that you guys want a country in which we take from one citizen and give to another. And the only reason is because that other citizen does evertything they can to help their families. Many of us on the right have worked our entire lives to improve the lives of our families. The fact that you want the ability to walk into your nrighbour's house and be entitled to the food on his table, that he worked for, is really quite disgusting, and tells me that those of you on the left must have suffered some trauma at one stage of your life.

Winston Churchill said that if you aren't a Liberal when you're young you have no heart. And if you aren't a Conservative when you're older, you have no brain. The lack of brain activity from you is quite apparent.

Now back to nationalized babysitting. As ALCIABADES pointed out so kindly, as Jonathan Rauch points out, we need to reduce spending. Only then can we reduce taxes and set up the economic atmosphere for job creation. Frank has pointed out some wonderful areas that governments waste money on: Olympics, Stadiums, etc. So we have to draw a line somewhere. That's why I say governments jb should be to give Canadians the tools and the economic environment in which they can prosper. This means national security, public safety, education, mechanisms for healthy workers (healthcare and promotion of fitness) R & D and infrastructure). Daycare will not do this because the wages, overhead and subsidies will not be offset from the tax dollars from working mothers. We have seen this in Quebec (I used real numbers above). If anyone can use ACTUAL NUMBERS to show me how Quebec makes up the 60% shortfall of funds i'd love to know. There's already enough government in the lives of our families.

How Can a Daycare Love?
No offence, but did you just not celebrate mother's ay? Most Canadians learn these values from their moms and dads. If you need to hire someone to raise your kids, don't have them. If you can't teach these good values, don't have kids.

"We have chosen to place our faith in day care in the face of overwhelming evidence of its harmful effects and the experience of most women, who suffer immediate pangs of guilt and anxiety dropping off their six-week-old newborns at day care centers. When we choose to put a child in day care, we want to believe it's good, and so we do,"
Stephen Covey, acclaimed author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Scary Socialists are creeping up on you in your sleeeeeeeeep! Perhaps you're sleep deprived, it would explain so much.

Most people don't put their kids in daycare for about year btw, after the mat leave runs out.

I celebrated Mother's Day on the beach, naked, doing drugs and drinking, with a gay buddy. Have I missed any of your boogey-men? Oh yeah, I forgot to fornicate. Lack of opportunity more than anything. I did call my Mom before we headed out for our little debauch however!

I just wanted to make sure you could really work yourself up into a righteous froth TC!

TC99
We want a country where corporations, shareholders, and capitalists stop getting the welfare payments they depend upon to keep their position in society. We want a country where there is real competition; a real payment for the use and abuse of public resources and a society where a dollar of income, no matter how earned, is treated the same at tax time.

We want you weaned off the corporate welfare teat and we want to help you learn to actually work for a living.

Yeah I know. Only 50% of capital gains are taxed. That's a corporate rip off. Every dollar of capital gains - apart from gains on the sale of one (1) family home should be taxed at the same rate as all other income. If these businesses can't make a go of it under fair rules and without a lot of help from the state they shouldn't be in business. Swear off the sweetheart deals TC and join the real world. It’s time to put an end to the holiday.

TC99
I don't want to punish the accomplished. I don't even want to punish you - and by definition, you're not the accomplished. I want to help you learn the virtue of fairness, real competition and the joys of being part of a real community.

I want to free you from being dependent on the hard work and initiative of others and show you the virtue of making it on your own.

I want to do you a favour and save your soul into the bargain. And I want to help you learn to stop hating 50% of humanity.

TC, your use of the word 'slut' alone makes you not worth arguing with.

Pointing out that the majority of poor families are headed by single mothers hardly makes a good cause for marriage. Anyway, you used American stats. Perhaps American women have less access to birth control measures (I don't know for sure), but I do know their rates of teenage pregnancy are higher than Canada's. Therefore, more single, poor, uneducated women with children. Would getting married solve this problem? As I said in my earlier post, EDUCATION is the key, to prevent unwanted pregnancies in the first place.

Not to mention that most pregnancies aren't virgin births. It's not as if there isn't a 'man' involved too after all.

