Christmas in July leaves poor — and logic — out in the cold

Almost $ 3 billion was transferred to Canadian parents Monday by the federal government in what one Conservative MP tweeted was “the largest transfer of taxpayers’ money back to taxpayers in Cdn history.”

That this happened less than three months before the federal election and that Employment Minister Pierre Poilievre wore a Conservative logo’d T- shirt to the press conference are not the only reasons this massive transfer ought to be viewed with a gimlet eye.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper described it as part of “our Conservative government’s unwavering commitment to keeping taxes low for families” in his caucus letter that was leaked to the media.

Really? How is collecting $ 3 billion from 24.5 million tax filers and redistributing it a few months before an election to 3.8 million parents fulfilling a promise of low taxes? But I digress. The transfer is cloaked in egalitarianism. Now, twice as many families get the universal child care benefit!

Parents get a one- time “enhanced” retroactive payment of $ 520 for every child under six, followed by $ 160 per month, and a one- time $ 420 payment, followed by $ 60 per month, for every child older than that up to their 18th birthday.

Everybody gets it “regardless of income or the child care you choose,” the government ad says.

Hooray! Everybody gets it, even the one- percenters and families with teenagers who don’t need daycare.

The poor get it, too. No more. No less.

It’s no surprise. None of the Conservatives’ “family- friendly” initiatives is aimed at the neediest — not this transfer, not the doubling of the children’s fitness tax credit or the income- splitting provision that costs $ 7.1 billion annually to reduce a family’s taxes by up to $ 2,000 ( but only if they are among the top 10 per cent of earners).

This, in a country where nearly a million children — one in seven — live below the low- income cut- off line.

As for choice, I’m all for it if one of the choices were universally accessible daycare.

In 2006, the Conservative government cancelled plans for a national child care program, something that was first recommended 45 years ago by the Royal Commission on the Status of Women.

So, it makes the hashtag # YourKidsYourWay the Conservatives are using to promote their program on Twitter seem almost cruel.

Because the reality is that there are few choices.

Canada has one of the lowest levels of access to child care of any of the 34 member countries in the Organization for Economic Co- operation and Development. Only Greece and Turkey spend less on early childhood education and child care.

In Canada, only one in five children is enrolled in early childhood education programs or a licensed daycare that has trained staff.

Public investment in child care is half the OECD average and a third of what the OECD’s education directorate recommends. Bringing Canada up to the OECD average spending for child care would — coincidentally — cost between $ 3 billion and $ 4 billion, according to a 2012 TD Economics report.

Among the benefits of doing that, TD said, is it would allow low- income families and single parents to get full- time jobs, escape welfare and poverty and improve their families’ quality of life.

It would also be a boon to business, according to a recent Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives report.

Think about it: Your child is sick and there’s nowhere to take her. So, you stay home.

Or, it’s 4: 45 p. m. and a ton of work to be done. But if you don’t pick up little Ava or Josh promptly, there’s a chance that the daycare that annually costs as much or more than university tuition will expel your child or you’ll be fired by the babysitter.

So what about Monday’s big transfer? Well, for the fortunate few with kids in daycare, they’ll run through the money well before the end of next month and then have to pay the tax on that money come next April.

As for other working parents or parents who’d like to work? Wish them luck finding a babysitter. They’re still going to need it.