Missing the boat.

Yesterday Ed Stelmach announced that his government was going to create some daycare spaces primarily through a $53.25 a month tax break to parents, ironically close to the same amount that parents who get the daycare money that Harper promised, after taxes. Unfortunately for Ed, we can already see that what he's doing is doomed to failure.

Of course there are many reasons that just giving parents an extra fifty bucks a month just isn't going to create more spaces. First, the for profit providers, knowing that parents now have an extra $50 a month to spend on day care will simply raise their rates to reflect this as to add to their profit margins. That is, after all, the purpose of any for-profit organization. Even not-for profit daycares will raise their rates so that they can pay their existing staff better in order to retain that staff. This is one reason Harper's plan failed miserably, and it is a reason that Stelmach's plan will also fail.

Staffing is also another issue unto itself. Even if daycare plowed every dime of the extra$50 into hiring extra staff and not plowing it into either profits or an attempt to retain their current staff, there's no one out there to hire. The Stelmach Tories have suggested that they'll allow foreign workers in to fill the gap, but even if they do that, it would take months/years to train them properly so any benefit would be well into the future. That's assuming you agree with the ethics of hiring foreign workers, given that so far many of those hired by the oil industry have not been treated much better than indentured serfs.

So it would appear that the Tory daycare "plan" is a non starter with the voter, partly for the reasons above. It's been reported that even the parents who's children attend the Red Deer daycare where Stelmach made his announcement didn't like the plan. You'd think the Tory party machine would have at least engineered some supporters to rah-rah the plan when asked by reporters. The fact that the media, which is usually quite sympathetic to the Tories in this province, have panned the plan is also not a good sign for the good ship Stelmach as it lurches from poorly planned announcement to poorly planned announcement. With long time Reformers/Tories starting to endorse candidates of other parties it's going to be a long election for Stelmach.