Reality check: A Groundhog Day miracle! Liberals promise child care again … and again

Yesterday, Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff promised that a Liberal government would create a national child care program:

“I'm aware of the hole this government has dropped us in. But one [thing] that I will not drop under any circumstance is an investment in our kids because I’m absolutely convinced that this [child care] is the game changer that makes us more equal, more fair and more just and gives every kid an equal start.” – Michael Ignatieff, CBC News, 1 February 2009

But the youngest of Mr. Ignatieff’s staff should be able to remind him that the Liberal Party made this exact same promise to their parents 17 years ago:

“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,
The Liberal ‘Red Book’, 1993, p. 38.

History records that the growth targets were achieved, yet the Chretien / Martin Liberals created no new spaces. Instead, they waited 12 years, three majority governments, and seven back-to-back surpluses of over $67 billion before acting on child care in the context of a minority government.

On that, history also records the cynicism of Liberals about their legacy of broken child care promises:

The Liberal government’s national daycare program was "a deathbed repentance.” – former Trudeau aide, Tom Axworthy, Canwest News, 27 March 2006

But that shouldn’t stop Ignatieff from making the same promise again and again.