Reality Check
Conservatives repeat lies on child care cheques
ISSUE:
After being challenged by Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion to end his campaign of “piling lies upon lies,” Mr. Harper and the Conservative Party launched more attack ads claiming Mr. Dion would eliminate the Universal Child Care Benefit.
REALITY:
Stéphane Dion has repeatedly said that he will not eliminate the $1,200 child care benefit. This is clearly a matter of public record and Liberals even released an official statement clarifying this in unequivocal language before the Conservatives launched their ads. And yet, Stephen Harper is repeating these baseless fabrications.
Universal Child Care Benefit
- While Mr. Dion has criticized Mr. Harper for cancelling billions in child care funding agreements with the provinces and breaking his promise to create child care spaces, the Liberal leader has never committed to ending or reducing the Universal Child Care Benefit. Period.
"The leader has not said at all that the $1,200 [a year] now being given to parents would be taken away....We don't want to take it away."
(Liberal Social Development Critic, Ruby Dhalla, National Post, March 26, 2007)
- Liberals will maintain this benefit and will augment it with real support to create quality child care spaces.
WHAT DION SAID
The Conservatives hand their whole claim that Dion would cancel child care cheques based on Mr. Dion’s response in a 2006 interview with the National Post before Mr. Dion was elected as Liberal leader. Here is the full exchange:
National Post: Would you cancel the Tory daycare plan? What would you replace it with?
Stéphane Dion: Yes. The Dryden plan was much better. We need child care facilities to provide Canadian parents with real choice. It's a matter of social justice, but also of sound economics: child care facilities are a good way to encourage flexibility and mobility of our workforce, at a time when, often, two parents are working outside the home. (National Post, October 21, 2006)
REALITY
The question is not specifically about the $1,200 benefit. Mr. Dion is asked about Mr. Harper’s child care plan in general, including the cancellation of Liberal child care agreements with all 10 provinces, and his failed plan to create 125,000 child care spaces.
However, Liberals have repeatedly pointed out, cheques alone are not child care.
Further, since becoming leader, Mr. Dion and the Liberal Party have been clear that we will not take away the $1,200 family child care allowance. The Liberal Party will in fact add a new refundable tax credit worth $350 per child per year and will invest to create more child care spaces for Canadians.
In addition, the Liberal Party has committed to increasing the National Child Care Benefit Supplement and creating a new Guaranteed Family Supplement worth up to $1,225 per child for lower-income families.
The Conservatives broke their promise to Canadian families that they would create 25,000 new spaces annually.
The Liberal Party opposed the Conservatives’ slashing $750 million in annual investments in child care spaces.
And yes, while keeping the cheques, Liberals do intend to replace the Conservative plan to create child care spaces, because their plan didn’t work.
