The Conservatives' proposed child care allowance has already been much maligned on the left. $100.00 a month simply doesn't pay for quality child care. But it turns out the Conservative proposal may be even worse than I thought. The East-End Underground points us to a study done by the Caledon Institute. If the CI's numbers are right there are a lot of families who won't see anything close to that $100.00 a month.
Take the example of a two-earner couple in Ontario raising two children (one under 6) and earning $36,000 (only a few thousand dollars above Statistics Canada’s estimated after-tax low income cutoff of $33,152 for cities of 500,000 or larger in 2006). That family would end up with a net Child Care Allowance worth just $388 − only 32.3 percent of the $1,200 face value payment.
That would pretty much make a joke out of the Conservative proposal. Go read.
Its actually kind of interesting because Conservatives support a thing called "relative care" where basically that money is being transferred to parents. It fits in their scheme of tightening family bonds. Its not that it wouldn't work... it's just that you're not going to get those childcare professionals. Remember that it is a plan for "moms and dads" not "John the Child Educator." The problem is that the model they have been comparing it with are those of expensive urban centres not local rural solutions (most of Canada is still very rural; IE: St. John's and St. John are rural cities).
Most of Canada in fact lives in cities. Just because the maritimes or maybe just those 2 cities are like that doesn't mean the whole country is. The Conservative plan will halp maybe (and I'll be generous) 15% of the population with children under 6 to the extent that they need it.