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Outside chanting combined with inside criticism ruffles Minister

Child care activists disrupted the Conservatives’ attempts to sell their bogus child care plan in Ottawa today.

Activists managed to take advantage of an open window about 5 feet from where Social Development Minister Diane Finley was standing.

Their boisterous chanting visibly rattled the Minister and threw her off her prepared remarks several times. She ploughed on through her text, acknowledging, “not everyone agrees with our plan”.

Advocates inside the press conference managed to speak with the assembled journalists after Minister Finley left. They blasted the Conservative child care scheme.

In yesterday’s federal budget, the Conservative government confirmed it was going ahead with a flawed plan to send parents of kids under six years of age a taxable allowance of $1200 per year.

The Conservatives are also forging ahead with “consultations” about their scheme to provide tax incentives to corporations and other employers to build spaces, an approach that former Conservative Ontario Premier Mike Harris tried in the 1990s. Precisely zero spaces were created under that scheme.

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