It takes a village

In a plan reminiscent of the old baby bonus scheme, Harper is proposing a $1,200 payment to families for every child they have under the age of six, regardless of what form of child care they use.

Once again, good politics, but bad policy. Why should someone who chooses not to have kids be forced to subsidize those who do, through redistribution of income, even more? There is already the child tax benefit and a couple of other programs for families. No doubt families are important, but I think that both this scheme and the Liberal one - to spend $5 billion on day care - is more about votes than sound public policy.

Politically speaking, Harper didn't really have a choice but to introduce some kind of subsidy for parents because the Liberals had already dangled their carrot in front of Canadians long ago. That being said, I prefer the Harper plan to the Martin one because it allows people to do what they want.