Of course the context is that Winston jumped from the Liberals to the Conservatives because he was like David Emerson and his only ideology was being in power. Of course those who have no clue about history before 1979 actually don't know that ol' Winston was a floor crosser after he had been a Liberal cabinet minister under Lloyd George. I think Winston would have joined the Communists if they had won an election in Britain in the 30's, Winnie just loved being on the governing side of the house. His little quote means nothing to those who know the context.

I love the beach...although not going to them in Van cuz of the people...and I loves me some booze. "Naked with a gay buddy" I hope your daughter wasn't with you.

I apologize for using that word.

Yes it does. The high divorce rate and unmarried mothers points to poverty. Our divorce rate and rate of single mothers gave rise to child poverty. You might think of traditional families and marriages as punishing or ancient. Well, speak for youself.

His quote means a lot if you have been to a University reunion...anyway, Its funny Liberals weren't opposed to a former Conservative Churchill serving as a Liberal but they were opposed to vice versa. Kinda like the NDP aren't pissed at Gordon Wilson or any of the turn coats in their camp, and Liberals aren't pissed at Keith Martin or Jean Pelletier.
By the way, Jack Layton supported his father as a Tory.

But yeah...most data i've seen shows younger people are more left, and older people are more to the right. Just look at the national election study from any Federal election.

TC
You don't go to the beach because of the 'people'?
Don't you find that a little strange? Perhaps you’re not just misogynistic but misanthropic too. Do you like animals?

The high divorce rate and the number of unmarried mothers probably points as much to irresponsible, selfish and pleasure-oriented men who don't think of anything but themselves and don't care to accept responsibility for their actions. If more men kept it in their pants there would be a lot fewer single parents AND a lot fewer abortions. I don’t think many pregnancies induced artificially end in abortion, do you?

Your propensity for blaming it all on women is as irresponsible as your failure to understand how corporate and personal greed and an unfair tax and government expenditure policy that favours the rich at the expense of the great majority of the population is ruining this country and destroying both families and communities.

Our culture was much fairer and more inclusive, and it had less of the bad things you always complain about in the period between 1950 and 1970. It's the greed and hegemony of neo con lies and robbery that are ruining North American society. If we don't get rid of you and what you stand for the lies, the theft, the pollution and the greed will bring the whole world down around our ears, in my view.

Why bother with the dead fish about Jack Layton?

No, I said going to the beach in Vancouver sucks because of the people. I go to beaches and lakes elsewhere in BC and head down to the Oregon coast and back to northern california when I get a chance. Vancouver is full of pot smokers and hippies though, so I don't like the atmosphere. Just a matter of personal preference.

I agree. The problem is, the left wing popular teaches people that instant pleasure and instant gratification is better than working hard towards a family, career, wealth and success, which bring true satisfaction. Instead people live paycheque to paycheque, blowing it all and investing/saving none (our pathetic national savings rate)and try to get laid.

It's men and women both. They are both to blame. But I don't see men looking for handouts.

So anyone who doesn't agree with you doesn't understand?
Leftists have always been so arrogant about their beliefs. I think your failure to understand the fact that lowering taxes as well as government expenditures results in more investment, more jobs, and allows us to build better lives for our families is quite telling.

I know. The 1968 election was the introduction of Pierre Trudeau to Canada...and he started a debt that was so large that we couldn't stop adding to it until 1995.

"Naked with a gay buddy" I hope your daughter wasn't with you.

Don't worry, she wasn't there. I want her growing up thinking bodies are something to be covered up and ashamed of. I want her to think that only heterosexual people are worth associating with.

You're making me laugh again.

The left wing teaches instant gratification? O rly?

Funny how it's the right wingy USA that has the huge problem with overextended personal credit and landfills full of thrown away junk that people never needed in the first place.

At least make it a challenge for the rest of us to point out the ignorance of your statements! This is just too easy.

BTW, your point about single mothers being the people most likely to be in poverty points to a failure of MEN to live up to the name and make their child support payments more than anything else.

Ideological zeal is making you look stupid. Or else it's the ideology that's stupid. Take your pick.

"It's men and women both. They are both to blame. But I don't see men looking for handouts."
Would that be because women have lower incomes than their male counterparts, children to raise, and no available affordable daycare to be able to go out and support themselves independantly? You take the cake for chauvinism and stupidity!

TC99
Those comments aren't worth my time.

The left has never been in power in this country and only briefly in this province. In Saskatchewan, where the CCF/NDP has been in power for some extended period of time they have the hardest working people I've ever known.

