Fund the Child: Canadian Activism

From dirty diapers to CBS and back home to more dirty diapers: the fight for equal childcare rights continues.

Fund the Child is a nationwide grassroots movement of parents from across Canada. We gained notoriety after we wrote letters, called radio stations and appeared on T.V. begging the previous Liberal government to allow parental choice and stop forcing a one style fits all daycare.

We were and still are up against many well funded groups, including strong unions and the Bank of Canada. This made it rough for average parents to stand up in the spotlight of the news and yell for our rights, but we have and we will keep going until we are fully heard.

Rather than planning to wind up on TV, my role in the Fund the Child movement had inauspicious beginnings. 

A few years back whilst doing our family's taxes I realized that in Canada, as a mom at home, I was classed as a "non-working dependant". Well, that threw my knickers into a twist! I decided to write a letter to the editor.  

Shortly after this letter appeared in our local paper I got a phone call from a Ms. Beverley Smith in Calgary. Ms. Smith explained to me that many parents felt the same way I did and were trying to pull together some sort of movement supporting parental choice.

I was ecstatic and filled with pride that someone from the other side of the country had noticed my letter

Ms. Smith was traveling Ottawa (my region), a few months later to do a press conference on Parliament Hill and invited me to attend. I had no idea what I was getting into, but it sounded fun.

This was in 2004 and we had a Liberal Prime Minister named Paul Martin who absolutely did not believe in parental choices. Martin actually said to a journalist, "let the professionals deal with childcare" and I almost smashed the T.V.  He was actually advocating daycare workers as the only "professionals" in childcare. More blunders followed.

Fund the Child co-ordinated demonstrations protesting against government policies which refused childcare subsidies for families not using daycare facilities in seventeen cities across the country. Amidst all the daycare hoopla we were adamant in voicing our right to raise our children as we saw fit and not how the government told us to. 

Our protests were never, in any way, anti-daycare; but rather against the government of the day financially forcing us to use a one tier daycare system that would not meet the needs of 100% of the children in Canada. The National Childcare plan only served parents who used full time daycare and disregarded all other family situations.  What about children being cared for in their own home by a parent or relative? In most cases in Canada subsidies were cut off if your child did not attend daycare daily.

Our protest was noticed by the then leader of the opposition who is now our Prime Minister Stephen Harper. In his role as opposition leader at the time, he telephoned the Fund the Child organisers on the day of our protests to essentially say "we believe in your rights and it is coming", but never went into details as to exactly how in monetary or physical value to the economy.

The 2006 election had been looking like a hard one for the Conservatives to win until the childcare issue gathered momentum. The Liberals were amazingly intense in their agenda of one form of daycare for all children across Canada, and stupidly ranted on about it on National T.V.

We call it the "beer and popcorn" dilemma.

One high official of the Liberal government when tested on childcare during the election exclaimed that "parents need to choose what is best for their kids". When it was suggested maybe the policies of Fund the Child would be best, he exclaimed "what are they going to spend it on, beer and popcorn?".

That was probably the moment when Fund the Child became a huge movement across Canada. There were news reports of parents screaming at the Liberals for being so arrogant, and the election showed that parents wanted more choice than one-tier daycare.

Then an offer came from the Conservative Party of Canada: $100 a month per child under 6 years of age no matter what your income was. The Liberal government mocked this offer and yelled parents want the money to go to childcare/daycare and not in their pockets. 

They were wrong, the Conservatives were voted in as a minority government in 2006.

The ousted government had repeatedly pushed a pro not-for-profit daycare agenda through "studies" which were instigated and paid for by their own party, which made this a partisan issue. Most of the work was conducted by Martha Friendly and her colleagues at Toronto University. This research unit had been functioning for years under the funding of a partisan political party. Trying to present this research as independent and conclusive resulted in loosing public support of compulsory childcare/daycare and ultimately the election.

During this period I was introduced to another advocate in childcare who was interested in all forms of daycare. Ms. Kathy Graham is a professional in daycare services and fully understood our intentions that the funding should flow with the child. Legal mediation began between us to iron out the kinks of definitions and policy issues. Weeks were spent discussing issues that were never touched on before. But it worked, and you can see it in our National Family Childcare Association (now International) policy.  

The Conservative government has since added to the $100 a month in childcare, they have added $2,000 tax breaks for each child under 18, savings accounts that can be income split, pensioners to income split and a few other tax perks to help equalize the parent at home with other working parents. The NFCA did participate in policy issues with the Conservative government, we are proud of what was achieved but will still work hard to keep going.

Many governments around the world are not truly listening to parents, if they were I wouldn't have to write this blog.

I am currently President of the National Family Childcare Association (now international) alongside with Fund the Child parents on our board and hundreds of thousands of supporters and yet my main job is just being "MUMMY".

Sara Landriault is a stay at home mom (sic) of 3 beautiful girls. In raising her children, she has grown with them and has learned as much from her daughters as she has taught them. Sara finds arguments between daycare vs stay at home moms very disrespectful to all involved. An advocate for equal respect and financial rights for parents who choose daycare, staying at home and everything in between, Sara is President/Founder of the National Family Childcare Association in Canada.

Sara's blog is at http://www.fundthechild.blogspot.com/