The budget was released yesterday, and lo, the commitment to child care was huge – $30 billion over five years in order to build a national system of $10/day early learning and child care, which is huge money – money that will make it very, very hard for provinces to refuse. It’s not going to be immediate, but a process to build to that system, which they have already put work into over the past five years, but it’s a much more robust commitment than we have seen in the past. It means more negotiations with provinces, however, as well as an asymmetrical agreement with Quebec so that they can still get funding to augment their existing subsidised child care system.

While there is a good overview here, other items in the budget include:

• Some $17.6 billion in new spending for GHG reductions.
• New taxes on foreign investors in housing, with more commitments to the national housing strategy.
• $18 billion over five years has been earmarked for Indigenous communities to close the socio-economic gaps.
• There is a commitment for $400 million to combat sexual misconduct in the military, plus funds to revitalise NORAD and to cover our NATO operations
• They plan to make it easier and cheaper to obtain a criminal pardon.
• There will be new taxes on big global tech companies.
• Here are twenty new or expanded benefits and taxes.
• There is the usual pearl-clutching that the budget predicts some $686 billion in accumulated deficits over the next five years.
• Here are ten smaller items in the budget that are of interest.

Something that did come up over the talking heads discussing the budget was pharmacare, and how there wasn’t a big song and dance about it, as that was largely reserved for childcare. I did read the section on pharacare in the document, and it notes continued investment in things like the catastrophic drug plan to help those who need it most, but we have to remember that they have been trying to negotiate this with the provinces, and the provinces have said no. There’s only so much the federal government can push them on this, so it may require waiting until a few provincial governments change hands before more progress can be made. That’s the thing about these kinds of programmes in provincial jurisdiction – you need to have willing partners at the table, or it can’t go anywhere.

Meanwhile, Heather Scoffield grouses that there is too much conventional thinking in the budget to deal with the problems exacerbated by the pandemic. Susan Delacourt looks to all of the promises that rely on federal-provincial negotiations to make them happen. Paul Wells offers a fairly sober assessment of what’s in the budget, and whether the enthusiasm for this child care spending will last the next couple of years.

Good reads:

• Here is a look at the changing guidance on AstraZeneca, reducing the eligibility age to 40 in some provinces, and how to access it in those provinces.
• The BC Basic Income Panel explains why CERB was not actually a good test of Basic Income, and why it’s way more complicated than it sounds.
• John McGrath notes that the backbenchers in Queen’s Park have a limited opportunity to hold Doug Ford’s feet to the fire – if their grievances were coherent.
• Matt Gurney savages the flailing incoherence and panic of the Ford government.
• Colby Cosh suggests people should be a little bit selfish if they can get the AstraZeneca vaccine, rather than inventing reasons to wait.
• My first column back at Xtra looks at how the Conservatives turned to concern trolling to oppose the conversion therapy ban without looking like they opposed it.

Odds and ends:

My latest Loonie Politics video looks at how the federal government might finally push the provinces on childcare.

My book #UnbrokenMachine is currently 25% off at the @dundurnpress site, as is the book I contributed to, #RoyalProgress. If you haven’t checked them out yet, this is your opportunity. https://t.co/knf87Htrad

— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) April 5, 2021

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