joylon – Actually the churches mostly ran residential schools. Private vs public has little or nothing to do with it. Our govts bear guilt because they should have been lookng out for these kids. And we as a society bear gulit because we basically stood by or even actively approved at that time. I don't particuarly approve of holding past generations to our present 'enlightened' standards, it's not fair, how o we know how we would have reacted in their place. Sorry, but 'private' business would likely have made the same errors at the time, which is the only logical way to view it. It's not fair to extrapolate from todays business ethic and claim that as some kind of proof of its superiority. You're probably right, govt run daycare at that time would have very likely have made the same mistakes.

You really don't get it do you? Our whole damn society bears some responsibility since we are the govt, right. The policies of assimilation were popular in their day. The population largely acquiesced, as they always do in these sorts of situations. The govt couldn't have carried out this programme if the larger community hadn't approved. I did not say the govt should bear no responsibility – we did apologize, right. You might want to pretend it was only the govt's fault, but most reasonable would disagree.

and the good news is that you totally have not oversimplified or conveniently ignored any aspects of the actual reality surrounding residential schools is comparing apples and oranges. you 'it-all-boils-down-to-how-great-the-market-as-regulator-is-libertarians' are so vapid, frankly.

Metaphorically speaking, yes it does. Death panels are how the government keeps health care costs from rising like they do in America.

They're not called death panels. They're called regional health authorities. And treasury boards. And health technology assessment panels. And regional coordinators reporting to deputy ministers reporting to, well, you get the picture. We're spending mucho bucks on bureaucrats managing our not-enough bucks.

sorry to have to confirm Jack, but it is indeed so. very unfortunate for macleans.

indeed Jack. huge win for CBC. hope the time away was good.

It was very eye-opening in terms of making me aware that there's a whole other world in South America that we never hear about — a sort of parallel universe, really, given that they're also new, immigrant, hybrid societies (with the exception of Bolivia) and have generally had the same sort of development; but they took different turns from us at various different places, so everything is slightly different while fundamentally familiar. E.g. Buenos Aires is much more European, but also more, well, third-worldy in the pace and commotion and sheer population (and the class divide, with extremes of poverty that exist only on the worst Reserves in Canada). Likewise, in terms of intellectual culture, Argentina and Canada share a profound connection with European culture but not so much with each other — we don't reckon with them, and they don't reckon with us; in terms of contemporary culture, they're almost as saturated with American culture as we are (something like 10 movie channels in our hostel, all showing Hollywood films with Spanish subtitles). So there's a lot to recognise and the differences are that much more noticeable; whereas with Japan or Thailand, for example, I'd wager the total effect would be so Other that it would be less disconcerting. Anyway, I could rattle on about this for a while, but the bottom line is that it's made me more conscious of what makes Canada Canadian — much more so than a trip to the States or Europe would have done. And, needless to say, I thoroughly enjoyed it and would recommend it to anyone: for the moment, moreover, it's quite affordable.

The little things, really; and no comprehensive theory, just a series of "Ah, right — we're in Canada now, so . . ." E.g. — the traffic on Dundas St. moves quite slowly; the sidewalks here are very wide, not crumbling, and free of dog poop; everybody looks like they've showered; the coffee is really quite bad compared to almost any café in Buenos Aires; the buildings are almost all new, or the old ones are quite cheap (this might not apply in Quebec City); there's a general atmosphere of laid-back comfort; it's much colder (even allowing for the seasonal difference); etc. It's just curious to be plunged into an ordinary October day in Toronto, such as I would not distinguish from any other day, and find it full of significant details. I guess the main thing I'd note is that Buenos Aires and Toronto are almost exactly the same age — in the early 19th C both were small towns by today's standards; but here there's been a slow, steady climb towards relatively equitable prosperity, whereas BA has seen enormous prosperity and enormous downfalls in its time. From a policy point of view, my main takeaway was how lucky (or accidentally shrewd) we've been to avoid extremes: thanks to social programs, we managed to avoid the massive class conflict they had in the 1920's to 1960's, along with the big backlashes (fascism in the 1930's and 1970's, neoliberalism in the 1990's). Extreme populism and authoritarianism are each a recipe for crumbling sidewalks and shantytowns, and in spite of our poor coffee and lack of tango I'm glad, overall, that Canada's politics have avoided such extremes.

Welcome home Senor Mitchell!

Alas, 'tis true. I will be reading ITQ as regularly as possible, but ain't no way I'm a-commenting over there. Besides, at last check, I found no opportunity for commenting on her live-ish blog of today's I-can't-believe-she's-not-an-ethics-commissioner Ethics Committee appearance.

Thus a terrific economic incentive for people to get into the daycare business.

Lets add a little bit of context there, jolyon.. like the next paragraph from that Revolution Health Group article:
"But the study, published in the March-April issue of Child Development, also found that high-quality day care attendance is linked to children's higher vocabulary scores through elementary school.

'The takeaway message is that both the quantity and quality of child care do matter,' says Sharon Ramey, director of the Georgetown University Center on Health and Education in Washington, D.C."

