Silly Little Country

The Zebra's Stripes

Childless, I am not too excited about issues of childcare, other than the likely taxation any programmes defined by our government will suck out of me.

I do recall seeing several months ago a report of our Minister of Social Development, named Ken Dryden, in his time a superb hockey goalie, and later executive in a hockey company, explaining to his audience that we (meaning what he thought was the bureaucracy he led) now knew how to bring up children, and so it would be a good thing for the country for him and his to take over the task. Can anyone find me a link to that speech? - I notice he is very mute on his web page about anything he has said in the past.

I do recall this speech chilling me, as major hubris of the state. But of course, when he announced his department's child care programme, it became clearer that this memory might not have been an hallucination - it was clear that his programme would support child care only where the child was sucked into a state-supported (surely unionized, and highly expensive, and of course licenced and regulated) system of care that of course executed what the goalie knew to be the sole right way to raise children.

Still part of me could not believe that our Liberal party could put forward a programme that would give NO support to families who wanted to have one parent stay at home and care for the children. That part did recognize that allowing the parents any say was not consistent with the goalie's confident view that only the state KNEW how to raise children.

And yet and yet. I could not believe this. The second party in Canada, in a recent policy announcement, suggested they would just give money to parents and let them figure out how to spend it to have their children cared for. Heavens, maybe the grandmother could stay at home and help, with the additional tax rebate. And then we learned how true what I thought was this nuttiness was.

The goalie's party's communications director said that parents would just spend tihs money on beer and popcorn. Far better to have the money go to the experts who know far better how to raise their children.

Now, unlike many who have responded to this revealing slip, I am not outraged by his statement. I am rather pleased; it makes it very clear what paternalistic leanings lie behind that party's policies. They do in fact know better - in fact it now baffles my why they do not simply tax us all at 100% and determine what we all need.

They clearly know better. I am sure I watch too much TV and I suspect they could get me doing something much more valuable.

posted by Alan Adamson @ 6:00 PM