Daycare subsidy is now a user fee?
Letter to the Editor of the Montreal Gazette. It appeared in the 2003-12-21 edition under the heading “Not a user fee”.
Shame on you, Gazette! Your editorial “We didn’t vote for this” (14 Dec 2003) refers to user-fee increases as tax increases by another name, and rightly so. But to call the reduced rate some parents pay for day care a “user fee” is abusive of the term. The entire arrangement is nothing more than a subsidy to benefit a particular group. If the previous PQ regime had been less interested in buying votes and more concerned with governing responsibly, it might have opted instead for increasing the tax credit for child care.
By reducing this subsidy, the Charest government is acting in accord with its campaign promise to cut expenditures. If only they would do the same with their promises regarding municipal demergers…