Mulcair ready to deal with provinces on daycare plan

Pledge to create national daycare program at $15 per day is likely most expensive promise of NDP campaign

Thestar.com
Sept. 9, 2015
By Joanna Smith

New Democrat Leader Thomas Mulcair says he is undaunted by the challenge of negotiating with Ontario and other provincial governments who have expressed their reluctance to spend more money on childcare than they already do.

“We go after these jobs because all the easy things have already been done,” Mulcair said Wednesday morning at an automotive parts plant in Niagara Falls, Ont.

The pledge to create a national daycare program - one million childcare spaces costing parents no more than $15 per day within eight years - is the biggest and likely most expensive promise of the NDP campaign, with the federal share estimated to cost $5 billion annually by the time it is fully implemented.

It also depends on the provinces to cover the remaining 40 per cent of the cost and without those commitments, the NDP would be forced to scale back the number of promised spaces, delay their creation or dig even deeper into federal revenues.

The NDP has said its plan has the support of B.C., Manitoba and New Brunswick.

The Liberal government of Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne, meanwhile, has said that it wants the more than $1-billion it already spends annually on child care to be fully included in their share of contributions to a national daycare plan and, moreover, the NDP was premature in claiming the province was on board.

On Wednesday, Mulcair insisted he was up to the challenging task, noting he was in the Quebec National Assembly when the Parti Québécois brought in a universal daycare program in the 1990s and that just because other federal parties had not accomplished the same goal does not mean the NDP cannot.

“I was there in Quebec City when quality, affordable childcare was brought in, so I know it can be done. To hear the Liberals tell it, and the Conservatives, because they were never able to do it, it can’t be done. Actually, we’re not going to take the limits of their ability for the limits of what can be accomplished,” Mulcair said.

“We’re going to work with the provinces and territories. I look forward to working with Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals and with minister of education Sandals to bring in quality, affordable, maximum $15-a-day childcare across Canada and here in Ontario,” Mulcair said.

The NDP leader was in Niagara Falls to announce a plan to help revive manufacturing in Ontario by announcing financial incentives for the automotive sector.

“It’s time to get good-paying, auto manufacturing jobs back to these communities,” Mulcair said after touring the warehouse of an automotive logistics company.

The promise includes a job-creation plan that involves $90-million more by 2020 for a program to foster innovation in automotive development and making contributions to companies from the automotive innovation fund tax-free.

The NDP would also create a new provincial-federal agency called iCanada to make it easier for investors to turn their plans “from blueprint to reality”.