Voting with their feet

According to StatsCan, Canadian parents started making their decision as to what type of child care they need long before the federal government ever got involved...and the Cons are trying to push in the wrong direction:

According to the government agency, about 54 per cent of children aged six months to five years were in child care in 2002-2003, compared with 42 per cent in 1994-1995.

In the most recent period, three forms of child care — daycare centres, child care outside the home by a non relative and care by a relative inside or outside the home — each accounted for about 30 per cent of all care...

In Wednesday's report, Statscan said care outside the home by a non-relative — while remaining one of the top options selected by families — there was a decline in that kind of care over the eight-year period.

That, it said, was offset by an increase in the use of care by relatives and a rise in the use of day-care centres.

Will Cons take a look at the numbers and start trusting the choices parents have been making over the past decade? Or will they continue to insist that they know better than both the parents who have already made use of daycare centres, and those who would make the same choice if they could afford it?

While the throne speech hinted at some compromise on the issue, the numbers suggest that the Cons have a way to go in order to be in touch with the established needs and preferences of parents. And their choice as to whether or not to account for the reality of child care could go a long way to determining whether the minority can get anything accomplished in Parliament.

(Edit: typo.)