Alberta Premier Throws Verbal Haymakers At PM, At Affordable Child Care Signing

Albertans will soon benefit from the national childcare agreement

Every child deserves the best possible start in life, and all parents should have the ability to build both a family and a career. The pandemic revealed the economic issue with Early learning and childcare. Due to the closure of schools and daycares, parents had to stay home, resulting in an all-time low in women in the workforce. 

In the 2021 budget, the government of Canada allocated up to $30 billion over the next five years to build an affordable, high-quality childcare system across Canada, with $9.2 billion every year after. Leading up to the election, most of Canada’s provinces and territories signed on to the plan for affordable childcare, with a few notable holdouts like Saskatchewan and Alberta. 

Yesterday, Kenney’s Conservative Government finally decided to sign on to the federal government’s affordable childcare agreement due to pressure from Albertans. Kenney has been the most adversarial of the Conservative Premiers towards the federal government and Prime Minister Trudeau.

Kenney has been under tremendous scrutiny for his government’s mishandling of the COVID-19, followed by a lawsuit filed by a former staffer for alleged sexual harassment, and most recently, the education departments asserting the positives of Nazi economics.

Kenney badly needed a win, but instead of highlighting how a national child care program would help Albertans, he spent a lot of his press conference throwing verbal haymakers at Prime Minister Trudeau. 

Kenney insinuated that Quebec got preferential treatment and received a better child care arrangement with the federal government. A good portion of the money promised by the federal government would not necessarily go towards a $10 a day child care program. 

Prime Minister Trudeau was quick to correct Kenney, indicating Quebec has for years had a $10 a day child care program and had Alberta had a similar system in place, they would have also received the same arrangement. 

“This just in: We’re going to make $10-a-day child care a reality for Albertan families. And to make sure parents can access this care, and kids can get the best possible start in life, we’re going to create more spaces.” Said Prime Minister Trudeau

Alberta joins Saskatchewan, British Colombia, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador, Yukon, and Quebec to sign the national child care agreement.

Image source Trudeau Twitter feed