A reduction in child-care fees isn't enough to offset the rising costs of food and shelter.
Trudeau held the child of Hussen at a news conference to announce a new child-care deal with Ontario.
The photo was taken by Carlos Osorio.
According to the latest cost-of-living data, Prime Minister Trudeau's changes to child care appear to be delivering on their promise to lower costs, providing a rare source of disinflation.
The consumer price index increased in July from a year earlier, but at a slower rate than in June.
The Bank of Canada governor reinforced that point after the numbers were released. Macklem said in an op-ed published in the National Post that prices for more than half of the goods and services that make up theCPI basket are rising faster than five percent.
Macklem said that he was determined to get year-over-year increases in the consumer price index back to his target of about 2%.
It is too early to say that the deceleration of inflation is due to lower gasoline prices. The consumer price index is expected to drift towards three per cent by the end of next year according to the Bank of Canada.
Lower gas prices were the main reason for the decrease in inflation in July.
The photo was taken by Brandon Bell.
The government has not commented on inflation. Trudeau and Freeland have said that they are doing their part by sticking to their promise to shrink the budget deficit and that should help cool demand.
The child-care agreements it struck with the provinces and territories over the last year should be seen as a response to the inflation scare, even though headline inflation was hovering around two per cent when Freeland was designing the program.
$10-a-day child care was one of the issues we fought on in the last election. Trudeau said on the Pod Save the World podcasts that they are delivering that.
The weight of child care in the broader price basket isn't big enough to offset soaring fuel, food and shelter costs
Trudeau lost a game of tic-tac-toe against a child after announcing a new child-care deal in Ontario.
The photo was taken by Carlos Osorio.
Child-care fees have begun to fall at a time when the price of everything is increasing. The price of child-care services plummeted in July, the fourth-consecutive monthly decline and the largest drop on record, according to Statistics Canada. According to Statistics Canada, the cost of child-care has risen since 2003
Gordon Cleveland is an economics professor at the University of Toronto who focuses on child care.
Reducing fees for parents, expanding the number of child-care spaces, improving the quality of the sector's workforce, and creating spaces for marginalized groups are some of the objectives of Trudeau's plan. To get federal funding, provinces and territories had to agree that they would reduce fees within a year and that parents would have access to daycare that costs $10 per day within five years.
Cleveland said it's a huge change of the child-care system.
He said that the federal government has never put more than $700,000 into child care. It gives you an idea of how big the leap is in terms of federal commitment.
Never before has the federal government put more than (about $700,000) a year into child care
Gordon Cleveland
Most governments have put their efforts into getting a 50 per cent drop in average parent fees by the end of the year.
The 50-per-cent target was thought to be chosen because the system needed time to adjust. She said going to $10 a day was too dramatic of a drop.
The federal government wants Quebec to offer subsidized daycare. The majority of the provinces and territories have met or exceeded the 50-per-cent fee reduction target. Across the country, the cost to parents is going down.
The 50-per-cent fee reduction target has been reached by most provinces.
Ian Kucerak took this photo.
The program was never meant to be a weapon in the fight against inflation. She said that it can help families with young children who are lucky enough to have access to licensed care deal with cost pressures. It is possible to lower the cost of groceries but lower the pressure on your budget because you are getting money from a different source.
Dropping fees is the easiest goal because it only takes a small amount of money. Creating spaces and improving the workforce will be more of a challenge, as those involve managing costs and planning as renovations and construction, and partnering with post-secondary institutions to keep a steady workforce coming through.
The program will definitely cushion the impact of inflation elsewhere in the economy despite the fact that the consumer price index is inherently volatile.
Parents who don't have children in regulated child care are not reaping the benefits of lower fees. There will be shortages when there's more demand. There will be a lot of demand for child care and governments will have to expand as quickly as possible.
Governments don't take that responsibility seriously enough.
The email is bbbharti@postmedia.
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