Saskatchewan people work folks like you under the table before breakfast every morning and they have to keep doing it because the very system you revere stacks the deck so completely against them.

The left has nothing to do with the attitudes you hate. Instant gratification is a product of a system that capital uses to keep its wage-slaves from revolting. You need people to continue to be deracinated and uncommitted to anything but consumption or your little house of cards will collapse - and if you're honest with yourself you'll admit that.

You know exactly nothing about the left - as everything you write here actually proves. The minute you admit that capital and inherited privilege are the elements taking advantage of the system and robbing the wealth of the country and enslaving its people you may also find you've freed yourself from the prison of suspicion and hate that seems to animate your views of your fellow men and women. I have never known anyone who is as big a misanthrope.

I wish you'd seek professional help. Truly.

They are hard workers. And smart too. That's why 12 of thier 14 MP's are Conservatives and ZERO are NDP.

Wrong again. You've obviously never lived in the US. Much of the spending in middle America is on investments, as well as goods. I agree, there is a problem with personal credit, much of this is because of the lack of financial education in schools. Instant gratification isn't about buying crappy goods you don't need, its about making bad decisions based on a lack of long term thinking, like the 21 year old tramp in your example above.

As for your gay buddy, I got no problem with him being gay. Apparently you do, cuz you have to keep mentioning the fact that you have a gay buddy in order to hide your true hatred of homosexuals. I have a gay employee beside me actually, about 4 feet away as I type this. But I don't mention him every three posts because I don't feel the need. i don't see "gay" and "straight" and "queer" like you do, apparently. I see human beings. ALthough I don't agree with everything he does, its his life.

Now being naked in front of your daughter...that's between you, her, social services, and Dr. Laura when she calls her for advice in 5 years.

Oh really? And do you have any numbers showing that the poverty rates for single mothers is caused by men not paying child support? And even if it does, it does NOT change the fact that marriage= more money=less chance for poverty. You can't deny the stats. BTW I believe in child support...I don't believe in Vaginamony payments, but child support makes sense, if its your kid.

Keep it up TC99, you do more to bolster my argument than I could ever hope to.

Pierre Trudeau was not a right winger, sir.

Whatever...its funny when your lack of numbers causes you to be so desperate.

Whatever. It's funny when your inability to form a cohesive world-view that doesn't contradict itself makes you rely on cherry-picking numbers to suit your prejudices.

TC99
If you think the US is in positive territory in savings you know even less than your posts indicate.

Pierre Trudeau was no left winger, sir.

Perhaps you can't remember 1970.

The left has never been in power in this country. Period. With liars and self-important characters holding the reins of power in governmen and the media like you around it probably never will.

More pity all the people who deserve better than being robbed by your mindless class of slavers. You've just about ruined marriage, community and family life with your economic miracles and you haven't got the intestinal fortitude to accept the responsibility for doing it - like all neo conmen you're always on the take and trying to blame someone else for your crimes.

Go sell some insurance. People are going to need it.

"I don't believe in vaginamony payments, but child support makes sense, if its your kid." Translation: Because we know all women lie about how they got pregnant all the time, we just have to make them prove it, then we'll make the decision of whether we want to support the child, but under no circumstances would we want to give that vagina-woman-slut any benefits whatsoever.

I rest my case on my previous opinions of this creepy person.

Stump- Numbers don't lie. Your incessant need for you to defend your prejudices by bragging about the fact you have a gay friend is just sad.

G West-

I saw a report on CNBC that said their national savings rate was zero a while ago...I don't think its been in the negatives. I've seen it from 1-3. Lots of Americans are investing now, not just spedning on consumer goods. Look at Nasdaq today... Merrill Lynch is up to 71.22 a share, and gained like 1.18 points today. While companies like Ford are low. They were at 7 bucks thios morning and my brother says they'll be less than that today. Motorola is low. Metals are on the march.

I disagree. His lavish spending, useless charter, and his cutting of the military were leftist policies. When Trudeau left office in 1984, the debt had mushroomed to $128 billion. And I do remember 1970, that's when Canada recognized the People's Republic of China rather than the regime in Taiwan as the legitimate government of China. According to DFAIT's Canada Wolrd view Magazine, these decisions were "reflecting Trudeau's left-of-centre political philosophy." i don't think he was as left as you are...but then again, you are to the left of Noam Chomsky, right beside Karl marx and Tim Louis.

