Wynne’s social spending balloons
Free-daycare promise is Liberals’ latest social spending initiative as election looms
As Kathleen Wynne’s Liberal government charges headlong toward a general election in June, daycare of all is just the latest in its ongoing project of taking social-support systems that have depended on steady employment and replacing them with government guarantees.
Pensions, drug coverage and now childcare are the biggie, along with better mental-health, addiction and autism treatment and improved home-based health care are part of the package, too, taking up costs many people have covered out of pocket or with workplace insurance.
With these and other social programs, the Liberals get to announce big plans, figure out how to pay for them later when the full amount of spending actually kicks in, and campaign on dark warnings that the Progressive Conservatives will cancel things the government hasn’t even actually done, David Reevely writes. After all, the same strategy worked in 2014.
On Wednesday the government presents its final budget before the election, already having said it will run a deficit of one per cent of the gross domestic product — potentially as high as $8 billion.
But the Liberals, who continue to lag in the polls, have also said the added spending is needed to help struggling Ontario residents and promise the fiscal blueprint will include a clear path to balancing the books.
With their billion-dollar-a-year promise to make daycare free for Ontario kids from the age of twoand-a-half, the Ontario Liberals are reminding us what they stand for: bigger government that sincerely wants to help.
“Not being able to find or afford childcare is stressful, it is troubling and it is holding families back at a time when it’s already hard enough to get ahead,” Premier Kathleen Wynne said in making the announcement at a Toronto elementary school. “This investment will make life more affordable for families and allow more parents to make the choice to go back to work, knowing their child is safe and cared for.”
The whole price tag is $2.2 billion over three years, the biggest chunk of which is $930 million in the third year to start paying for daycare for all kids from the time they turn two-and-a-half until they start kindergarten.
There’s money for more daycares to open, including on First Nations reserves; more subsidized spaces for younger kids; raises for daycare workers; and experimental programs that offer more flexible hours for parents who work odd shifts.
The economics of daycare are brutal, but simple.
With the group we’re talking about, kids aged two-and-a-half to four or five, an unlicensed home daycare provider can look after a maximum of five children (including his or her own). So all the costs of care, including food and toys and equipment and the provider’s time, have to be divided among five families at the most. That’s $9,000 a year per family, easily, and often much more.
In a licensed daycare, the ratio can be a bit higher — up to eight kids per adult — but these are almost always in commercial premises with more overhead and credentialed staff, so the fees are similar.
“Free preschool provides both economic and social benefits for our province,” said Finance Minister Charles Sousa. “It saves families $17,000 per child and gives parents the opportunity to go back to work sooner. Most importantly, these investments ensure all kids get the best possible start in life.”
Many families will have two kids of daycare age at once. Sometimes three. The government commissioned a study by economics professor Gordon Cleveland, who specializes in early childhood education issues, that found the daycare bill for children under six eats up more than 20 per cent of an average family’s after-tax income.
The same study recommended that full government funding for preschool care should be followed by subsidies for infant and toddler care, with an income test that will give bigger subsidies to lower earners. The Liberals haven’t announced that they’ll do that (yet).
Averages conceal a lot of variation because infant daycare is even more expensive and the number of earners and kids in a household makes a big difference, but clearly it’s a heavy burden for anyone who isn’t rich.
Managing this on two full-time middle-class incomes is difficult and it’s something else if you’re precariously employed or working part time with unpredictable hours. The idea is that smoothing out these difficulties will not only make voters happier, it’ll benefit the economy by making work easier.
I should probably make a macro to plug that last paragraph quickly into any column on what the Wynne Liberals have been up to and will get up to in the next couple of months. They’ve made a project of taking social-support systems that have depended on steady employment and replacing them with government guarantees.
Pensions, drug coverage and now childcare are the biggies. Better mental-health, addiction and autism treatment and improved home-based health care are part of the package, too, taking up costs many people have covered out of pocket (or with workplace insurance) when the public systems have let them down.
The opposition accuses the Liberals of buying votes. I mean, they didn’t raise this daycare announcement in question period at all Tuesday, but in general.
The Fair Hydro Plan is the plainest example. It’s tarted up in talk of generational fairness, but it’s a cynical case of giving us cheaper electricity bills now in exchange for noticeably higher ones later.
With these other social programs, the Liberals get to announce big plans, figure out how to pay for them later (the full daycare promise doesn’t kick in for two years!) and campaign on dark warnings that the Progressive Conservatives will cancel things the government hasn’t even actually done. They did just the same in 2014. The political advantage is obvious.
But Wynne and her party do actually believe in what they’re doing and it’s at least debatable whether it’s just vote buying if you’re sincere.
First the Liberals were governing from the activist centre, then they were building Ontario up, then they were helping Ontarians in their daily lives. Now it’s all about “the government’s plan to support care, create opportunity and make life more affordable during this period of rapid economic change.” Different words for much the same thing: the government’s here to help smooth the bumps.
Whatever else it is, it’s a governing philosophy and it hasn’t changed much since Wynne became premier.