$15-a-day childcare is a dream many parents have, especially here in BC where we pay an average of $1050 a month per child , and even higher in Vancouver, where parents pay upwards of $1200 a month for the necessary service.
The NDP is promising to make the dream a reality.
The party claims an NDP government would not only cap childcare costs to parents at $300-a-month, it would also create one million childcare spots.
But How True Is it?
Benefits of affordable childcare
A number of economists have touted the benefits.
According to them, affordable childcare puts more women in the workforce and more money in families’ pockets.
The NDP specifically cites University of Quebec at Montreal economist Pierre Fortin’s work, that claimed Quebec’s economy received a $5 billion dollar boost from its $5-a-day (now $7-a-day) plan.
LISTEN: CKNW’s Charmaine de Silva takes a closer look at the NDP’s $15/day childcare promise with Jon McComb.
![[soundcloud url="https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/223083184" params="color=ff5500" width="100%" height="166" iframe="true" /]Program costsPaying for the NDP’s plan will not be easy.If the party forms government, it’s pledging $290 million in its first year, $595 million in year two, $1.2 billion in year three, and $1.8 billion in the fourth year, all for childcare.The plan is to increase federal contributions all the way to $5 billion a year by 2023.Another note in the fine print? In order to make the NDP promise come to fruition, voters would also have to re-elect the NDP one more time.Where would the funding come from?NDP Childcare Critic Jinny Simms says the billions of dollars needed for the expensive program would come from axing the Conservative plan for income splitting, and by increasing corporate taxes.But the Surrey-Newton MP admits, that is not enough.Her party’s plan needs the provinces to come up with 40-percent of the funding.“When you put money on the table, and you create a culture where you’re willing to work with provinces to make things work, then I think you can implement [this program]…especially when you’re talking about building new childcare spaces.”](https://globalnews.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/ndp_cost.jpg?quality=85&strip=all)
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