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Janice MacKinnon and Jack Mintz: The program will take too long to implement and fail to meet the needs of Canada's diverse workforce

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The federal governments 2021 budget introduces a daycare program, fashioned after Quebecs, as a $10-a-day, 50/50 shared-cost conditional grant program with the provinces. By adopting a conditional grant program that requires a one-size-fits-all approach without recognizing provincial differences in fiscal capacity, the program will take too long to implement and fail to meet the needs of Canadas diverse workforce.

Daycare regulation is a provincial responsibility and the needed policies to achieve the goal of making daycare more affordable and accessible vary across Canada. What works in Quebec might not work in Nova Scotia or Saskatchewan. The success of the federal daycare initiative will depend significantly on how much flexibility the provinces have to design daycare programs that suit their unique needs.

The federal budget goes over the top, claiming the program is one of the most significant actions taken since the North American free trade agreements to create economic opportunities for Canadians. While it is true that daycare spending brings economic benefits by encouraging both parents in a family to work, it will not pay for itself. And the price tag is high: its annual cost is expected to be $18 billion in five years, including the provincial share and indigenous support and excluding any cost related to Quebecs to-be-negotiated package.

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The programs benefits are being exaggerated in three ways. First, the federal government is relying on the Quebec experience, but there is no reason to believe that the increase in employment seen in that province will hold true for the others. The Quebec daycare plan did produce economic benefits, but a number of studies such as one conducted by Pierre Fortin, which estimated that for every dollar spent on daycare the economy grows by $5 have significantly overestimated the benefit.

Second, as pointed out by economists Michael Baker and Kevin Milligan, there are some social and health advantages with competing at-home care that should be quantified in any economic assessment. Third, daycare could provide some important learning benefits, although the best response might be an expansion of full-time junior kindergarten, as some provinces have done.

The federal budget states that, TD Economics has pointed to a range of studies that have shown that for every dollar spent on early childhood education, the broader economy receives between $1.50 and $2.80 in return. Omitted was the qualifier that followed in the same 2012 report: One needs to acknowledge, however, that quantifying these benefits is not an exact science and a large margin of error likely exists. So, the benefit/cost ratio must be interpreted with caution.

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Significant new federal money to help parents with daycare costs is good news, but at issue is the model chosen to spend federal money in an area of provincial jurisdiction. The federal government could have used a model like the Canada child benefit: a federal program that provides support to low-income families to encourage parents to move from welfare to work. This has reduced welfare costs for the provinces, which used the savings on other social programs.

The federal government could subsidize the cost of daycare by providing tax credits or transfers directly to parents. Spaces could be increased by federal subsidies to operators and provinces could focus on enhancing their own daycare offerings.

Instead, the federal government chose a model reminiscent of the 1960s approach to medicare: a universal program, with federal cost sharing available only to provinces that accept the national standards. The model is outdated and rigid.

In terms of costs, why should provinces move from daycare costs of more than $1,000 a month to $10 a day? What if some provinces want to charge more than $10 a day so that they can afford to fund more spaces?

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Why is it good public policy to provide cheap daycare to wealthy Canadians? What if some provinces want to base fee levels on income, so that upper-income people pay more, and the money is used to expand the supply of daycare? Gearing costs to income and providing more supply to others is arguably fairer than the proposed Quebec-based model. Provinces need the flexibility to decide the parental payment structure and level that works best for their jurisdictions.

Flexibility also means subsidizing many kinds of daycares to meet the needs of todays diverse workforce. The budget commits support primarily for the not-for-profit sector, which would leave out private operators, often small female-owned businesses, that provide daycare to todays workforce, which includes many shift workers, more part-time and temporary workers, and people whose daycare needs vary from week to week.

As two female private daycare operators wrote in the Globe and Mail: Failing to enable diverse care models means only middle-class, full-time, permanently employed parents will benefit from a $10/day model. Surely, we do not want to create a two-tiered system where an elite group of parents are fortunate enough to access not-for-profit, $10-a-day daycare, while leaving many others to pay much more for less traditional but equally essential daycare services.

