We may still be in the middle of a major health care crisis in Alberta, but that does not mean we should not be casting our gaze into the future of our economic recovery.
The single greatest tool in the toolbox for officials in the provincial government to support our economic recovery is available, accessible and affordable child care services.
At the end of November, federal Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland announced the Liberal government would be supporting a Canada-wide child care system. This support would reduce the cost of child care and support women and families return to the workforce across the entire country.
During the pandemic, many woman with small children have had to make choices about whether or not to continue in their career, or stay at home to support at-home learning and manage the chaos that COVID-19 has caused in our daily lives.
Women also account for a significant number of frontline workers who have had to do the heavy lifting in this crisis. Nurses, teachers, service industry workers – to name just a few – are all dealing with a scenario that puts intense stress and pressure on them while they are at work. Finding affordable child care is an added and unnecessary stress for them.
The plans announced by Freeland included creating a new federal secretariat for early learning and child care. This secretariat will work with the provinces to create this new national system, with Quebec's system serving as a model, which provides parents access to these services for less than $10 a day.
More details are expected when the Liberals present their 2021 budget in the spring.
Alberta had an affordable child care program established by the NDP that provided $25 a day child care at certain facilities as a pilot program. That program, however, was scrapped by the UCP and Premier Jason Kenney before it could be expanded across the province.
While Kenney and his government may not recognize the significance of supporting affordable and available child care to help the economy recover, all Canadians will benefit from the fact the federal government under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau does.
If it costs more to put your small children into child care than you make working a full-time job – there is no benefit or incentive for parents to participate in the workforce and as a result our economy suffers. A lack of available and accessible spaces also further limits the benefit that child care has in our communities – which has long needed to be addressed in Alberta.
Child care is absolutely fundamental to creating the conditions of economic recovery and leadership in this area is laudable. But the devil is in the details, like all things political, and we hope that the UCP government engages in the negotiations with the federal government with the best interest of all Albertans top of mind, and political ideology takes a back seat.
Typically with an announcement like this, there are those who demand to know how the government intends to pay for it. This question has been answered by Freeland, who also announced that the government would be going after the big digital companies to finally pay taxes in Canada.
Companies like Google and Facebook make a lot of money from Canadians and pay zero taxes and this situation has gone unchallenged for far too long. All companies that do business in our country should be required to pay taxes.
This issue hits close to home for the RMO. The news industry in Canada has seen its revenues eroded by these advertising platforms, newsrooms reduced in size and caused a decline in the access to news coverage – all while we continue to pay our taxes and employ people.
Facebook, for example, financially benefits from the news produced in local newsrooms like ours, without any contribution back into our society through paying taxes.
It is time for this situation to end and we applaud Freeland and the Liberals for taking on these digital giants.
