After decades of broken child care promises, why believe the Liberals this time?

Michael Ignatieff will continue on his tour of recycled and lifted announcements today with a promise about child care. Sound familiar? It should. The first time the Liberals made this promise was in their 1993 ‘Red Book’:

“A Liberal government, working with the provinces, will implement a realistic and fiscally responsible program to increase the number of child care spaces in Canada. In each year following a year of 3 percent economic growth, a Liberal government will create 50,000 new child care spaces to a total of 150,000.”
– Liberal Party of Canada, Liberal ‘Red Book’, 1993, p. 38.

Even with record economic growth in Canada, the Chretien/Martin Liberals created no new spaces in the 1990s. Instead, they waited until the dying days of a minority government to actually do anything — 12 years, three majority governments, and seven back-to-back surpluses of over $67 billion later.

The reason why Michael Ignatieff feels the need to announce a national child care program now is because his party failed to deliver their past promise to Canadian families.

Why should we believe the Liberals this time?