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What is required is compromise and accommodation, especially since provinces are understandably skeptical about the prospect of another federal-provincial cost-sharing program. When medicare was created, the federal government used 50/50 cost sharing to pressure provinces to support the program. Today, even if federal personal tax point transfers are included, provinces pick up two-thirds of medicare costs (without tax points, the federal share is only 21 per cent).

The same budget that introduced the new federal-provincial daycare plan ignored provincial appeals to make a long-term increase in federal transfers for provincial health-care systems that are overburdened with COVID-19 patients and long-term care facilities, which have been devastated during the pandemic.

It would have been simpler and more expedient for the federal government to directly fund daycare costs through grants or tax credits. Probably, to keep the program targeted, a focus on affordability for parents needing to work would have enabled the federal government to save some money for other health-related provincial transfers.

National Post

Janice MacKinnon is a former Saskatchewan minister of social services and Jack Mintz is the presidents fellow at the University of Calgarys School of Public Policy.

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Opinion: If the Liberals really wanted a successful federal daycare program, this one isn't it - National Post

OPINION Walter Mondale was one of the last of the dinosaurs, Midwest liberals who roamed the American plains in the middle of the 20th century.

Mondale, who died April19 at 93, was a protege of a leader of that rapidly vanishing herd, Hubert Horatio Humphrey. Mondale met Humphrey when the energetic young Minneapolis mayor ran for the U.S. Senate in 1948, not realizing he would one day replace him there, and later serve beside him.

Mondale was appointed as Minnesotas attorney general in 1960 and elected to the post two years later. When HHH was elected vice president along with Lyndon Johnson in 1964, Mondale was named to the Senate seat. When he took office in 1965, he met another prairie populist, South Dakota Sen. George McGovern.

Mondale, McGovern and Humphrey, a Wallace, S.D., native who grew up in Huron before moving to Minnesota, were small-town Midwest boys who made good.

Mondales and McGoverns fathers were pastors; Humphreys dad was a druggist. Their sons all tried for the brass ring in American politics, falling just short.

These young, sharp, driven politicians became friends, political allies and, at times, rivals.

After Humphrey sought the White House but lost to Republican Richard Nixon in 1968, he came home to Minnesota, but soon bounced back into politics and was elected to the Senate again in 1970.

Minnesota, with Humphrey and Mondale, and South Dakota, with McGovern and, after the 1972 election, Jim Abourezk, had four of the most liberal senators in the country. Hard to imagine today, but that was the politics of that era.

Three of them sought the White House. Humphrey first tried in 1960 but lost the Democratic nomination to Jack Kennedy. He got the nod in 1968 but lost a narrow race.

In 1972, McGovern and Humphrey were the last two Democrats standing before McGovern took the nomination. But unlike his friend, he was soundly drubbed by Nixon.

Mondale considered a run for the presidency in 1976 but turned it down, saying he didnt want to spend months in Holiday Inns campaigning across the country. Humphrey burned to be president, but Mondale, a much quieter man and candidate, didnt have that same need to win the top job in politics.

Instead, he agreed to be former Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carters running mate. Grits and Fritz, they were dubbed, and they started the 1976 campaign with a massive lead over President Gerald Ford and his running mate, Kansas Sen. Bob Dole.

The Midwest was well-represented in national politics back then.

In fact, from 1964-84, there was a Minnesotan or a South Dakotan Humphrey was both on the Democratic ticket. HHH was the VP candidate in 64 and presidential candidate in 1968. McGovern was atop the ticket in 72, and Mondale was Carters VP in 76 and 80 and the presidential candidate in 1984.

Democrats won just two of those six elections, and have turned away from candidates from the heartland, other than Barack Obama of Illinois in 2008 and 2012. All the other candidates for the top two posts have been from the coasts or the South.

As vice president, Mondale was closely involved, unlike previous VPs, who mostly attended funerals, presided over the Senate as needed and spent a lot of time looking out windows. When he accepted the offer, Mondale asked to be a senior advisor, and not just a figurehead. Carter agreed.

When his longtime friend and ally died, Carter issued a statement saying Mondale was the greatest VP in American history. He certainly set a pattern of involvement and influence that endures to this day.

