Our Children's Future: Child Care Policy in Canada

Elaine G. Porter is an associate professor of sociology at Laurentian
University.

Why does Canada not have a national child-care policy such as that in
Sweden or France? The editors begin the book with the premise that there
is a basic consensus among experts that children need care in an
enriched care environment versus one that is predominantly custodial.
The question is how to get it. The editors entered the child-care policy
arena with their highly acclaimed study of the costs and benefits of
child care for all preschool children. Given that they were able to
estimate a reasonable price tag for high-quality care with universal
coverage, it is understandable that they would be eager to look at the
roadblocks to achieving it. The symposium on which the book is based was
organized to cover the following topics: (i) jurisdictional issues
between the federal and provincial levels of government; (ii) lessons
learned from Quebec and the experience of the United States and European
countries; (iii) operational definitions of good-quality care; (iv) the
delivery method, whether through schools or community-based; (v) the
interrelationship between child-care and family policy; (vi) the
child-care needs of children from poor families and those with special
needs; and (vii) the types of training, levels of pay, and organization
of child-care workers.

The editors give some flavor of the symposium debates by attaching
discussants’ reactions, authors’ replies, and floor discussions to
the session presentations. Thus, it is best to read each of the seven
parts as a whole to maintain continuity between papers and comments.
Economic issues were not too far from the surface of any of these
presentations: for example, those considering quality care discussed
various tradeoffs. The session on the integration of family and
child-care policies brought together the crux of the matter, the
historical baggage, and the matter of equity among families in
child-care choices. There is much in this book to move the debate
forward. It is too bad that the highly committed academic and policy
consultant presenters were not asked to map out the pathways that would
enable the rest of Canada to build on the progress that Quebec has made.