by Emily Davies,              Features Editor The  Journal, Queens University

Within the larger context of public policy, social policy is motivated by what is considered basic human needs. By prioritizing certain needs through legislation, it informs what society’s values. Beginning in the 1960s during what historians have since termed the “Liberal Era” (post-Diefenbaker and pre-Mulroney in Canadian political history) the federal government has invested in social programs that provide for or subsidize the cost of satisfying these basic needs, and extend access to these services—regardless of socio-economic status. Legislative landmarks such as the Canadian Assistance Plan, Canadian Pension Plan, and the Canadian Medical Care Act (all passed in 1966) contributed to the emergence of Canada as a welfare state. While services such as health insurance and old-age pensions have been recognized by the Canadian government as deserving of federal attention and financial assistance, others remain absent from the national agenda. The care and education of young children remains, for the most part, the sole responsibility of parents, who must reconcile the tension between working and raising a child. As part of the ongoing tradition of the welfare state, it is necessary that the federal government recognize this problem and implement a solution modeled on reforms that have benefited Canadians in the past.

Another historically important development was the 1967 implementation of a federal-provincial post-secondary education transfer program, which involved the combination of tax points and cash, with the federal contribution equal to 50% of total provincial post-secondary education operating costs. This legislation was a means of addressing the educational needs of the maturing baby boom. The Canadian Health and Social Transfer, which in 2004 would become the Canadian Social Transfer (CST), the current federal government transfer payment program in support of post-secondary education, social assistance and social services, was initiated in 1995. Under the CST’s auspices fall the categories of “early childhood development” and “early learning and child care.” According to the Childcare Resource and Research Unit’s (CRRU) eighth bi-annual report released on September 15, 2009, the federal government’s total transfer funds designated for regulated childcare had decreased to $600 million in 2009, compared to $950 million in 2006-07. This occurred while, according to the report, 77 per cent of working mothers had children aged three to five. In addition, there were only enough regulated childcare spaces for 20 per cent of children up to five years.

In 1997, government subsidized childcare was implemented in the province of Quebec, where families only paid a cost of $5 per day, per child. Over a decade later, parents now pay a total cost of $7 per day for children under the age of 12. Money saved by parents on childcare can be invested in adequate nutrition, education, clothing and furthering general quality of life instead. This system also reduces the number of young “latchkey” children who arrive home from school to an empty household or are taken care of by their older pre-adolescent siblings. Outside of the Quebec system, 27 municipalities in Ontario, three in Alberta and four in Saskatchewan operate public child-care programs, offering low-cost, or free day-care for those who require it.

In his report “Our Best Future: Early Learning in Ontario,” which was released in June of 2009, the province’s special advisor on early learning, Dr. Charles E. Pascal, recommended that the Ontario government implement community-based extended day and year-round programs at schools for children aged 6-12 when they are requested by 15 or more families. His report also recommends that many provincially run “Early Years Centres” be consolidated into municipally run “Best Start” child and family centres, either administered by or partnered with schools, in order to provide “subsidized flexible full-day, full-year, and part-time child care for children up to age four”. While neither of these recommendations have been met by a financial commitment, the Ontario government did respond to Pascal’s finding that full-day kindergarten programs create more successful students. Premier Dalton McGuinty announced that his province would be spending $500 million over two years on kindergarten extension, starting in 2010.

This decision on the part of the Ontario government may signal that the political leaders of Canada’s most populous province now regard early childhood development to be of increasing importance. It’s time that the federal government show the same concern as its provinces and implement a national program designed to provide the necessary funding, perhaps along similar lines as post-secondary education, for a new generation of Canadians to receive the best quality of education possible, at every age. If the federal government makes post-secondary education a national priority, then early childhood education must also have a place in Canada’s welfare state.

No institution is more crucial to the development of a healthy civil society than the modern university. We, the brightest minds of our generation, have been assembled together at the most formative years of our lives (save infancy) so that we may absorb as many new thoughts, concepts, and ideas as possible.  Following this, we are to return to the world at large, where we will begin to articulate these abstract notions into concrete change, or so the theory holds. Within the confines of the West, no institutionalized experience will hold a greater sway over our perception of the world, and in particular, our perception of politics.  As such, it is crucial that our university facilitate a political forum capable of dialogue that is as introspective as it is far reaching.

Here at the University of Toronto, we pride ourselves on the vast scale with which we treat political life.  From the Munk Debates to the International Relations Society, from OXFAM to our two UN organizations, UofT is a truly international campus, and we as students strive to attain a global focus in our studies.  While this is undoubtably a rewarding attitude to take, we must avoid neglecting the more immediate aspects of political life in Canada.  Consider UofT’s current selection of Canadian, on-campus political clubs.  Although all of Canada’s major political parties have representative organizations on campus, these clubs fail to foster the same atmosphere of ideological exchange and debate found in the more internationally oriented campus societies; they function only within their party’s ideological constraints.  This disparity is an unfortunate sign for our school’s civil society.

That a gap between the local and the international exists at all is particularly surprising when one considers how well suited the University of Toronto is to more immediate political engagement.  The Legislative Assembly of Ontario is, after all, quite literally on campus (Queen’s Park, the home of the Legislature, has been leased from the University of Toronto to the Ontario government for the last 150 years, with a scant 849 remaining on the contract).  One would expect, given the legislature’s singular proximity to the campus, a thorough appreciation of provincial politics from our alma matter.  Instead, however, POL 336H, UofT’s sole Ontario politics class, has not been taught once within recent memory, nor will it be taught this year, at a time when Ontario’s identity within Canada, and indeed within North America, is undergoing a period of unprecedented change.  An understanding of Ontario’s future is crucial to predicting the course of Canada, and if our university wishes to maintain its national, as well as international, significance, it should ensure that her graduates are prepared for life in a changing country.

Of course, as anyone who attends York University could tell you, UofT students have far more immediate reasons to take an interest Ontario politics.  The recent strike at York, the longest ever at a Canadian English-speaking university, was sparked by the expiration of the agreement between York’s administration and teaching union.  Likewise, the contract between our own university’s administration and UofT’s CUPE Local 3902 expires on August 31, and while negotiations continue between the two parties, a strike remains a possibility.  Should a strike emerge along the lines of the recent York incident, jurisdiction to end the strike will fall to the Ontario government.

As most know, the York strike ended on January 29, when Premier Dalton McGuinty briefly called the house out of its winter recess and enacted back to work legislation.  Whether you agree the NDP, who feel that the legislature acted too soon, or the Conservatives, who feel that the Legislature should have ended the strike months earlier, or the Liberals, who feel the legislation was enacted when the time was right, no sooner and no later, the decision was a significant one, and it has the potential to effect each and every student at the University of Toronto.

Whether or not a strike occurs in the near future, the Province of Ontario will continue to hold imperium over the university and her students.  The University of Toronto Model Parliament, burgeoning organization that it is, offers an excellent way to introduce oneself to this political arena, as well as providing a introspective forum to exchange and articulate thoughts and concerns regarding current affairs in this corner of the world.  Of course, campus organizations aside, I would once again like to stress to all of my fellow students, the Legislature is literally on campus.  Just walk through the front doors and watch the debates; stay for ten minutes or a whole day, but go.  If we, as a student body, choose to pursue an active interest in the politics of our province, we will have a greater say over not just the future of our school, but the future of our society, as well.