REALITY CHECK: Freeland’s child care “epiphany” half a century in the making

On day one of the Liberal convention, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland stated:

"I really believe COVID has created a window of political opportunity and maybe an epiphany on the importance of early learning and child care”.

But for women and families struggling with work and raising kids, it didn’t take a pandemic to know this. In fact, Canada has actually known about the importance of early learning and child care for over 50 years. That’s right the 1970 Royal Commission on the Status of Women in Canada outlined it clearly. Yet, because of Liberal inaction, Canadian women have been living with the cruel impact of this unbalanced system since.

One of the Commission's key recommendations was for national child care. In response, the Liberal Party has promised childcare over and over for decades and failed to deliver.

In fact the 1993 Liberal Red Book explicitly promised child care and every single subsequent Liberal government failed to deliver. That was 28 years ago.

Women who were kids when it was first promised by the Liberals are now faced with the difficulties of finding affordable and accessible child care for their own kids. The fact that the Liberals are only having an “epiphany” in 2021 shows how disturbingly out of touch they are with the realities of working families.

While Liberals are busy feting Mark Carney and having epiphanies about women needing child care, New Democrats are planning for real progress to make Canadians’ lives better.

Canadians need someone on their side.