From the Globe:
OTTAWA --Most Canadians favor Liberal over Conservative plans for dealing with what they say is a serious lack of affordable child care, suggests a new poll commissioned by a child-care advocacy group.
Fifty per cent of respondents preferred a national, accessible early learning system as promised by the former government, says the Environics Research survey.
That compares with 35 per cent who favored the $1,200-a-year family allowance proposed by the Conservatives for each child under age six.
Although the poll was commissioned by the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada, the results seem pretty unambiguous, and in any case the wording of the poll question is given in the story, so you can make up your own mind. Most important point:
Support for a national child-care system was high across Canada, in urban and rural areas and among families with a stay-at-home parent, said Derek Leebosh, senior associate with Environics.
In other words, there is no urban/rural split for the Tories to exploit on this issue, which is telling given that their family allowance proposal was directly marketed as a sop to their rural, religious base.
Somebody has written that the Conservative daycare plan is an example of trying to distract the populace with a shiny object. Nice to see Canadians aren't falling for it.
The Liberals promised to create affordable daycare for 13 years, nothing was done about it. Just a handy election promise that got used so often it became a bad joke. The CPC has done more in six months than the Libs did in 13 years, a very real $1200 family allowance and $250 million tax incentives for the creation of 125,000 new spaces.
ReplyDeleteThe $250 mill will add up to 0 in the way of spaces, based on the Ontario experience with similar incentives.
ReplyDeleteBesides, don't talk to me. I wasn't polled. Talk to the Canadian People. They're the ones who aren't impressed.
I like that line "fuckup in a whorehouse". Mind if I use it?
ReplyDeletethe poll was paid for a "child advocacy group" . . . so go figure the outcome was pre-ordained.
ReplyDeletePush polling is an old technique, get any result you want by asking the "right" questions in the proper order.
Nothing to see here folks, just move along now
I wasn't talking to you, that would be a complete waste of time.
ReplyDeleteI suppose the Canadain people are impressed with 13 years of Liberal lies on the matter. Oh wait, that wasn't asked.
Liberals . . . useless as a:
ReplyDeletescreen door a submarine
fart in windstorm
fart in a wetsuit
pay toilet in Diarrhea ward
its a long list but this will get you going
BINGO . . . fucking Liberals throwing good taxpayer money down the tube funding these morons.
ReplyDeleteSDA rips 'em a new one & blows BCL's extremely limited credibility even lower down the scale . . .
Liberal Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada
The Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada came out yesterday to criticize the Conservatives on their tax credit propo.... nevermind. It doesn't reallly matter what they said. We're going to look at where this group receives funding for their forays into political campaigns and lobbying efforts with the Federal Government.
That would be... the Federal Government!
Spring 2005 Bulletin;
Just approved: a three-year project grant from Status of Women Canada for Building Women's Equality in Child Care Policy. The project is about developing child care policy responsive to the equality needs of women, at the same time as it meets the needs of children, families and the broader society.
Status of Women Canada is "the federal government agency which promotes gender equality, and the full participation of women in the economic, social, cultural and political life of the country." ;
From Freedom of Information sources, the 1997 - 2003 funding from S.O.W. to;
Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada - $734,120.00
Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada (CCAAC) - $302,089.00
I looked for an online financial report. What I found was this 1994 report by MP John Bryden;
It is difficult to describe this advocacy group in any detail because neither letter nor telephone calls could persuade staff to release a financial statement or descriptions of programs.
They gave out only one small brochure and the text of a speech to the parliamentary committee studying the Lobbyists Registration Act.
Because non-profit organizations are entitled by law to withhold whatever they please from the public, the spending practices of the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada (CCAAC) cannot therefore be examined.
The CCAAC has had the benefit of substantial government funding for years. Since 1983
it has received $2,005,767 from the Department of the Secretary of State (Womens' Program) alone. Additional grants from other ministries are likely but, since the published Public Accounts only records grants of over $100,000, this is almost impossible to track.
The ministry-supplied printout of the CCAAC's funding history, however, is revealing in another way. Beginning in 1992, sustaining grants previously described as "Operational Funding" were changed to "Program Funding." This change would deceive a person calling up the post-1991 accounts into believing that the listed sums are for specific programs or projects when, in fact, they are still for salary and office expenditures.
Since major grants from the Secretary of State tended to be the same sums to the same organizations year after year, there are many examples of such camouflaged core funding. The organizations include: National Action Committee on the Status of Women, Women's Legal and Education Fund, National Watch on Women in the Media Inc., the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, and so on.
More recent government funding;
We received funding in 2004 for a major three year project through the Social Development Partnerships Program.
That page indicates financial statements are "available on request", so perhaps rules have been tightened. I have emailed the CCAAC for more information on how much of their total funding is government derived - I'll let you know if I get a reply.
With all the talk about campaign reform, perhaps another amendment is in order - one that disqualifies any non-profit or charitable organization that recieves more than 10% of their funding from government sources.
That would leave us with .. ah.. the Fraser Institute and Taxpayers Federation, I believe. (And Real Women, as has been pointed out in the comments.)