Renfrew Nipissing Pembroke NDP
Letter to Editor, May 1
On April 11th, in the House of Commons, our MP, Cheryl Gallant, launched an attack on mothers who use or seek day-care for their children. Calling such day-care 'Soviet' and 'anti-family', she implied that working women who need day-care in order to be able to provide for their families are in some way inferior parents.
It is typical of this MP that she continues to use childish smear tactics against those whose views she opposes. However, now she is attempting to insult those women who find it necessary to work. As usual, her idea of a perfect society is a Stepford-wife community in which mothers are forbidden from working, but must become stay-at-home housewives, even if it means falling to poverty-level family incomes.
For the reason that over half the mothers of young and school-age children work outside the home is to make ends meet - to earn the money needed by their families. If all women stayed at home with their children as Gallant urges, then the poverty rate in this country would triple, and the welfare rolls would swell to immense proportions.
In addition, our economy would be dealt a crippling blow, since women make up nearly half the Canadian labour force. In the past few decades, two out of every three new jobs created have been filled by women. To give just one example, in the health care sector, 70% of the personnel are women with children. In addition, over half the young people in post-secondary education and training are female. These young women will fill essential, highly-skilled positions in the modern labour force, thus building our economy.
Because the economy needs workers, and because families need decent incomes, we need to help working families find affordable, safe day care. Gallant's comments are thus not only insulting to working women, but make no economic sense.
In reply, Gallant contends that the Conservative child tax rebate will give women options. This is ridiculous. The $25 a week offered by the Conservatives won't come near enabling working mothers to purchase decent child-care. Nor will it create any more child care spaces.
Moreover, for most Canadians, the net result will be a lot less. Many lower-income families will simply see this benefit clawed back by the government. Conservatives want to strip low income families of their Child Tax benefit. As a result, families with two working parents who earn about $30,000 a year will see the so-called $1200 Conservative payment shrink to less than $200. The group that will make the most from the Conservative plan are single earner families with incomes in excess of $200,000 a year. In short, as usual, the Conservative plan favours the wealthy over working people.
The Conservative attempts to destroy day care and cheat lower and middle income families are awful enough without the abuse thrown at working women by Ms. Gallant. To term day-care 'anti-family' is to slander every mother who uses day-care. To suggest such a program is communist shows how far out of touch with the real needs of today's families Gallant truly is.
I call on Ms. Gallant to apologize to the working mothers of Renfrew County, and to assure them that whatever tax give-away to the rich the Conservatives plan, they will not eliminate assistance to build more day-care capacity, which now already falls so short of demand.