Stump season begins with fight for families
Mulcair kicks off tour of Ontario as federal Conservatives mail increased child-care benefit cheques
The federal election campaign is not yet officially declared, but the race started in earnest Monday as politicians began trying to win over the valuable family vote by promising to ease household budgets in very different ways.
The biggest sign that the season of stump speeches is upon us was the arrival of cheques and direct deposits as the Conservative promise to increase and extend the Universal Child Care Benefit came to fruition in one big retroactive lump sum. The Conservatives raised the benefits for children under age 6 to $160 a month, up from $100, and introduced a new benefit of $60 a month for children ages 6 to 17. July’s payment includes retroactive amounts dating to January, when the enhanced benefits took effect.
“Parents get to spend the money however they like, including on daycare if that’s their choice,” Employment Minister Pierre Poilievre told reporters in Halifax on Monday.
He promoted the pre-election payout dressed in a blue golf shirt adorned with a Conservative Party of Canada logo, in case there was any doubt whether the delivery of the cheques had anything to do with the Oct. 19 election.
“It’s no coincidence that after10 years in power, the Conservatives are now trying to buy people’s votes with their own money,” NDP Leader Tom Mulcair told reporters in Oshawa on the first day of his eight-day campaign-style tour through vote-rich Ontario.
The New Democrats have promised to keep the increased benefit, but on Monday Mulcair was also promoting his own plan for families: the creation of one million child care spaces that would cost parents no more than $15 per day.
“While I’m thrilled for the families that are getting those cheques . . . it doesn’t create any new child care spaces,” Mulcair said during a stop at an Oshawa child care centre.
“We want to make sure that across the country we develop a system of affordable, quality child care, working with the provinces and territories,” he said. “We are convinced that it’s an idea whose time has finally come.”
The NDP estimates the federal share of a child-care program will grow to about $5 billion annually after eight years, a proposal Mulcair said would require a major shift in priorities from those put forward by Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
“When you do bring in a new program, it’s not as if you’re going to continue doing everything the previous government was doing and just adding something else. Stephen Harper’s priorities were his own. His government’s priorities were their own,” said Mulcair, who plans to help fund the child-care program by raising corporate taxes and cancelling income-splitting for couples with children.
“Ours will be different and we have a very forward-looking, progressive approach to governing and we’re very optimistic about what we can accomplish together . . . Affordable, quality child care is one of our top priorities,” he said.
In Fredericton, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau said his own plan for a child-care benefit includes a larger, tax-free monthly payment for those families that need it most.
“The reason we can give bigger cheques is that we’re doing less for the families who don’t need it,” Trudeau told reporters Monday.
Both the NDP and the Liberals criticized Poilievre for his partisan attire at what had been billed as a government announcement.
“They are always going to play fast and loose with the rules and I think that’s what Canadians are most tired of,” said Mulcair, whose own caucus has come under fire for the way it pooled MPs’ office budgets to pay for so-called satellite offices in Quebec
“We want to make sure that across the country we develop a system of affordable, quality child care . . . We are convinced that it’s an idea whose time has finally come.” TOM MULCAIR NDP LEADER
and Toronto.
Liberal MP Adam Vaughan told the Star that the Conservatives “break or bend the rules to suit their pleasure. Their ethics have long deserted them.”
The Conservatives ran afoul of the ethics watchdog in 2010 for using large ceremonial cheques decked out with partisan or personal symbols — names, signatures, photos and logos — to highlight federal funding announcements.
Harper himself spoke out against the practice in 2009, declaring that a “partisan logo on a government announcement was not correct.”