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The Ottawa Citizen - June 13, 2002
Stay-at-home parents pay a heavy price
Suffer the Children: Excerpts from Canadian Attitudes on the Family, a report prepared by The Strategic Counsel for Focus on the Family Canada.

Many Canadian parents feel trapped by economic pressures and are not able to make the sort of choices they would like for their families. Sometimes, of course, this is unavoidable. Economic reality has a way of interfering with our dreams, and everyone has to live within their means. In this case, however, the Canadian tax system is clearly stacked against the interests of Canadian families, and especially families that choose to have one parent stay home to look after their children. The result is that in order to make ends meet, many families have two parents pushed out into the workforce, even when their children are young.

Canadians have told us clearly that they think the tax system is unfair to such families and that it should be changed. We suggest that a family-friendly tax policy would not provide new programs, but would instead step back and attempt to treat all family choices equally.

Many of the same tax changes would provide greater economic flexibility for parents who might desire more children but don't feel they can afford them under the current system. And encouraging families to have more children is definitely, given the demographic imbalance in Canada, a positive social policy.

If this is so, should the government not actively encourage more children by creating some sort of incentive program? Focus on the Family disagrees with this approach. We certainly believe that incentives matter, and that incentives work. In 1988, the Quebec government introduced the Allowance for Newborn Children, a program which paid families a cash award for having children. By 1992, any third or subsequent child born to a family was worth $8,000 (paid over five years). The program was terminated in 1997, but not because it failed. According to University of British Columbia assistant professor of economics Kevin Milligan, the program was responsible for a 14.5% increase in births over its eight years.

Despite this, we do not think government should attempt to influence people's decisions in this way. If government policy choices have, to date, pushed people one way, then the answer is not for the government to start pushing in the opposite direction, but to stop pushing and instead let Canadians make their own choices with as level a playing field between these choices as possible. We encourage policymakers to trust Canadians to make decisions which are in their own interests and in the interests of society.

Canadians value their family relationships and believe this is a very important aspect of their lives. Yet they also believe that family issues do not get the attention they deserve. Seventy-eight per cent agree that "the importance of family life is undervalued in Canadian society." And Canadians want their governments to pay more attention to family issues, with more than 80% agreeing that "encouraging strong families should be a top priority of governments in Canada."

Governments clearly recognize that people are inspired and motivated by goals; and are continuously identifying benchmarks for all kinds of economic and social initiatives. And yet governments, though the evidence of their social value is overwhelming, have been reluctant to set goals for strong marriages and stable families. This is an area where governments can and should provide more leadership.

Whether through design or ignorance, laws that deal with very specific problems or issues sometimes have detrimental impacts on the family. Every policy proposal should therefore take into consideration how it might affect families. By making family issues a central concern in the development of new policies, policymakers would be forced to consider beforehand any detrimental effects their policies might have. To that end, we encourage governments to introduce a "family policy filter" and review the impact new legislation or policies might have on Canadian families.

The complete report is available at www.familyfacts.ca/attitudes .