Battleground family: Conservatives, NDP take aim

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This article was published 02/09/2011 (5393 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

MANITOBA’S Progressive Conservatives are targeting families with school-age kids for support as they seek to defeat the NDP on Oct. 4.

On Thursday, at a southeast Winnipeg home, PC Leader Hugh McFadyen said, if elected, his government would extend Ottawa’s universal child-care benefit to kids from ages six to 12.

The Tories say there are about 90,000 kids in that age group in Manitoba. At $100 a child per month, the promise would cost the province about $9 million a month or $108 million a year, less whatever amount was taxed back.

“Basically, what it’s designed to do is provide supports to families as you’re raising your kids,” McFadyen said Thursday.

The announcement took place in the living room of Mike and Allison Howell in the constituency of Southdale, one of several suburban Winnipeg seats the PCs are trying to steal from the NDP.

The Howells have three children under the age of six. They now qualify for $300 a month under the federally run universal child care benefit. Oldest son Logan will turn six in October, meaning the family would no longer be able to collect the benefit for him.

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But the provincial Tories aim to change that. They would continue the payments to families until their kids turned 12. At the same time, they vowed to maintain the province’s current growth projections for daycare spaces through to 2013.

Allison Howell said the federal program allows her to stay in the home. If the province continues the program, the family will have more money to spend on kids’ activities and other things. “Every little bit helps,” she said.

The NDP, though, accused McFadyen of having “lost touch with parents across Manitoba.” Families want access to quality, affordable care for their kids, and McFadyen is failing to promise any new child-care spaces beyond what’s already in the works, the party said.

The NDP said it will announce its plans for more child-care spaces during the campaign. The promise will include infant, preschool and school-age child-care options, the party said.

larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca