When the federal government announced its blockbuster national child care investment in the budget last week, we were stoked. As child care advocates and parents ourselves, we have never seen such a huge amount of money devoted to making universal child care a reality: Up to $30 billion over five years, with $8.3 billion every year after that to maintain the ambitious system they pledge to build. The goal is to make sure parents across the country don?t have to pay more than $10 a day for child care. This will mean massive savings for families, who often pay over eight to 10 times that much now. It is a huge cause for celebration.
But of course, as has happened each time a federal government has tried to move forward on universal child care, critics pushed back. Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, for example, derided the federal plan as ?cookie-cutter, nine-to-five, urban, government and union-run institutional daycare.? In the past, this kind of pearl-clutching has stymied progress on child care. But this time, the naysayers are at a disadvantage. The pandemic has pulled back the curtain on the value and necessity of high quality, affordable child care. Women dropped out of the workforce en masse last spring, leading to a near 30 year low in their labour force participation. With every stay-at-home order that has triggered virtual learning, parents are in the thick of the impossible task of working and parenting at once?that is, if they have the privilege of working from home.
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