We spend just .25 of our GDP on early childhood programs but other countries in the OECD spend up to 4 times that. The first thing the Tories did was to sabotage the national child care program and replace it by one hundred a month taxable bribes to parents of kids under six plus some extra funds for provinces.
Tories flunk early childhood education test (Frances Russell)
Winnipeg Free Press Wed Apr 4 2007
IT’S bitter irony. The same month Ottawa issued its final cheques to the provinces for the Liberals’ brief but historic national child care and early learning progam, Canada was ranked dead last among industrialized countries in its spending on early childhood education. Stimulated by their social conservative base, Stephen Harper’s Conservatives scrapped the $5 billion initiative, vitiating nearly 40 years of hard work and struggle by parents and national social policy agencies.
They replaced it with a pared-down “Father Knows Best” $2.5 billion plan which sends $100 a month taxable cheques to parents of children under six and sets aside $250 million over five years for the provinces to spend as they wish on whatever they think constitutes child care. The money was originally to go to businesses and non-profit groups to create 125,000 day care spaces. But not one materialized. It’s another bitter irony that the same political party and ideology that agitates the loudest for “law and order” and harsher sentences for offenders, pays no attention to the growing mountain of studies and statistics showing just how crucial the first six years of life are. Poor school performance, antisocial behaviour and ultimately, criminal activity, all can be traced back to a child’s formative years.
Early Years Study 2: Putting Science Into Action, by internationally renowned child development expert Dr. Fraser Mustard, Margaret Norrie McCain and Stuart Shanker of York University, is a 185-page follow-up report to the groundbreaking 1999 Early Years Study: Reversing the Real Brain Drain commissioned by the former Ontario government.
Released last week, and largely ignored by the media, the report places Canada’s haphazard efforts at early childhood education at the very bottom of all 30 nations in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. The OECD includes most of Europe, the U.S., Australia, New Zealand and Japan.
Canada spends just 0.25 per cent of its gross domestic product on early childhood programs. Other nations spend up to two per cent.
To replace Canada’s current nationwide “chaotic mess” of programs and assistance, the report calls for a system of community hubs, ideally located in schools, that would offer child care, play-based preschool activities, help for parents and social service referrals. Prepared to spend
Were Canada prepared to spend just one per cent of its GDP on child care, it would have $10 billion annually, double the Liberals’ nascent national program and quadruple what the Conservatives are delivering with their so-called “Choice in Child Care” scheme that, as one commentator points out, delivers neither choice nor child care.
Mustard, founding president and fellow of the Canadian Centre for Advanced Research, is designing a comprehensive early learning program for the state of South Australia. There is yet another bitter irony in the fact he’s got the ear of a government on the other side of the globe, but can’t get the ones in his own country to listen.
Only about one-third of the population are highly competent parents, Mustard told The Toronto Star. “The rest are OK, but about 17 per cent are godawful. You do have to improve parenting — parents have a huge impact on brain development.”
Up to 80 per cent of children with learning and behavioural difficulties are in the middle and upper classes, the report says, so all families, regardless of income, must be included. Parental involvement is vital.
The chapter entitled The Long Reach of Early Childhood paints some disturbing pictures.
“Infants raised with an abusive, addicted, or a severely depressed caregiver not only experience considerable anxiety… but come to associate anxiety with other social interactions,” the report states. “These children are more likely to show problems with emotional regulation, self-concept, social skills and academic motivation. Over time, studies have reported that individuals who experience abuse often show serious learning and adjustment problems, including academic failure, severe depression, aggressive behaviour, peer difficulties, substance abuse, and delinquency.” One-quarter of Canadian children experience some learning or behavioural difficulty by age six, the report says. Without intervention in those early years, a child can be marked for life. A Quebec study has found that only 30 per cent of children entering Grade 1 with high or chronic levels of aggression will graduate from high school.
“Even the amount of stress a baby is exposed to… can determine not just how well they do in school, but if they’re happy or have solid social relationships and also their physical health, mental health and their risk of depression, autoimmune disorders, cancer, whatever,” Shanker, a developmental neuroscience expert and president of the Council for Early Child Development, told The Star. “We are now beginning to appreciate the social enormity of these problems, plus the cost to society,” he continued. “It’s very expensive to do intervention on a school-aged child and at best you only succeed about half the time.”
Canada can’t afford to spend $10 billion on its children? As its health and justice costs mount, Canada can’t afford not to.
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