Soon after the Conservatives issued the Universal Child Care Benefit (UCCB) cheques this past July, the word was out that the UCCB was neither an effective way to help parents, nor a boon to stimulate the economy.
Sure, a parent earning $50,000 with one child under age six received an extra $720 from the UCCB, but over 30 per cent of it will be clawed back as taxes in March. When some families pay more for child care than for their rent or mortgage, the $3 billion spent on UCCB doesn’t offer much help. In fact, in a recent Forum Research poll, two thirds of respondents felt UCCB cheques were nothing more than an election ploy to buy votes.
Instead the NDP has a plan to create one million affordable child care spaces for $15 per day. Now that’s a program that will help Canadian families. It stimulates the economy by allowing more parents to join the workforce, and is great for children, their families, and the community.