10 Dollar a day childcare poses some risk.
Levi joins us on the Quick Updates show to explain.

Last week, the federal government’s child care bill, Bill C-35, passed second reading in the House of Commons. Since the last federal election, the current government has focused vast amounts of time and money on establishing child care agreements with each Canadian province and territory. Their goal is to reduce the average out-of-pocket cost of child care down to $10 a day per child throughout the country by the end of 2025/26.

According to Karina Gould, the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development, the purpose of Bill C-35 is to enshrine “into law the federal government’s commitment to strengthening and protecting this Canada-wide system.”

One of the flaws in the current child care policy plan is that the federal government (or any provincial or territorial government) could renege on the deal at any time. The government is worried that future (Conservative) governments might scrap these child care funding deals, as Stephen Harper did to Paul Martin’s child care agreements in 2006. One of the goals of this bill is to “bullet-proof” this program against any attacks from future governments.

The current government wants to insulate this program because it thinks that this program is a key to affordability and the well-being of average Canadian families. Speaking in support of this bill, Minister Gould said, “I have yet to speak to a child care centre representative or a family who has not talked about the very real and tangible impact that this reduction in fees is having on their families’ bottom line.”

Well, she obviously has been pretty selective in who she’s been talking to. This “universal” child care program is anything but universal. It only covers licensed public or not-for-profit child care. According to Statistics Canada, only a minority of children – 46.4% – use child care that might be licenced. Forty-eight percent of Canadian children are cared for by their parents and a further 13.5% are cared for by relatives,[1] care that certainly is not licenced and thus is not eligible for the government’s child care program.

The Fundamental Problem With Publicly Funded Licenced Child Care

Unfortunately, the Canadian opposition parties fail to point out the fundamental problems with the government’s approach to funding licenced child care. The NDP, for example, are critical that the current government is not working fast enough to transfer the care of children from families to institutions or to create enough licenced child care spots. The official opposition gets a bit closer to home when it points out that this program benefits only the families that choose to use licenced daycare but leaves parents, extended family members, and for-profit child care providers high and dry. For the most part, however, the Conservative party has no principled opposition to state-funded child care.

Here is the bottom line: the best caregivers for infants, toddlers, and young children are their parents. Its not with early child educators, the next-door neighbour, or even their grandparents. There are often scenarios where these third parties have to step in and shoulder some of these child care duties, but these should be exceptions rather than the norm. The norm should be that parents care for their own children.

It isn’t just that parents know what is best for their children. (Have you ever struggled to calm a friend’s crying child, only for them to stop crying the instant you handed them to their mother?) Parents also have the responsibility to care for their children. Scripture entrusts the care of children to their parents (see Genesis 18:18-19, Exodus 12:26-27, Deut 6:7, Deut 11:19, Joshua 4:7, Proverbs 1:8,10,15; 2:1; 3:1,11,21; 4:10,20; 5:1,7,20; 6:1,3, 20; 7:1,24; 8:32; 19:27; 23:15,19,26; & 24:13,21). Nurses, early childhood educators, guardians, and child teachers are rare throughout Scripture, mentioned only in the stories of Moses (who, through God’s extraordinary intervention, was also cared for by his own mother on the behalf of Pharoah’s daughter), Obed (nursed by his grandmother Naomi), Samuel (raised by Eli the priest), the orphaned Mephibosheth (raised by his nurse), and Joash (cared for by a nurse as well).

The fundamental problem with a state-funded universal child care system is that it systematically encourages the people who know children best and who are given responsibility for children – parents – to pass on this duty to professionals. Parents aren’t rewarded for working at home by this child care policy. They are encouraged to enroll their children in a licensed daycare facility and work a paid job. While many single parents and couples both need to work to make ends meet, the government isn’t making it any easier for parents to care for their children. In fact, it’s adding further benefits to working outside the home.

Currently, 48% of young Canadian children are cared for by their parents. That’s not a state of affairs to be decried but celebrated! The goal of government should be to increase that number, not decrease it.

Take Action!

Take a moment to write to your MP on this issue. Members of Parliament of all political colours – red, blue, orange, and green – need to hear about the fundamental problem with state-funded child care.

[1] Percentages do not add up to 100% due to the double counting of children who use multiple types of child care (e.g. care by a relative two days a week and licenced child care three days a week)

It’s official. British Columbia no longer has both a Ministry of Education and a Ministry of State for Child Care. (A Ministry of State is a government department that isn’t quite a fully-fledged department yet.) It now has a combined Ministry of Education and Child Care. The ministry was internally renamed as of this month and will be renamed in existing legislation once Bill 22: School Amendment Act passes.

But who cares? Why should this reorganization of government departments be noteworthy to anyone, much less Christians?

This reorganization reveals the provincial government’s fundamental philosophy of education and child care as being two sides of the same coin, both of which should be under the supervision of the provincial government. Which side of the coin is the front is an interesting question: is education, specifically public schools, fundamentally a form of child care, or is child care, specifically publicly funded and licensed child care providers, a form of education?

Either way, Christians should care about this shift for two reasons: this current child care policy is an overreach of the state into the domain of parents and will likely accelerate the process of secularization.

Current Child Care Policy is an Overreach of the State into the Domain of Parents

We’ve touched upon the idea that publicly funded and regulated child care encroaches on the domain of parents in other articles, blogs, and videos, but the basic argument is that God entrusts the care of children to parents. Not the state, the church, the school, or the daycare. Not bureaucrats, elders, teachers, or early childhood educators. Parents.

