Child Care in Canada: Political Theories and Public Policies

When creating family policy, liberal states confront three principal options: the promotion of choice, the support of a particular family type, or the use of family policy to pursue social goals. Using the example of child care and related policies in Canada, this thesis explores four models that may inform policy making. The first is the "choice" model, which demands that the structure and policies of the state be neutral among different ways of living, either in their justifications or in their consequences, because no one way of living is intrinsically superior. Perfectionism, which is the second possibility, argues that some ways of living (and some family types) are "better"(more stable healthier, more reflective of the human good) than others, and that the state should not remain neutral in the face of better and worse options. Perfectionists argue that policy should support healthy family forms (like monogamous marriage or the nuclear family) over neutrality. The third model, egalitarianism, sees the gendered family as the primary impediment to overall societal equality, and argues the state should work to eliminate the fourth model, which is the traditional family. After analyzing the underlying justifications, assumptions, and weaknesses of these models, I turn to the Canadian state to examine which of these models has been promoted in the child care policy arena, and what support for each of the models would look like. I find that, although neutrality is the increasingly the preferred justification for child care and related policies, the promotion of "choice" is often used to support traditional arrangements. It is argued that, because neutrality can only be approximated, it is important to understand the effect that different policy levers can have on family structure.