And then the sentences immediately after which you conveniently snipped from your NIH article:
"However, the researchers cautioned that for the vast majority of children, the levels of the behaviors reported were well within the normal range.

In fact, a mother's sensitivity to her child was a better indicator of reported problem behaviors than was time in child care, with more sensitive mothering being linked to less problem behaviors. Higher maternal education and family income also predicted lower levels of children's problem behaviors.."

"But the study, published in the March-April issue of Child Development, also found that high-quality day care attendance is linked to children's higher vocabulary scores through elementary school."

That's funny. I left that out on purpose because I thought people might react to my suggestion that daycare leads to well spoken hooligans.

As always, the devil is in the details. I am willing to accept for the kids with the worst parents, daycare will help because parents aren't doing their jobs. However, the universal daycare that Libs want to implement will lead to me subsidizing Wolfgang and Jemima's babysitting costs so their upper middle class parents can make even more money then they already do.

Will it? Please show me where it says it will do this in the plan?

Will it? Please show me where it says it will do this in the plan. Hell, just show me the plan that Ignatieff plans to implement.

I see "a national child care program". No where do I see anything about this plan having universal application.

Do you have kids? I don't know how anyone can define "worst parents" unless they think that there is a magic recipe for raising well-adjusted kids (i.e. they don't have 'em).

"NEED" to work? "Affluent lifestyle"?? Isn't that a bit subjective?
If I get your point, I think that field has been plowed before; daycare disproportionately benefits those who need but otherwise would not have had access to it.
And wasn't that a big part of the impetus for the 2005 programme – that there simply weren't the spaces to be found, whether one could pay or not – a problem completely missed by the Conservatives ersatz daycare plan.

Maybe I'm missing something here. It seems like everybody is talking about a universally accessible plan. I've yet to see any indication that this is what Ignatieff is intending.

With respect to child-care? Nope. But then again, it's not like we don't have a wide variety of programs with means testing to look at when designing a national child-care plan. Of course the easiest way to administer it would be to have it accessible only for those on social services of some sort.

Another way to go, which I'd prefer, is have it be free up to a certain income limit, and after that charge them $.50 for every $1 above the limit they make until they're paying the full cost or move their child elsewhere.

You were proposing that people would use an ECE system if it existed. In fact your were giving your guarantee.

I simply pointed out that a comparable education system already exists – in the public school system – and yet some folks refuse to use it at all. In short, I was trying to point out that your guarantee is not an actual argument, it's simply an assertion. Or perhaps, if you prefer, it's a strong assurance.

You can argue whether it was exactly halfway there or if half the job was done or not,

No thanks, I'll let you argue it if you wish.

My point was that the claim, as written, was an absurd misrepresentation of the true state of affairs. You dispute Harper's claim of 90% committed, and you're certainly entitled to dispute it if you wish. I'd just point out that Harper is making (questionable?) representations about his own government, whereas Susan Delacourt is making quite ridiculous claims on behalf of a former government.

Harper's motive is clear enough, he's defending his government's performance. But what's Delacourt's motive?
What's her interest in misrepresenting the thing?

i do think of myself as moderate, even if a tad to the middle right. i am most certainly not a social conservative. as for intelligent, I'll leave that to others to determine. i guess i have your vote. Thanks for the moderate part.

By the way, i didn't mean it as an insult that i thought you were a girl, it's just that everytime i read your posts that was the image that came to me. sorry if it offended you.

You see, Thwim. Not everybody earns the same amount of money. Some earn more and some earn less. If we are to assume that there is this pent up demand for daycare but it's just so expensive that people can't afford it, then some people would be much closer to having the funds available to put there child in daycare. Now, if we were to give those people money, that extra money would put some of those people over the top and they would register there children in daycare which would result in an increase in spaces as daycares expanded to meet demand. However, that didn't happen because that demand was never really there to begin with.

Now, how about you explain to me how $2 billion dollars can create no daycare spaces but $5 billion dollars can create a universal ECE program where anyone who wants can put there child into daycare? If my math is right, that works out to $5 extra a day. $5 that parents weren't willing to pay out of their own pocket. Where's the evidence for that $5 being the difference between universal childcare and nothing?

But the economy of scale doesn't exist. If it did private investors would have built these large-scale daycares you speak of years ago and the cost of daycare would drop down to costs in the range Ignatieff is proposing (about $250/month apparently). The conclusion is that the concentration of parents desiring to put there children in these daycares is too low and the end result will be a ballooning of the cost estimates of the Liberal plan.

"Same type of principle applies. 500 people with $1200 a year is small-fry. Not enough to entice a developer who has to get everything organized, make sure they all pay, etc, etc. One group with over half a million? Now that's something feasible to do a deal with."

If this were even remotely true then Walmart wouldn't exist. $600 000 for 500 spots is the same whether one person sends you 500 children for $600 000 or 500 people send you 1 child each for $1200. And if the developer was going to increase the price on the 500 individuals to increase their profit, then another developer would step in and offer a lower price. It's not as if there are high barriers to entry in this field.