Now, we certainly recognize that parents may delegate some caregiving time to others while still honouring their natural responsibility. However, the historical trend of parents delegating more and more of this responsibility to others is concerning. Three centuries ago, parents almost exclusively cared for and educated their own children in the home. After schooling became compulsory and mothers began to enter the paid workforce, the time parents spent with their children directly during waking hours decreased significantly. Today, with the growing popularity of child care for young children in daycares and after-school programs, the average time that parents spend with children is cut down further.

In his classic dystopian book Brave New World, Aldous Huxley imagines a progressive utopian society in which everyone is happy all of the time. Part of the “progress” he imagines is that children are conceived and grown in laboratories and raised and educated by the state. In this dystopian world, families cease to exist, and the terms “mother” and “father” become the most pejorative, lewd insults possible in society.

In God’s good design and under His restraining hand, we trust that Huxley’s prediction will never become a reality. Yet, given the technological and social developments of our time, it is still worth contemplating whether our society is strengthening or weakening the family. It is also worth considering whether we as Christians are influencing or being influenced by the culture around us. We are concerned that the greater involvement of the state in child care is on the whole moving society in the wrong direction. As Christians, we need to have our eyes open and our hearts centred on God’s revelation that children are a blessing and that parenthood is both a gift and a responsibility.

Current Child Care Policy Furthers Secularization

Abraham Kuyper, writing the policy manual for the Anti-Revolutionary Party in the Netherlands in the late 1800s, provocatively described why public schools and, by extension, publicly funded child care, should be worrisome to Christians:

“Behind the schools question something else is at work. The real motive behind the interest in the [public] primary school is not just to educate the people, but to educate them in a specific direction. In promoting the public school, its supporters do not see that the school as an end but as a means to an end.

This is the real situation.

The men who went to work after [the French Revolution of] 1789 to remove the Christian stamp from society and change its face completely in keeping with the principles of the [French] Revolution gradually came to the realization that they could not move forward or make any progress so long as people’s hearts were not cut loose from the living God who has revealed himself in his Word, that is, in the Bible.

Now then, those hearts are chiefly shaped by the home, the church, and the school.

Accordingly, the revolutionary party successively tried, first to secularize the spirit of the home, then to make the church look irrelevant, and finally to ban the Bible from the school…

And so the public school has become a counter-church.

It is a powerful institution for the purpose of squeezing out of our children the worldview of the Bible and saturating them with the worldview of Pelagius, Rousseau, or whoever. The school where the Bible is banned has become a weapon of defense as well as of offense for the spirit that resists God’s Word against the spirit that embraces that Word.”[1]

While this purpose of public schools was apparent to Kuyper already 140 years ago, this hasn’t become quite so apparent in the realm of child care yet, though the tell-tale signs are all there. Currently, with the plan for $10-a-day child care, the provincial government is only responsible for regulating and funding child care providers, not actually providing the child care itself. Most group child care providers are private businesses that apply for a child care license and governmental funding, not unlike how other private businesses request a business license and requested financial support from the government through COVID. This current model of child care is still quite different than the current public school system which is governed by publicly elected school board trustees, is entirely funded by the provincial government, and the content of which is heavily regulated by the provincial government. Nevertheless, the public funding and regulation of group child care are one step closer to state-provided child care and the extension of what Kuyper terms the “counter-church” in British Columbia.

Even under this current arrangement, group child care will likely further the process of secularization. For the most part, religious worldviews, instructions, and activities have largely been relegated to the private realm of the family and the church in the attempt to reach religious “neutrality.” But we know that religious neutrality is a myth. Any worldview that teaches that all religions are equally true or that religious beliefs are extraneous to education is antithetical, not neutral, to the exclusive gospel of Jesus Christ.

It doesn’t have to be this way. While public schools are entirely forbidden from incorporating religion in the classroom, publicly funded and regulated child care providers are still free to do so. If the Christian community were to become fully invested in running child care programs with the express purpose of sharing the gospel with the children and families under their care, this child care system could be a method for evangelism rather than secularization. Unfortunately, even if the government halts its foray into child care by guaranteeing cost and only enforcing basic standards, most child care centres will likely choose to remain secular in perspective, thus contributing to the decline of the Christian religion in Canada.

What Can We Do?

Although the federal and provincial governments seem intent on transforming institutional child care into the “new social program of a generation,” it is always appropriate in a democracy to raise our concerns within our families, our governments, and our society. So, here’s what you can do:

• Talk about this issue with your friends and family. The Christian community has committed to the truth on the issues of abortion, euthanasia, education, homosexuality, and transgender identity, among other current issues. It’s time that we add child care and family policy to our shortlist of top challenges facing our country today.
• Send an EasyMail to your local MLA; express your concern with the government’s involvement in the parental responsibility to raise their children. Also suggest positive alternative policies, such as replacing public funding for child care with unconditional family benefits such as the BC Child Opportunity Benefit.
• Consider how to extend a Christian voice in child care; even if the government withdraws all its financial support and regulations around child care, the demand for non-parental child care will continue. Consider how you might be able to extend a form of Christian child care to your neighbours. Perhaps this could include volunteering to babysit your neighbour’s children from time to time or having your church host a Vacation Bible School this summer.
• Pray that God might reverse the decline of the family and strengthen these basic units of society. And pray that Christian families would remain strong and provide an inviting picture of God’s design that will draw others to seek Him.

