Canada tied for last on child supports

TORONTO—Canada fails to meet nine of out 10 proposed standards aimed at ensuring children get the best start in life through education and support programs, tying for last place among affluent countries, an analysis released yesterday by UNICEF concludes.
The UNICEF benchmarks are crucial for children in their formative years, the United Nations organization said.

“We over-invest in remedial action down the line when kids reach their teen years and under-invest in the early years when their behaviour, their comportment, their learning can really be set for the rest of their lives,” said Nigel Fisher, head of UNICEF Canada.
The benchmarks, which UNICEF calls practical and reachable, include providing a year of parental leave at 50 percent or more of salary and spending one percent of gross domestic product on childhood services.
Sweden was the only country to meet all 10 standards while Iceland met nine among the 24 members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Slovenia, which scored six out of 10, was the only non-OECD country assessed.
At the bottom, Canada and Ireland were found to reach only one benchmark: half of staff in accredited early education services have proper post-secondary qualifications.
The United States met three.
Martha Friendly, director of the Toronto-based Childcare Resource and Research Unit, said Canada’s poor showing came as no surprise.
“The child-care transition . . . is being facilitated by public policies in most countries,” Friendly noted. “In Canada, this has been left to be a private family responsibility.
“We have very weak public policy, and that would be at the national level and at the level of most of the provinces,” she charged.
Friendly said the federal government needs to send an “emergency signal” showing it considers the issue important by making commitments in its budget next month.
The UNICEF report argued many OECD countries need to almost double current levels of expenditure on early childhood services to meet minimum acceptable standards.
Canada, for example, spends roughly 0.2 percent of its GDP on child supports, Fisher said.
The report noted most children in the developed world are spending their earliest years in some form of care outside the home.
The report can be found at www.unicef.ca