They were true partners, with Mondale given the right to speak frankly with the Washington outsider. They did many good things for the country, but Carter could not get a handle on inflation, and was unable to free the hostages seized in Iran.

That led to a landslide loss in 1980, as Republican Ronald Reagan brought in an era of conservative politics and government that is only now receding. Mondale upheld the liberal tradition in 1984 when he took on Reagan, but his loss was even worse than Carters had been four years earlier.

Mondales best moment that year was when he turned back Gary Hart for the Democratic nomination. Hart, a handsome, telegenic New Democrat, posed a real challenge to Mondale, whose hair had turned gray, matching his image and reputation. McGovern made his final bid for office that year, but dropped out early, leaving his old friend Fritz and Hart, his 1972 campaign manager, to fight it out.

I was living in Reno then and attended a Democratic caucus in my neighborhood with my friend Ellen. I made a strong argument for Hart, saying McGoverns time had passed and Mondale had no real chance to beat Reagan.

I was surprised when I was elected a delegate to the state convention based on my brief speech, and I later turned it down. So ended my political career.

Mondale was a lifer. He seized on a popular Wendys commercial during a March 1984 debate, saying Harts centrist views were more image than substance.

Im reminded of that ad, Wheres the beef? he said.

The quip stuck, labeling Hart as a candidate who was trying to sell himself like a hamburger. Mondale took the nomination, and made news and history by choosing New York Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro as his running mate.

It made a splash but it didnt make a difference. Like McGovern a dozen years earlier, Mondale carried just the District of Columbia and a single state, Minnesota, and that was a close call.

McGovern lost South Dakota but carried Massachusetts and D.C. The old friends were able to laugh through the pain later, but it still stung.

I remember when, after I lost my race for president, I went to see George, Mondale told POLITICO in October 2012 after McGoverns death I said, Tell me how long it takes to get over a defeat of this kind. He said, Ill call you when it happens. Thats the kind of guy he was, he was funny.

Mondale had a brief flash of hope in 1984 when Reagan, who later was diagnosed with Alzheimers, appeared unfocused during their first debate. He was at the time the oldest president ever and whispers about his age and ability to perform grew louder.

But at the second debate, Reagan shrugged off the question with one of his most memorable lines.

I will not make agean issue of this campaign, The Gipper said with a typical shrug. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponents youth and inexperience.

Everyone laughed, including Mondale. The election, for all intents and purposes, wasover.

After that campaign, Mondale returned to Minnesota. to practice law. He resurfaced in 1993 when President Bill Clinton appointed him ambassador to Japan. He held that post until 1997 when he came home, apparently retired from politics.

But like Humphrey, there was an unexpected final chapter. When Minnesota Sen. Paul Wellstone was killed in a plane crash in October 2002, just 11 days before the election. The Minnesota Democrats needed a candidate, and the old warhorse agreed to give it one more run.

Mondale probably would have won, but the Democrats turned a memorial service for Wellstone into a boisterous political rally. It was televised statewide and voters were appalled by the blatant politicking at what should have been a solemn, nonpartisan affair.

Mondale lost to Republican Norm Coleman, ending his political career. He kept a very low profile after that race, instead serving as a mentor to the next generations of Minnesota Democrats.

Mondale was vice president when Humphrey died on Jan. 13, 1978. Humphrey had spent his waning days calling old friends and political rivals, including Nixon, who was an outcast after resigning from president in 1974. Humphrey invited his old friend to the funeral, helping emerge from the shadows.

Mondale acknowledged the grace displayed by his old friend.

He taught us how to live, and finally he taught us how to die, he said.

In his final days, Mondale also called old friends, including President Joe Biden, who was a Senate colleague for four years.

Unlike Humphrey, who was just 66 when he died, Mondale got to live a long, full life. Minnesota has been a Democratic stronghold for decades, and both men played a major role in that.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat who ran for president in 2019-20, making a stop in Sioux Falls in December 2019, honored Mondale on Twitter.