[1] Abraham Kuyper. (1880). Our Program: A Christian Political Manifesto. Page 193

For immediate release from the Association for Reformed Political Action (ARPA) Canada

February 8, 2022

BC Government Reaffirms Discriminatory Child Care Policy

Earlier today in the government’s annual Speech from the Throne, the Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia reiterated the government’s plan to create new licensed child care spaces and reduce the daily cost of licensed child care, with the goal of creating a universal system of $10-a-day child care by 2026. This goal was articulated in the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care Agreement negotiated by the provincial and federal governments this past summer.

“This approach to family policy discriminates against families who choose not to use licensed child care,” says Levi Minderhoud, ARPA Canada’s British Columbia Manager. “The provincial government has its eyes narrowly focused on subsidizing and expanding licensed child care, yet child care comes in all shapes and sizes. Fundamentally, child care is the care of the child, regardless of who does it.”

Pre-pandemic, approximately 43% of children aged 0-5 in Canada were cared for by their own parents and 13% of young children were cared for by another relative. Only 41% of young children were cared for in licensed daycares, preschools, before or after school programs, and family child care homes, and the percentage of young children in licensed child care has decreased through the pandemic. Thus, the provincial government’s child care policy at best serves only 41% of children and gives no assistance to the majority of families.

“The government’s current approach to child care is less about reducing the cost or increasing the availability of child care for the good of families and more about incentivizing mothers to join the paid labour force,” says Anna Nienhuis, a policy analyst with ARPA Canada. “This approach implies that the work mothers do at home is less valuable than paid employment outside the home. It encourages mothers to view their children as an obstacle to paid employment, instead of as a blessing and responsibility in their own right.”

Although one of the government’s main objectives in subsidizing licensed child care is to make life more affordable for families, care policy should not be framed exclusively in financial terms. “The province’s current child care policy undermines the integrity of the family and the formation of the next generation,” says Minderhoud. “Universal daycare may benefit GDP figures in the short-term by attracting more mothers into the paid labour force, but it undermines the basic integrity of families. Strong, stable families provide the bedrock needed for a healthy, flourishing society in the long-term.”

“A child care policy that would financially benefit almost all families and strengthen the family unit would be increasing the BC Child Opportunity Benefit,” says Minderhoud. “This benefit is a cash transfer to families based on household income. Parents can use this money to pay for licensed daycare, pay a friend or relative to care for their young children, or enable a parent to spend more time caring for their young children themselves. The choice would be up to them. This policy is far more equitable because it helps all families directly rather than funding just some daycare spots.”

“To its credit, the provincial government enhanced child benefits by creating the new BC Child Opportunity Benefit in 2019,” confirms Nienhuis. “This policy supports choice in child care and minimizes government involvement in the decisions of families. We strongly encourage the provincial government to shift its child funding away from a universal $10-a-day, government-licensed system that benefits a minority of families and work instead to expand the existing child benefits that help all families.”

– 30 –

For further comment, Levi Minderhoud can be reached at 604-615-4453 or at [email protected].

The Association for Reformed Political Action (ARPA) Canada is a Christian political advocacy organization with a mission to equip, encourage, and engage Christians in the public square.

After each federal election, the Prime Minister’s office releases Mandate Letters for each of the cabinet ministers. These letters explain the Prime Minister’s expectations for each member of his cabinet and lay out challenges and commitments that come with their role. At the same time, these letters are made publicly available so that Canadians can understand some of the priorities that the federal government will focus on over the next few years.

The ministers’ mandate letters were released on December 16, 2021. The basic template of each letter focuses on recovery from COVID-19, climate change, the rights of Indigenous Peoples, systemic inequity of minority groups within Canada, and general expectations for ministers. Many of the objectives and commitments in the letters are similar to what the government had promised prior to the election, so there are no major surprises. However, specific commitments are worth noting as we keep an eye on how they develop over the coming years.  

Charitable Status

In line with the Liberals’ election promise regarding charitable status for certain organizations, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance has been tasked with the following: “Introduce amendments to the Income Tax Act to make anti-abortion organizations that provide dishonest counselling to pregnant women about their rights and options ineligible for charitable status.” It’s unclear how exactly the government would remove charitable status from pro-life organizations or how far that would extend. However, the possibility is very concerning, and ultimately the government needs to recognize the value and importance of organizations like pregnancy care centres.

Hate Speech

Before the summer break in 2021, the government had introduced both Bill C-10 and Bill C-36, which focused on hate speech and regulating online content. Although those bills died when the election was called, the Liberals are once again focused on regulating and limiting freedom of expression both online and in public. The Minister of Housing and Diversity and Inclusion was given the following task: “As part of a renewed Anti-Racism Strategy, lead work across government to develop a National Action Plan on Combatting Hate, including actions on combatting hate crimes in Canada, training and tools for public safety agencies, and investments to support digital literacy, to prevent radicalization to violence and to protect vulnerable communities.”

In addition, the Minister of Justice will “continue efforts with the Minister of Canadian Heritage to develop and introduce legislation as soon as possible to combat serious forms of harmful online content to protect Canadians and hold social media platforms and other online services accountable for the content they host, including by strengthening the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code to more effectively combat online hate and reintroduce measures to strengthen hate speech provisions, including the re-enactment of the former Section 13 provision.” This seems to be a replication of what was previously Bill C-36. However, there is a possibility that this legislation will include positive components around combatting online pornography as well as more negative limits on freedom of expression. ARPA Canada’s analysis of last year’s Bill C-36 can be found here.

