The first issue with the UCCB is that it is grossly insufficient. The cost for full-time daycare for a single child in Canada is approximately $900 per month; the UCCB covers nowhere close to that amount, even with the increase. As a Toronto mom told CBC this past July, “It’s nice to have a little bit of extra money in the middle of the summer, but if it’s supposed to offset our daycare costs, it doesn’t go very far.” The newly increased benefit, ridiculously described by Minister of Employment and Social Development Pierre Poilievre as “Christmas in July for moms and dads,” fails to offer any substantial improvement to the situation, especially since the benefit is taxable. For example, an Ontario parent earning $50,000 would only retain an additional $13 per month per child. Moreover, the fact that the benefit is taxable gives an advantage to people in provinces with lower tax rates, like Alberta; meanwhile, the majority of Canadians will keep even less of the benefit than a parent in Ontario would. This makes the new benefit, in essence, nothing more than an electoral ploy. “It’s a loan from your very nice Canadian government for nine months, and you’re going to have to pay back at least half of that loan in April,” according to Montreal accountant Mitch Kujavsky.

There’s a fire in the kitchen, but the Conservative government is using the fire extinguisher in the living room.

More importantly, though, the benefit distracts from the general inaccessibility of childcare in Canada. “Realistically, I think it would make more sense to put [the money] into more childcare spaces, because that’s probably our biggest stress as parents,” Carla Thompson, a Winnipeg mother of two, told CBC in July. According to a Moving Child Care Forward project report for 2012, there are full-time or part-time spaces for only 22.5 per cent of Canadian children aged five and younger in childcare centres, leading to “a very sizeable gap between need and provision.” Further, the UCCB is accessible to all parents regardless of household income, meaning that people who have no problem whatsoever covering the cost of childcare will be given the same cheque as families struggling to pay the bills (granted those with higher incomes would keep less after taxes). Expanding access to childcare spaces for people who most need them should be an absolute priority for the government.

In terms of support for working parents, the creation of accessible and heavily subsidized childcare would also be much more effective than cash payments. A study by Wilfrid Laurier University examined whether the introduction of the UCCB in 2006 helped mothers – the parent who is most likely to look after kids – return to work. It found no effect for mothers who had never been married. Married mothers, however, were actually 1.4 per cent less likely to work, and worked almost one hour per week less than they did prior to the UCCB. By actually incentivizing the caregiving parent to stay home, the UCCB favours a patriarchal conception of childcare, whereby mothers stay in the home to look after their children. Instead, an effective childcare initiative should support childcare as a collective good, and make it a freely accessible public service.

Beyond the fact that this Bill is temporarily giving parents money that the government will take back through taxes in a few months time, it will never amount to the same impact as improving general childcare accessibility in Canada. There’s a fire in the kitchen, but the Conservative government is using the fire extinguisher in the living room. The Canadian government now spends roughly $7.7 billion on ineffective child care policies like the UCCB. If re-focusing these funds to make actual childcare programs more available was made a priority, great strides could be made in the improvement of Canadian childcare. It’s time for the Conservatives (or whatever government we find ourselves with after October 19) to cut the Christmas euphemisms and put forth a bill that can actually improve the lives of the millions of parents and children across the nation who are, as of now, being let down.

Erin Dwyer is a U0 Mathematics and Political Science student. To contact her, email erin.dwyer@mail.mcgill.ca.

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One area where McGill has not allocated government funds transparently is the budget of the Student Services unit, which houses resources like the Student Health Service, the Office for Students with Disabilities (OSD), the Mental Health Service, and the Counselling Service. Although the unit was already unable to meet student demand, the McGill administration further reduced its funding this year by cutting the yearly $112,000 transfer to the unit and charging it increased overhead charges. This left the unit with two main funding sources: student fees and a yearly $1.8 million grant from the Quebec government designated specifically for “services to students.”

A university is nothing without students, and student needs must come first.

However, at a Senate meeting last April, Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) Ollivier Dyens informed student senators that 25 per cent of that grant was being allocated to Athletics, and, given McGill’s tight budget, he left open the possibility that the remaining money from the grant Could also go to units other than Student Services – potentially including things like the libraries or the office of the Dean of Students. Similarly, the administration absorbed a $1.2 million provincial grant earmarked for the support of students with disabilities into its general budget, failing to provide an account of how the grant was used. This angered student senators at the meeting, especially as the OSD was suffering budget cuts and its funding under a proposed new government grant model was uncertain at the time. This ambiguity as to what McGill considers “services to students” or “support of students with disabilities” leaves unclear the legality of the University’s usage of the grants. Further, as the University’s contribution to Student Services is reduced, the unit will have to use up more of its surplus, which consist mostly of fees collected from student pockets.

For all its talk of financial struggles, McGill seems to be in a secure enough position to find funds for large executive pay expenditures. Most recently, it surfaced that McGill had paid former principal Heather Munroe-Blum over $750,000 in the two years following the end of her term. It has also allegedly given out performance-based salary increases to executives in violation of provincial law. Again, whether or not McGill’s allocation of funding was illegal or not, it was definitely not transparent.