Can't you read? Vaginamony is a term for ALIMONY not child support. Guys should have to support their kids. Period.

And yes G West...I am trying my ass off to get rid

...of some insurance. But its Friday so I tend to slack off. Maybe the government should compensate me for my laziness?

Actually, I mentioned it once by my reckoning. You can't seem to let it go. Maybe you're looking for a date? Trust me you're not his type.

Numbers lie all the time btw. You probably have a high IQ.

No you mentioned your buddy in 3 posts. As for looking for a date, it must be hard for you to take ladies on your ten speed.

Numbers lie? Not really. Just because left wingers can't balance the books doesn't make numbers misleading.

You go tiger! You make me look good with your silliness. Seriously, keep it up. Funny how you haven't noticed you're being left to your own devices by the rest of the neo-con posters. They know a liability when they see one. You're the best thing that ever happened to this discussion. Every time you think you've made a cogent point, it gets shot down and the case for day care gets stronger. Please don't leave. Although I hear there's cheap flights to Norway this time of year. Please, please stick around though, we're not done letting you make an *ss of yourself

Stump, none of my points have been refuted. Instead I give numbers and leftists say "Numbers are bad."

That, and you brag about exposing yourself to your daughter. You are a sad little man. Keep talking. More info I can give to social services. Then you can have daycare 24/7!

I'll enjoy reading your rebuttal of yesterday's Georgia Straight article on day cares. It has all kinds of numbers in it.

You can keep trying to goad me into saying something stupid, but why would I? That's your job.

"That, and you brag about exposing yourself to your daughter."

Where? Just more lies. More b*llsh*t. Grab a brain moran, as they say at Fark.com.

Where's your neo-con buddies? Don't know? I'll tell you. They're all backing away slowly from you and wishing you'd STFU. For once, I agree with them.

Unlike you, I don't look for others on this board to make my points for me, I have enough intelligence, understanding of numbers and the value of dollars to make the points myself. Your inability to scroll up is just sad.

Sorry bud, I'll engage you again when you make a worthwhile point, until then, your ideas have been exposed as ignorant, you've shown your misogyny makes you deluded, and you've failed to concede the obvious errors in your thinking that have been pointed out again and again. When you have something worthwhile to say, I'll be the first to give you credit, until then, au revoir.

Bye Stump...See you when you grow up and find out what it's like to pay taxes! Until then, have fun playing hacky sack and not washing your dreadlocks while smoking reefer in the quad!

Beat me to it, Stump- TC, read up a bit on worldwide falling birth rates (this week's Georgia Straight). The populations of most of Europe, Asia and North America are below replacement levels; looks like there are a hell of a lot of women out there who don't see getting married as the only option to a life free of struggle and poverty (which it isn't, anyway, loads of traditional, married families are poor...) women are sending a message loud and clear. Across the globe.

"The high divorce rate and unmarried mothers points to poverty. Our divorce rate and rate of single mothers gave rise to child poverty. You might think of traditional families and marriages as punishing or ancient." you write... No, the high divorce rate and unmarriend mothers points to a problem with the institute of marriage! Or with people's expectations and what actually occurs, or to SOMETHING which leads to poverty for many of the women, who get custody of the children, etc... you ignore the roots of the problem.

I don't think marriage and traditional families are punishing- they simply aren't for everyone. Clearly; you yourself pointed out the high divorce rates.

I ahven't read the article yet because, well, I never read the Georgia Straight unless I want concert info. I'll giver 'er a look though.

Listen motherfucker TC99. Who the **** do you think you are calling my daughter a slut? You know nothing about her or her life. I don't need to go into any of her personal details with the likes of you, a fucking, brain dead, knuckle dragger. You give ignorance new meaning. If you are happy living your life that way, fine, but don't you ever fucking call my daughter a slut again. Those kinds of slanderous words show the kind of 'man', and I use the term loosely, that you are. A weak cowardly, filthy pig who is contemptuous of all humanity. It's been pointed out here by your betters that you are indeed the bitch to others in this and all discussions. You are so pig ignorant it defies belief. I will never read another of your insane, ranting posts again. You have no value as a person and should really see a shrink about your mental abilities. You are totally fucked and there is no hope for you. Don't you dare write my name or refer to my daughter in any way from this point on. My life does not need to be touched in any way by the likes of you and your sick twisted mind. I'd suggest others avoid you and save themselves the grief of pointless arguements with the mental midget of thetyee. You are beneath contempt. And TC99, you dumb ****, I am a mother. You're so busy looking for your idea of dirt that you can't follow the small details in your pathetic haste to cut and paste and try to prove your intellectual superiority. It isn't working here. I suggest you move along to those neocon sites where you'll converse quite happily with your own kind. Knuckle draggers are happy in large groups. proudtobecanadian.com should suit you. I've never come across a bigger group of losers in my life. You'll fit right in. Better yet, **** off and do the world a favour...die.