The Minister of Canadian Heritage is expected to “reintroduce legislation to reform the Broadcasting Act to ensure foreign web giants contribute to the creation and promotion of Canadian stories and music.” The previous version of this legislation, Bill C-10, also included the possibility of regulating social certain private social media content that was determined to be a ‘broadcast.’ Further information around Bill C-10 can be found here.

We will be keeping watch to see what exactly is included in this type of legislation if and when it is introduced.

Pre-born Children

The government often speaks of ‘sexual and reproductive health’ to refer to abortion access. The recent mandates encompass that, and also specifically include issues such as in vitro fertilization and surrogacy. The Minister of Health is mandated to: “work to ensure that all Canadians have access to the sexual and reproductive health services they need, no matter where they live, by reinforcing compliance under the Canada Health Act, developing a sexual and reproductive health rights information portal, supporting the establishment of mechanisms to help families cover the costs of in vitro fertilization, and supporting youth-led grassroots organizations that respond to the unique sexual and reproductive health needs of young people.” 

The Minister of Finance and the Minister for Women and Gender Equality and Youth are tasked with “expand[ing] the Medical Expense Tax Credit to include costs reimbursed to surrogate mothers for IVF expenses.”

One issue here is the clear plan to continue pressuring the province of New Brunswick to fund abortions in private clinics, something they are the only province not to do. More on that topic can be found here.

The focus on in vitro fertilization and surrogacy raises questions and concerns about how far these procedures might become commercialized in Canada. For further information on these issues, you can read ARPA Canada’s policy reports on both in vitro fertilization and surrogacy.

Gender and Sexuality

Regarding issues of gender and sexuality, the mandate letters only speak in broad terms, especially since Bill C-4, which banned so-called ‘conversion therapy’ was passed before the mandate letters were released. There is a lot of language around efforts to promote equality and remove discrimination for minority groups both in Canada and around the world.

The Minister of Justice is told to: “Build on the passage of Bill C-4, which criminalized conversion therapy, [and] continue to ensure that Canadian justice policy protects the dignity and equality of LGBTQ2 Canadians.”

The Minister for Women and Gender Equality and Youth is directed to “launch the Federal LGBTQ2 Action Plan and provide capacity funding to Canadian LGBTQ2 service organizations” and “continue the work of the LGBTQ2 Secretariat in promoting LGBTQ2 equality at home and abroad, protecting LGBTQ2 rights and addressing discrimination against LGBTQ2 communities, building on the passage of Bill C-4, which criminalized conversion therapy.”

It is hard to say what ‘building on the passage of Bill C-4’ looks like exactly because specifics are not provided. However, Bill C-4 is concerning on multiple levels, and building on it will likely follow in a similar vein.  Further information on Bill C-4 can be found here.

Child Care

Child care continues to be an issue the federal government is pushing. The Minister of Families, Children and Social Development is tasked with concluding negotiations with provinces that have not yet signed an agreement with the federal government (Ontario and New Brunswick), and ensuring that $10-a-day child care is available throughout Canada. They also plan to “introduc[e] federal child care legislation to strengthen and protect a high-quality Canada-wide child care system.”  You can read more about a Christian perspective on universal child care here.

Drug Use

The Minister of Mental Health and Addictions is tasked with advancing “a comprehensive strategy to address problematic substance use in Canada, supporting efforts to improve public education to reduce stigma, and supporting provinces and territories and working with Indigenous communities to provide access to a full range of evidence-based treatment and harm reduction, as well as to create standards for substance use treatment programs.”

This is not a new issue but there seems to be a new emphasis on it. Bill C-5, a reiteration of Bill C-22 from the previous Parliament, seeks to move increasingly towards treating substance abuse as a health issue instead of a criminal issue.

Conclusion

The issues presented here are priorities of the federal government, and they also raise various questions and concerns about what changes to legislation and regulations on these topics will look like. Stay tuned for further resources and action items as we see how these issues develop over the next few years.

By Levi Minderhoud & Anna Nienhuis

The recent 2021 Federal Budget featured a massive commitment – $30 billion dollars over five years, not including matching investments by provinces – to subsidize child care. As ARPA Canada has not addressed child care policy in depth since our coverage of the all-day kindergarten debate over a decade ago, two staff members teamed up to provide a series of three blogs to discuss this topic.

Through this three-part child care series, we hope to present some ideas and questions that will get Christians thinking about child care within the framework of biblical norms, with an emphasis on parental responsibility and the gift of children, while also considering the realities of increasing single-parent homes, a declining workforce, and what child care really means.

The first part of the series presents a biblical perspective on child care. The second part sketches out how most Canadians and governments view child care. The third part will point out how government proposals to subsidize daycare generally run contrary to biblical principles, but that there are many actions that the civil government, churches, and parents can take to provide better care for children.

Governments Should Not Subsidize Daycare

Based on the biblical model of child care and the government’s history of involvement in family policy, we suggest that Christians should oppose public funding for daycare but can support some public funding for child care. Let us explain, starting with the four pitfalls of public funding of daycare.

