Environics Poll on Child Care Biased

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REAL Women of Canada


“Women’s Rights Not at the Expense of Human Rights”





NGO in SPECIAL consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations





Media Release

Ottawa, Ontario June 21, 2006



Environics Poll on Child Care Biased


Environics has published the most hilarious poll we’ve seen on any issue. The questions asked are biased and directed to responses most favorable to institutional child care as proposed by the previous Liberal government. One can’t help but marvel at the effrontery of Environics in manufacturing a poll with such an obvious political purpose.



The Environics poll was commissioned by the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada, which received $1,362,209 in government grants from 1992 to 2002 and an additional $483,753 from Status of Women from 2004 to 2005. They can afford to manufacture polls.



The fact that parents have already spoken quite clearly on the issue of child care – not by incredibly slanted polls but by the kind of child care they have selected. Statistics Canada reported in February 2005 that only 13.1% of children are actually in child care compared to 47.5% of young children who stay home with their parents while one or both of them work or study. The remaining 40% are looked after by relatives, friends or in other private arrangements. A growing number of parents are opting for care by a family member. Between 1995 and 2001, the proportion of children cared for by a relative rose from 22% to 32%.



The Environics poll was commissioned by the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada, which received $1,362,209 in government grants from 1992 to 2002 and an additional $483,753 from Status of Women from 2004 to 2005. They can afford to manufacture polls.



What the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada neglected to mention was that in 1986 The Report of the Task Force on Child Care, a universal institutional day care would cost $11.32 billion annually. A leaked Federal discussion paper from Department of Health published in 1999 estimated the cost would be $12 to $15 billion dollars a year.



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