Liberals Confuse Social Justice with Social Ignorance

And just when you thought there was no good reason to vote Conservative anymore, Count Micheal Ignatieff gives us one. Declaring it "the number one social priority" of any possible Liberal government, Ignatieff has vowed to create a national child-care program no matter the fiscal situation, simultaneously throwing out the Liberal's recent record of fiscal responsibility and their de facto commitment to a responsible mix of laissez-faire and interventionist social policy.

Calling a single-system national day care program "an excellent investment" and a matter of "social justice," Ignatieff claims he will not let a deficit - one that his party has called structural - get in the way of finding the money to pay for it. I suppose we can find the money - from a bank in China.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Assuming Ignatieff's pledge is legitimate - and the Liberals have failed to deliver on a National Day Care Program (NDC, for short) during their last 12 year stint in power - I feel I should call "bullshit" on the entire premise of the so-called benefits of a National Day Care Program.

While there has been an increasing push for formalized early learning development, and while that certainly has some merit, many pro-interventionists forget the colossal problem with any national system: inflexibility. For anyone who's had experience with dealing with school boards or provincial boards of education, the sheer size of bureaucracy is daunting, and trying to talking to anyone who knows something - never mind anyone with any power to change something - is a remarkably frustrating and, ultimately, futile process.

These large government bureaucracies are primarily driven by a small brain-trust centered around the appropriate government minister. While there is sometimes a need for centralization, education - beyond the need of a minimum standard - is an area that has been shown to require experimentation to truly progress. What has driven progress in education the last two decades has been the introduction of charter schools - which have had both successes and failures, but have at least been far more dynamic and accountable than the traditional school system - which have been growing in number only by grudging support from governments.

The creation of a nationalized system of day care and early learning development will drive experimentation and adaptation to the wealthiest periphery of society. While the children of the rich see the benefits of a dynamic, competitive system, everyone that's upper-middle class or lower will be forced to accept a system that will quickly age and be simply one small group of "experts'" views on the subject.

And when it comes to "social justice," where in the plan for NDC is the justice for couples who choose to forgo the cottage in Orilla and keep a parent at home? In terms of investment, it is hard to believe a parent supervising two or three children can be, nine times out of ten, less successful than a community college graduate who has to supervise twenty or thirty children. (And I say this not to belittle college graduates but to note that the potential day care workers will not hold some kind of advanced degree that could make them arguably more qualified than the average parent.) One on one attention is very helpful for a child's development, and any national program would not be able to provide it as a stay-at-home parent almost certainly could.

I do not mean to argue the benefits of a "traditional" family for its own sake, but merely to point out that a nationalized system will punish certain people's lifestyle choice and potentially damage a child's development while claiming it to be an investment. Do not be fooled into thinking that it is, as it is simply pigeon-holing people into choosing a lifestyle approved by the government.

Any day care or early learning strategy must therefore be multifaceted and designed to help people with a variety to lifestyles, instead of supporting only the nation's "mode" lifestyle: two working parents and 1.5 children.

Therefore, a more rationally-coherent proposal would include subsidies for child care for the working poor or single parents to choose their own child care strategy, income splitting for married/common-law couples with children to lessen the financial blow of a stay-at-home parent and government grants for further research into early childhood development. This approach would help the needy, promote experimentation in day care techniques, and take the pressure off existing day care spots by encouraging single-worker families, all the while not relying on tired 1970s doctrine that suggests that "Father knows best."

Father doesn't know best. We, as individuals, do.