(Remember, as described in the last post, we will use the term daycare to refer to the institutional or professional care of children. The broader term child care refers to the care of a child, regardless of who provides it – parents, family members, friends, nannies, early childhood educators, or daycare providers. Non-parental child care refers to the care of a child by anyone except the child’s parents.)

Reason #1: Subsidized daycare encourages parents to spend less time with their children

If parents are ultimately responsible for raising their children, particularly young children, then subsidizing daycare and even non-parental child care encourages parents to hand off responsibility for raising their children to others while they pursue economic goals or search for self-fulfilment outside of the home.

A classic principle of economics is that when you subsidize something, which is functionally the same as lowering the cost of something, people demand more of it. They demand more of it because it is cheaper for them. Some people might demand more of that thing because it is cheaper, while other people might demand that thing for the first time if it is finally within their price range. If you subsidize the purchase of electric vehicles, more people buy electric vehicles. If you subsidize post-secondary education, more people will choose to attend post-secondary institutions.

The same principle holds true for daycare. If the government subsidizes daycare, some parents who already use daycare a couple of days a week will find it convenient to use it for the entire week. Other parents, enticed by the lower cost of daycare, will start sending their children to daycare. And, obviously, the time that their children spend in daycare is time not spent with their parents.

How are we prioritizing our personal responsibility for our children’s care and spiritual growth, and how are we witnessing to the truth that they are a blessing to be cherished? It may be that our acceptance of an institutionalized education system, even if that be a Christian education system, has sapped our commitment to parents being the primary educators and caregivers to our children. Is it biblical for parents to raise their children for the first five years of life and then hand them over to professional teachers to be their primary educators for the next twelve years? Or is that a cultural tradition? If it is a cultural tradition, will it seem more and more acceptable to allow teachers or early childhood educators to start caring for our children in pre-school? What about early childhood education? Or daycare?

Reason #2: Subsidized daycare encourages parents to see children as a burden rather than a blessing

The primary argument in favour of subsidized daycare sees children as a burden rather than a blessing. Supporters of institutionalized daycare view it as a way to increase women’s participation in the labour force and the economy. Without access to daycare, women are “stuck at home” or “forced to stay home” to care for their child(ren). This is against their presumed “true desire” to rejoin the workforce, either to find fulfillment in a career or a higher material standard of living. According to this mindset, children are not a blessing, but a burden on the career advancement or financial stability of parents, particularly mothers.

Reason #3: Subsidized daycare fails to appreciate the choice of some parents to care for their own children

The subsidization of daycare underappreciates the decisions of parents to stay at home and care for their own children. Our broader culture already looks down upon this decision as a waste of time or perpetuating outdated or sexist stereotypes, but this disregard will only grow if our provincial governments use their leadership to validate only institutionalized daycare rather than parental child care. For Christian parents who choose to raise their own children, they would be required to pay taxes to support publicly funded daycare while also forgoing the income of a second parent in the workforce. In a country where the cost of living – particularly housing – is rising quickly, this extra taxation without any resulting benefit makes it more and more difficult for a parent to prioritize raising their children themselves. A Universal Child Benefit has the benefit of flexibility and fairness: any parent could choose the parenting arrangement that’s best for their family situation, perhaps investing the money in an institutional daycare, or using the funds to compensate (at least partially) for a diminished salary in order to stay home with young children or paying a close and trusted family member to help out on a flexible schedule.

Reason #4: Daycare is not in the best interest of children

In discussions around child care, many advocates speak primarily of the benefits to parents, particularly women. But what about the children? Are daycare programs, like Quebec’s, good for children?

A significant body of evidence suggests not. Cardus, in their 2019 report, A Positive Vision for Child Care Policy Across Canada, describes how Quebec’s universal, subsidized daycare led to poor outcomes for children. In this 2010 interview between Cardus’s lead child care expert Andrea Mrozek and Kevin Milligan, one of the foremost economists in Canada, both expressed their concerns about the outcome for children in Quebec’s institutional child care. A working paper published by Baker, Gruber, and Milligan finds a correlation between attendance at an institutionalized child care center and lower social and behavioural skills.

These findings should not be surprising when we look at the biblical pattern of parents having the ultimate responsibility for raising their children. God designed the structure of a family, and we know He designed it for His glory, our good, and the greater good of society.

Governments Should Enable Better Child Care

For many of the reasons outlined previously, Christians should not support a child care system that only supports or gives preference to institutionalized daycare. Nevertheless, a broader public discussion around child care is important for at least two reasons.

First, the child care provided by stay-at-home parents has been discounted for decades. In a capitalist culture driven by productivity and self-interest, where many find their identity in their work, and in a secular culture dominated by individualism and materialism, being a stay-at-home parent is often met with disdain or boredom. So, a broad child care program that celebrates parenting and enables parents to spend more time with their children by recognizing the value and necessity of child care is laudable.

Secondly, non-parental child care, whether informal or formal care, is an incredible opportunity for the church. Canadians are calling for a national child care strategy because they don’t have the social networks to help them in this task. People who are unable to stay home with their children full time want the assurance that their child has a safe and loving place to spend their days. Irrespective of what policy provincial governments enact around child care, consider looking into what it takes to become a licensed or registered child care space in your province, and consider the open mission field of child care. Many children need non-parental care, and we know that their childhood years are fundamental in shaping their character. Rather than leaving only non-Christians to care for children as early childhood educators, Christians should also pursue this career and shape the morals and worldview of the children of our secular neighbours.

