Memo questions child care spending impact

OTTAWA The Liberals hope their daycare budget pledge will help more women join the workforce, but newly released documents suggest federal finance officials were once cautious about a lack of data allowing them to connect those dots when growth is slow.

The Liberal government has promised to spend $7 billion on child care over the next decade — in addition to $500 million this year — to make daycare more affordable and accessible, which, the March 22 budget document pointed out, could also make it easier for parents to work or improve their education and skills training.

Much of that argument is based on the experience in Quebec, where the labour force participation rates of women increased after the province brought in a subsidized, low-fee and universal child-care program in 1997 as part of a package of reforms targeting families.

According to a commonly cited 2012 study led by Pierre Fortin, an economist at the University of Quebec at Montreal, the child-care program in Quebec allowed 70,000 more mothers with children under the age of 14 to hold jobs in 2008 than would have otherwise been the case.

Federal finance officials, writing in a report produced during the 2015 election, during which child care became a central topic, suggested a similar boost would not necessarily be replicated on a national scale — at least not now.

“It is noted that this policy was implemented during a period of strong economic growth in Canada, leading to increased labour demand,” said the document, which The Canadian Press obtained in response to an access-toinformation request.

“It is not clear that such a policy would have produced the same effects in the context of sluggish economic growth.”

Jack Aubry, a department spokesman, said officials there nonetheless believe there is a link between child care and more women in the workforce.