On the wall of the Carter Library is a quote of Walter Mondales at the end of their time in office: We told the truth. We obeyed the law. We kept the peace. That pretty much sums up Walter Mondales life and service.

Thats a fitting tribute to a good man. Thanks for your work, Fritz.

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Walter Mondale, one of the last of the 20th century Midwest liberals, will be remembered fondly - Black Hills Pioneer

OTTAWA - With the help of the NDP, Justin Trudeau's minority Liberal government has survived the last of three confidence votes on its massive budget.

The House of Commons approved Monday the government's general budgetary policy by a vote of 178-157.

Liberals were joined by New Democrat MPs in voting for the budget, in accordance with NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh's vow not to trigger an election in the midst of a deadly third wave of COVID-19.

Conservative, Bloc Quebecois and Green MPs voted against the budget.

Votes on the budget are considered confidence matters; had all opposition parties voted against it, the government would have fallen, plunging the country into an election.

The government survived two other confidence votes on the budget last week, on Conservative and Bloc Quebecois amendments to the budget motion.

The budget, introduced last week, commits just over $100 billion in new spending to stimulate the economic recovery, on top of an unprecedented, pandemic-induced deficit of $354 billion in the 2020-21 fiscal year.

The government must eventually introduce a budget implementation bill, which will also be a matter of confidence.

Prime Minister Trudeau last week insisted the big-spending budget is not a launching pad for an election. He would not rule out an election this year, noting that he leads a minority government and saying it will be up to Parliament to decide when the election is.

While that sounded like Trudeau doesn't intend to pull the plug himself on his government, it didn't preclude the possibility that the Liberals could try to orchestrate their defeat at the hands of opposition parties. Nor did it preclude the possibility that Trudeau could at some point claim that a dysfunctional minority Parliament requires him to seek a majority mandate.

Some Liberal insiders believe Trudeau may pull the plug this summer, provided that the pandemic is relatively under control and vaccines are rolling out smoothly.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 26, 2021.

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No election yet as Liberal minority government survives third budget confidence vote - CP24 Toronto's Breaking News

OTTAWA -- Justin Trudeau's minority Liberal government has survived the second of three confidence votes on the massive federal budget.

A Conservative amendment was defeated by a vote of 213-120, with Liberals, Bloc Quebecois, New Democrat and Green MPs all voting against it.

The amendment called for the budget to be revised because, the Conservatives claimed, it will add "over half a trillion dollars in new debt that can only be paid through higher job-killing taxes," including more than $100 billion in new spending that the Conservatives dubbed "a re-election fund."

On Wednesday, a Bloc Quebecois sub-amendment was also easily defeated.

The government had informed opposition parties that it would consider both votes to be matters of confidence, meaning the government would fall if either of them passed.

A third opportunity to pass judgment on the budget comes Monday, when the House of Commons will vote on the main motion to approve the government's general budgetary policy.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh has promised that his party will prop up the minority government on all budget votes to avoid triggering an election in the midst of a deadly third wave of COVID-19.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 22, 2021.

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Minority Liberal government survives second of three confidence votes on budget - CTV News

Tasmanian Liberal Premier Peter Gutwein is gambling on an early election to cash in on his governments popularity due to its management of the COVID pandemic. It is a reasonable strategy, given how voters in Queensland and Western Australia have rewarded their governments in recent months.

Gutwein announced the May 1 election on March 26 a year earlier than it is due. This was possible because, while Tasmania has a four-year maximum term, it does not have a fixed term, unlike all other states and territories.

In 2018 the Liberals, under then-Premier Will Hodgman, were returned to government with a bare majority of 13 of the 25 members of the lower house. Gutwein took over the premiership following Hodgmans resignation in January 2020.

Over the past three years, the majority government has at times looked shaky. This was typified by maverick Liberal Clark MP Sue Hickey winning the speakership ballot with the support of Labor and the Greens against her partys candidate. She has since voted against government legislation and policy on a number of policy and social reform issues.

Five days before calling the election Gutwein informed Hickey she would not get Liberal re-endorsement for the next election. She resigned from the party, putting the government into minority.