In the grand scope of possible child care policies, we do not think subsidized daycare or non-parental child care should be the first policies that come to mind. Christians can support other government policies that enable more parents to care for their children for a greater length of time, policies that recognize that each child is a precious gift to parents and that parents are primarily responsible for nurturing, disciplining, and instructing their children.

Our policy preference would be to strengthen the Canada Child Benefit and/or extend parental leave benefits. These are two policies that the current Liberal government has already implemented in the past few years. These income-based policies enable and even encourage parents, particularly those parents in greatest need of support, to care for their young children themselves rather than handing children over to early childhood educators or teachers as soon as possible. If the government is unwilling to expand either of these programs and is determined to directly fund non-parental child care, we would vehemently argue for maximum choice and flexibility in the child care system targeted at those who need it the most, rather than a universal daycare program.

Just as in elder care or education, if the government is determined to involve itself in funding the provision of child care, a child care system that subsidizes a variety of parental choices would be significantly better than one that only subsidizes daycare.

All parents need help with the raising and teaching of their children, but not all parents have the incredible access we do to a community of church family, biological family, friends, and neighbours we trust to care for our children when we need them. Some families – such as single-parent families, low-income families, families with children who have exceptional needs, or families with abusive or negligent parents – would greatly benefit from affordable, non-parental child care opportunities. A universal system of subsidized daycare vastly overshoots this mark and undermines the foundations of healthy families, but a limited system that enables choice in child care for these vulnerable families could strengthen these families.

A choice in child care system could also help protect home and work (and volunteer!) boundaries. If we accept that it is the responsibility of both parents to live a full-orbed life that includes caring for children, earning a livelihood, and volunteering in their churches and communities (even if the division of these responsibilities is different for each parent), then limited non-parental child care may be necessary. Many parents who predominantly stay at home are also part of the workforce part-time, yet expecting a parent to work and care for children simultaneously is not realistic, as many parents can attest to! Parenting and paid work both require full attention – just as you don’t want your daycare provider spending the day on her computer in meetings, neither should you want a parent doing that simply so you can say she is home with her children.

Conclusion

Subsidized daycare is often presented as a pro-family policy because it reduces the expenses of many families. Although it might materially enrich families in the short term, it is more aptly characterized as a pro-female-employment strategy. Even without the presence of universally subsidized non-parental child care, our culture seems to consider that early childhood educators and teachers, rather than parents, should supervise children for most of their day, relieving parents of this duty so that they can work full-time. Extending significant funding to daycare providers will entrench this mentality in our provinces and perhaps increasingly creep into the Church. Instead, government policy ought to emphasize that the care of children is primarily the responsibility of parents, and this is a task – and calling – to be taken up with joy.

If we have concerns with subsidized daycare and a strong preference for an enhanced Canada Child Benefit, parental leave program, or choice in child care system, then Christians should reach out now to our provincial and federal representatives to make this known. We have a window to influence the shape of provincial child care systems now, but it will be much harder to change these systems once they are in place. Consider the points raised above, talk about it with your spouse or parents or children, prayerfully consider your stance on child care policy, and start a dialogue with your representatives today.

For more information about child care policy, we highly encourage you to read Cardus’s report A Positive Vision for Child Care Policy Across Canada.

Are there other creative policy options that might be on the table to enable more parents to better care for their children? Is there anything that you’d like to add to this series on child care? Let us know! We’d love to hear your thoughts!

Levi Minderhoud is the BC Manager for ARPA Canada. Anna Nienhuis is a Research and Communications assistant for ARPA Canada.

By Levi Minderhoud & Anna Nienhuis

The recent 2021 Federal Budget featured a massive commitment – $30 billion dollars over five years, not including matching investments by provinces – to subsidize child care. As ARPA Canada has not addressed child care policy in depth since our coverage of the all-day kindergarten debate over a decade ago, two staff members teamed up to provide a series of three blogs to discuss this topic.

Through this three-part child care series, we hope to present some ideas and questions that will get Christians thinking about child care within the framework of biblical norms, with an emphasis on parental responsibility and the gift of children, while also considering the realities of increasing single-parent homes, a declining workforce, and what child care really means.

The first part of the series presents a biblical perspective on child care. The second part sketches out how most Canadians and governments view child care. The third part will point out how government proposals to subsidize daycare generally run contrary to biblical principles, but that there are many actions that the civil government, churches, and parents can take to provide better care for children.

How Child Care is Understood in Canadian Policy Today

Having explored what the Bible says about children and parents’ responsibility to care for them in the first post in this series, let’s consider how most families in Canada choose to care for their children and how public policies incentivize this choice. Although many of these decisions are antithetical to a biblical perspective of how a family should operate, this background information is required for Christians to understand why the federal government (and many provincial governments) are preoccupied with the issue of subsidized child care.

When governments and advocacy groups speak of child care, they generally mean institutionalized child care, where trained professionals care for children from a wide variety of households in a child care facility. Institutionalized child care typically focuses on children aged 0-5 and often has an educational component. Early childhood learning programs reflect a growing movement for child care to not just focus on caring for or monitoring children while their parents are away, but to make an active effort to teach young children before they enter formal school. Indeed, in the 2021 Budget of British Columbia, the provincial government mentioned that their goal is for child care to be moved within the Ministry of Education instead of being its own separate ministry.