Like many institutions that rely on public funding, McGill is under significant financial strain, and for that I feel I should express some sympathy. However, the above examples illustrate a common theme in McGill’s budgeting practices that, at a time when government budget cuts make transparency and community involvement in budgetary decisions all the more important, is frankly worrisome. With months-long wait times for mental health services and increasing numbers of students relying on OSD services, it is time for the University to re-evaluate its priorities. A university is nothing without students, and student needs must come first.

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The objective of this act, according to the Canadian government, is to crack down on voter fraud. One of the central tactics it employs is changing the documents required to demonstrate voter eligibility. In April 2014, Minister of Democratic Reform Pierre Poilievre claimed that “in a 21st century democracy, where people are required to produce ID to drive a car […] it is common sense to expect people to show ID to demonstrate who they are when they vote.”

The Fair Elections Act may have an innocuous name, but its effects in October will likely be anything but.

However, the bill treads in dangerously undemocratic waters by manipulating how, or even if, some Canadians can cast their vote. It eliminates the use of vouching – being identified by a person in your area if you lack proper identification or proof of address – or a voter information card as ways of identification at the polls. According to the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada, 120,000 and 400,000 people respectively used these methods to cast a ballot in the last election. Vouching and voter info cards are primarily used by people who can prove their identity, but not their residence.

Many under the age of 25 find themselves shuffling between the different locations of home, school, and work more than two or three times a year, which can make having the correct ID that the Fair Elections Act now requires especially tricky. Putting this into perspective, over one million people aged between 18 and 25 voted in the 2011 federal election. If many of these voters no longer have the correct identification, it could significantly sway outcomes toward parties less popular with the younger generation. According to the Globe and Mail, Canadians under 35 are more left-leaning than their older counterparts. This indicates that removing a large amount of these voters from the electoral picture could highly benefit the Conservative Party.

In addition to diluting the voices of Canada’s youth, elimination of vouching and the use of voter info cards gives people without an address little chance of making it to the ballot box. According to the Mental Health Commission of Canada, in 2010-11 there were more than 62,700 admissions to the main homeless shelters in Montreal alone, and at least 200,000 Canadians experience homelessness in any given year, according to the CBC. It is common for homeless individuals to be victims of theft or lose their ID, or not have one in the first place. The Fair Elections Act blatantly fails to accommodate the displaced and those without addresses, negating the idea of democracy altogether. This could affect the upcoming election, as these 200,000 voters are not randomly selected from the voting pool; in fact, there could be significant benefits to the Conservative Party with people who are homeless voting less.

According to the Assembly of First Nations, there are 51 electoral districts, out of a total of 338 in Canada, where Indigenous voters could swing the results.

As reported by the Toronto Star, “Social programs long valued by Canadians are in the Conservatives’ crosshairs.” This can be seen in cuts to federal healthcare, stricter criteria for receiving employment insurance, and cuts to the country’s national affordable housing strategy, which is an initiative to find housing for people who are homeless. The overlap between people most likely to be negatively affected by these cuts and people most likely to be disenfranchised by the Fair Elections Act is hard to ignore.

Indigenous people in Canada will be strongly impacted by these adjustments in identification requirements as well. As stated in the Fair Elections Act, each citizen must have at least one ID that includes full name and address. This can be particularly difficult for people who live on reserves, where individuals do not always have a specific address. Previously, a band chief could vouch for multiple voters. Now, voters who live on reserves need to obtain a letter from their band council that verifies their address. While many Indigenous leaders, such as Assembly of First Nations National Chief Perry Bellegarde, have been calling on Indigenous people to vote in the upcoming election, additional roadblocks on the way to the polls could compound their historically low voter turnout. According to the Assembly of First Nations, there are 51 electoral districts, out of a total of 338 in Canada, where Indigenous voters could swing the results. This amounts to the simple fact that the Fair Elections Act and its impact could decide the outcome of the election altogether. With this in mind, many Indigenous people, and the non-Conservative parties that they are more likely than the general population to support, are concerned about what kind of voice they will have come October.

Voter ID restrictions that, in effect, prevent specific demographics of people from voting are not specific to Canada. Various voter ID laws passed by American states prior to the 2012 presidential election, supposedly to prevent voter fraud, were criticized for disproportionately affecting Black Americans and Latino Americans. Is this something we want to have in common with our southern neighbours? Along with an unfair advantage for the Conservative Party come October, we should consider what the Fair Elections Act says about the quality of Canadian democracy. By passing this bill, the government is sending the message that it is fine with depriving certain citizens of representation in government.

The Fair Elections Act may have an innocuous name, but its effects in October will likely be anything but. This bill will significantly impact Canadians across the country, particularly youth and already marginalized communities. With corrupt parties and sneaky politicians at every turn, voting is one of the few, if small, ways that Canadians can attempt to hold Ottawa accountable. Legislation like the Fair Elections Act undermines the fundamental characteristics of a democracy, making it undeserving of its name and, more importantly, undeserving of the support of Canadians.

Erin Dwyer is a U0 Mathematics and Political Science student. To contact her, please email erin.dwyer@mail.mcgill.ca.

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