Having engineered a minority government and, despite written assurances from Hickey and ex-Labor, independent MP Madeleine Ogilvie on confidence and supply, Gutwein then called the election to secure stable majority government. His reasoning was that this would keep Tasmania in safe hands for ongoing management of COVID.

Read more: Morrison's ratings take a hit in Newspoll as Coalition notionally loses a seat in redistribution

A few days later, Ogilvie was endorsed as a Liberal candidate for Clark. This underlined the artificiality of the minority government argument.

Under Tasmanias Hare-Clark proportional electoral system, five members are elected to each of five multi-member seats. These are Bass in the north, Braddon in the north west, Clark and Franklin in the greater Hobart and southern region, and the sprawling Lyons across the middle of the state.

Going into this election, the Liberals had 12 seats, Labor nine, Tasmanian Greens two and there were two independents.

In March 2020, before the pandemic, Labor leader Rebecca White was matching first Hodgman and then Gutwein as preferred premier.

However, that changed after Gutwein declared a state of emergency and the toughest border restrictions in Australia.

Like his counterparts in Queensland and WA, the hard-line stance was widely interpreted as keeping the state safe. Gutwein polled as high as 70% as preferred premier in opinion polls throughout 2020.

The election announcement caught Labor unprepared. The start of its campaign was sidetracked by factional battles over preselection of high-profile Kingborough Mayor Dean Winter for the seat of Franklin. It also had to deal with the resignation of state ALP president Ben McGregor from the campaign over crude text messages he sent to a female colleague some years ago.

The Liberals also have had their share of problems. Franklin candidate Dean Ewington was forced to resign when it was revealed he had attended anti-lockdown rallies against Gutweins policy. Ex-minister and now Braddon candidate Adam Brooks also faces police charges over alleged contraventions of gun storage law.

Tasmania has has three minority governments in the modern era. These are the 1989 Labor-Green Accord government, the 1996 Liberal minority government and the 2010 Labor-Green quasi-coalition government. In each case voters punished the major governing party at the following election.

Consequently, the prospect of a hung parliament is always a central election issue in this state. Both Labor and the Liberals have pledged to govern in majority or not at all. However, in their one campaign debate to date, both Gutwein and White indicated they would resign the leadership rather than lead a minority government. This seems to leave open the door for their replacements to take up negotiations to form government.

Federal issues and federal political leaders have had a minimal impact on the Tasmanian election. So far, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has not visited the state during the campaign, even for the Liberal campaign launch. Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese has visited twice, including for Labors launch.

While Tasmanias economy has held up surprisingly well during the pandemic due in no small part to Commonwealth JobKeeper and JobSeeker payments the end of those payments is likely to have a negative impact on the states economy. Some have pointed to this as an underlying reason for going to an election early.

Concerns about delays to the roll-out of COVID vaccinations and the possible distraction from the key state Liberal campaign theme of management of the pandemic may be another reason for keeping federal ministers away.

Read more: WA election could be historical Labor landslide, but party with less than 1% vote may win upper house seat

For its part, Labor has campaigned on state Liberal failure to reduce hospital and housing waiting lists and the lack of action on a range of key infrastructure development promises made at the 2018 election. The opposition has also raised concerns about future budget spending cuts to fund high-cost COVID economic stimulus measures, TAFE privatisation and delays in replacing the Spirit of Tasmania ferries, which are vital for interstate transport, tourism and freight.

The Greens and key high-profile independent candidates such as Hickey and popular Glenorchy Mayor Kristie Johnston in Clark have raised concerns about government secrecy, ministerial accountability and the states weak laws on political donations and, associated with that, poker machine licensing reforms.

There have been no public political opinion polls so far during this campaign. However, successive surveys by Tasmanian pollsters EMRS throughout 2020 placed the Liberals as likely to win more than 52% of the vote state-wide.

Since, historically, a party winning anything over 48% is likely to secure majority government in Tasmania, if those polls are reflected in the election outcome on May 1, another majority Liberal government seems likely.

Continued here:
As Tasmanians head to the polls, Liberal Premier Peter Gutwein hopes to cash in on COVID management - The Conversation AU