(For the remainder of this blog, for clarity we will use the term daycare to refer to the institutional or professional care of children. The broader term child care refers to the care of a child, regardless of who provides it – parents, family members, friends, nannies, early childhood educators, or daycare providers. Non-parental child care refers to the care of a child by anyone except the child’s parents.)

Any regulation or funding of non-parental child care is primarily under provincial jurisdiction, meaning that such regulations and funding vary greatly from province to province. Quebec has the most comprehensive non-parental child care program, subsidizing daycare programs so that most parents pay a low, income-based fee for non-parental child care. British Columbia, under the NDP, has also been dedicating more and more money to daycare, with the goal of making $10 per day daycare (licensed child care, in the province’s jargon) universally available alongside more informal registered licence-not-required child care, unregistered licence-not-required child care, and in-child’s-own-home child care.

In their 2021 budget, the federal government earmarked an additional $30 billion over the next five years to non-parental child care, with an annual commitment of $9.2 billion by 2026. Their goal is to cut non-parental child care costs in half by 2022 and to ensure universal $10 per day non-parental child care by 2026. As subsidizing and regulating non-parental child care falls within provincial responsibility, the federal government cannot create a non-parental child care system themselves but will have to coordinate their efforts with the provinces. This is similar to how Canada’s health care system works: the provinces are responsible for health care, but the federal government provides provincial governments with billions of dollars in funding under the condition that their health care systems meet certain national criteria.

It is worth noting that this current budget proposal for national daycare requires buy-in from the provinces. The federal government has proposed providing 50% of the costs of a provincially subsidized non-parental child care program, with the provinces required to pay the other 50%. This federal funding is not guaranteed in the long term, raising the possibility that a future federal government could pull funding from the program and leave the provinces to foot the entire bill. Some provinces have already indicated that they aren’t interested in creating or enhancing a provincial non-parental child care system, even with the federal government’s funding offer.

Although full time non-parental child care may seem like foreign territory to many Christians given the tendency for many Christian families to have one parent stay at home, formal and informal non-parental child care is a reality for the majority of Canadians. In 2019, only 17% of families had a parent who elected to stay at home full time and a further 11% were on maternity or parental leave at any given time. Approximately 60% of children aged 0-6 participated in formal or informal non-parental child care.

Non-parental child care is expensive. Excluding Quebec, the median cost of non-parental child care in 2020 ranged from $451-1,578 per month across Canadian cities. This equates to $5,400-$19,000 per year in non-parental child care expenses for the median Canadian family outside Quebec, although these fees are tax-deductible.

The 2021 Federal Budget (pages 96-105) outline why the government – and many non-parental child care advocates – are keen to establish government-funded non-parental child care spots. Their primary argument is that access to non-parental child care helps achieve gender equity for women, both by relieving mothers (who are disproportionately involved in child care) of the responsibility for caring for children, and by enabling more women to be employed, thus narrowing the labour force participation rate gap between men and women. Second, subsidized non-parental child care aims to make life more affordable for average Canadians. Third, they claim that early childhood learning programs and quality non-parental child care lead to better outcomes for children.

Although the federal program comes with a hefty price tag, the government claims that the program will pay for itself. If subsidized, non-parental child care encourages more parents – mostly mothers – to re-enter the labour force, then GDP will grow faster, and the government will collect more in taxes to make up the difference.

One of the problems in evaluating the federal government’s non-parental child care proposal is that, since it is up to provinces to create their non-parental child care system, it doesn’t provide any guidelines as to what type of non-parental child care might be funded. The government has set aside a significant amount of cash and promised to work with the provinces to make cheap non-parental child care widely available, but who will benefit? Will these funds go only to institutionalized, licensed non-parental child care spots, following Quebec’s lead? Or will it be available for more informal arrangements such as friends or family members caring for children, as is possible in British Columbia (albeit in a limited fashion)?

Lest you think that the civil government has no place collecting taxes from you to pay for other people’s child care, consider that subsidized daycare isn’t the only government program aimed at caring for young children. The Canada Child Benefit currently provides parents with up to $6,765 per year for each child under the age of 6 and $5,708 per child between the ages of 6 and 17, with these amounts progressively reduced based on family income and the number of children. These funds have no strings attached; parents can use this money to enable them to stay at home with their children, pay for non-parental child care or Christian school while a parent works, or, as one politician infamously quipped, “to buy beer and popcorn.” This policy maximizes parental choice at the expense of every other taxpayer.

Existing maternity and parental leave benefits also enable working parents to remain at home for 55 weeks (at 55% of their typical wage, up to the maximum insurable earnings of $53,300) or 84 weeks (at 33% of their typical wage, up to the maximum insurable earnings of $53,300) during the pregnancy and/or after the birth of a child. These benefits encourage working parents to care for their infant children for the first year to year and a half of life.

In summary, although there is a strong biblical case that young children should be primarily cared for by their parents, this is not the norm in Canada. Because of this lack of understanding about who is primarily responsible for nurturing, instructing, and discipling children, the relatively high cost of non-parental child care, and the growing desire of women to be a part of the workforce, the federal government has proposed to massively subsidize non-parental child care across the country.

How should Christians react to this specific policy? Check back tomorrow for the third post in this series. In the meantime, did we miss any details in the child care policy landscape in Canada? Let us know!

Levi Minderhoud is the BC Manager for ARPA Canada. Anna Nienhuis is a Research and Communications assistant for ARPA Canada.