aalborg
Welcome back! Sorry you had to see that. I'd pretty much given up on cutter and his filthy mind and I heartily echo your thoughts. Even the usual neo conmen around here have, as Stump noted yesterday, have deserted the taxcutter and his lunacy. I think you're right about (i) ignoring him, and (ii) suggesting he take his sociopathology and misanthropy to a place where he'll be more at home.

He clearly lives in a red haze of hatred and resentment for his fellowmen and women with real feelings and stable emotions; responding to him will only encourage further deterioration and increase the chance that he'll actually begin to act out his pathology in a more damaging way - both towards others and himself.

I agree that he should be shunned.

Thanks for the welcome back G West! When did these repugnant loving neocons become so prevalent in this country? They seemed pretty silent up until the election. Or maybe I was too busy on the US sites reading their garbage and naively believing Canadians could never be that cold and brutal. Maybe the conservative win was a secret message to these fools to start spreading the word in the ugly, hate filled way that only they can do. Evangelical pulpits filled with foaming, spittle flecked 'pastors' screaming, "go get them and tell them the truth." I don't have a lot of faith left that the world will survive the madness brought on by Bush/Harper etc. We are on the road to oblivion. Harper and Bush haven't figured out they will go down with the rest of humanity.

I apologize for using that word aalborg, as it is sinful. I should've used a better word, as the Bible teaches my sister:

"I tell you on the day of judgement people will render an account for every careless word they speak. By your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned."
-Matthew 12:36

"The tongue is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. This need not to be so, my brothers." -James 3:8-10

Listen motherfucker, my words were not careless. They are the only words that truly describe you and it didn't take more than a nanosecond to come to that conclusion. Don't quote scripture to me, especially from an evangelical POV. There is nothing more repulsive. Clean up your own fucking house and believe me, it is filthy. You are no where near, 'made in the likeness of God', so you've got a lot to learn. This is the last you will hear from me. Motherfucker.

TC99:

Just what is the point of quoting from a book of fiction?

Makes as much sense as:
"It is an abomination to eat pork."
- Jeremiah · 64:25

Yeah, and to think I demonized daycares.

By the way RickW, Jeremiah only has 52 chapters. You might wanna read them, they're about Babylon. thank you.

aalborg, your language is horrible. I pray that you learn to express yourself in a more respectful way, especially around your grandson.

And yes, I still apologize for my language earlier.

-Luke 13:3

TC99:

I beleive that's called nitpicking. I prefer my fiction from other sources...............

Taxcutter and his wholly imagined array of facts is despicable in the extreme .
Yes, Aalborg since the moron took over all the delusional,mental defectives are out of the bin .
Just look at how they support each other here on the boards. If it weren't so pathetic it would be funny .
G.West,Stump Alcibades continually rip this idiot a new one all to no avail .
Personally he is permanently on the grease with me .
I refuse to respond to his insanity and ravings.

Again, when you mention numbers in most of your posts, socialists either run and hide under a veil of namecalling or argue erroneous points about one's worldview without using raw numbers of their own. I read the Georgia Straight article last night while waiting for the Da Vinci Lie to start...I sypathize with that couple. But the author refuses to illustrate using clear numbers what the 60% shortfall will mean economically or how we will make it up. She tells us that it'll be worth it, using theory, but no projections with number.s If you walked into the boardroom of any company and said "here are the expenditures, and it'll pay for itself, ut I won't give you numbers" they'd laugh at you.

I'm just asking for a non-biased, reasonable, cost-benefit analysis using real numbers and empirical data, with the dollars properly and accurately adjusted and estimated. That's all.