By Levi Minderhoud & Anna Nienhuis

The recent 2021 Federal Budget featured a massive commitment – $30 billion dollars over five years, not including matching investments by provinces – to subsidize child care. As ARPA Canada has not addressed child care policy in depth since our coverage of the all-day kindergarten debate over a decade ago, two staff members teamed up to provide a series of three blogs to discuss this topic.

Through this three-part child care series, we hope to present some ideas and questions that will get Christians thinking about child care within the framework of biblical norms, with an emphasis on parental responsibility and the gift of children, while also considering the realities of increasing single-parent homes, a declining workforce, and what child care really means.

This first part of the series presents a biblical perspective on child care. The second part sketches out how most Canadians and governments view child care. The third part will point out how government proposals to subsidize daycare generally run contrary to biblical principles, but that there are many actions that the civil government, churches, and parents can take to provide better care for children.

A Biblical Perspective on Parental Responsibility and the Children God Entrusts to Our Care

As Reformed Christians, we believe that the Bible teaches that parents have the primary responsibility for the care of the children that God has entrusted to them. This parental task includes first and foremost a responsibility for teaching one’s children about the Triune God, discipling them as servants of King Jesus, and helping them find their place in His kingdom. We articulate this in The Moral Case For Educational Diversity: Parental Responsibility In Education section in our Educational Diversity policy report (lightly edited to fit into the child care context):

“The responsibility and the right of parents to raise their children springs from the natural, unique relationship between parents and their children. Over the first few months and years of their lives, most children are raised almost exclusively by their parents. Over time, parents may gradually delegate some of their responsibility to professional caregivers and teachers. However, their right and responsibility are never forfeited but only delegated, as Canada’s Supreme Court affirms. Ultimately, parental responsibilities towards their children are non-transferable. Just as citizens have a personal responsibility to engage in the democratic process – no other person can vote on their behalf – so too parents have a personal responsibility to choose and direct how to best care for their children.

“The primary responsibility of parents for their children’s care, nurture, discipline and instruction is a Christian principle, and many other religious and non-religious people hold the same view. Throughout the Bible, God commands parents to teach their children the law of God, their shared history, and their religious practices. The wisdom of the Book of Proverbs is imparted as from parents to children: ‘Hear, my son, your father’s instruction, and forsake not your mother’s teaching.’”

Scripture suggests that parents personally have a duty to care for their children. This is especially true in the infant and toddler years, when children are most vulnerable and most in need of the sustenance and comfort a mother provides. It is also vitally important that both parents be intentional and present for significant periods of time each day for the moral formation of their children as they age.

Deuteronomy 6:7 also says that the people of God “shall teach [God’s laws] diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.” All of these teaching opportunities require presence, intention, and togetherness, supporting the idea of parents as present in the education of their children.

Although the Bible teaches that parents bear the primary responsibility to raise their children, it does not indicate that parents are required to do it alone. All parents need assistance in this task. In fact, in the Reformed tradition, we make commitments at the baptism of our children to “instruct them in these things or have them instructed in them [i.e. by others]” (Form for the Baptism of Infants, Book of Praise p. 598). We acknowledge, basically from day one, that there may be others involved in the raising and teaching of our children.

Although parents have a God-given responsibility to care for their children, this is not their exclusive calling. God calls able-bodied adults to work to earn a livelihood. God created men and women to work in the Garden of Eden. After the Fall, God cursed the ground (humanity’s source of livelihood) because of man’s sin, and He made the process of childbirth (humanity’s source of continued life) painful as a penalty for woman’s sin. These two curses, as well as the duties of men and women outlined through Paul’s letters, emphasize the man’s (non-exclusive) responsibility to earn a livelihood and the women’s (non-exclusive) responsibility to raise children, both of which will be challenging in a broken world. There is, of course, overlap in these roles: both men and women are designed for God-glorifying partnership in all things, so fathers are also supposed to be involved in the care of their children (e.g. Proverbs 3:12, Ephesians 6:4), and women can also earn money outside the home (Proverbs 31, Acts 16:14).

As Nancy Pearcey explains in her book Total Truth, this partnership of husband and wife in both economic activity and in child-rearing would be much more obvious in the Christian home before the Industrial Revolution. It is important to not allow our cultural moment to distort what Scripture teaches about the partnership of fathers and mothers in raising their children.

In addition to parental responsibility, Scripture is replete with references that describe children as a blessing. Psalm 127:3-5 is perhaps the most well-known passage: “Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.” Jesus Himself made time for the children during his brief stay on earth, naming them as heirs of God’s grace when he said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 19:14).

Children, particularly the children entrusted to us by God, should never be seen or treated as a distraction from career goals or bucket lists, nor as objects or pets to be acquired but not nurtured in a holistic way – spiritually, emotionally, physically. The truth that children are exclusively spoken of as a blessing in Scripture should inform all our discussions on parenting and child care.

Check back tomorrow for the second post in this series. In the meantime, are there other biblical principles or passages that should shape our understanding of child care that we missed? Let us know!

Levi Minderhoud is the BC Manager for ARPA Canada. Anna Nienhuis is a Research and Communications assistant for ARPA Canada.

Kids these days! God has a heart for children and always encourages His people to look out for them. So, let’s talk about the first wedding, Oreo cookies, compasses, children, and God’s design for the family.