Abstract

Despite better outcomes under Quebec’s universal child-care and learning program, mother Canada seems to say that it sounds and looks good but for her, not now. So her inaction has less to do with theory of this program’s benefits. Afterall, there are plenty of benefit multipliers out there. At the end of the day, English Canada is stuck with an unproductive patchwork of programs just because: 1.it is not Quebec, a province considered so different that social innovation there is considered so particularistic that it does not translate into innovation in English Canada unless the benefits are so overwhelming that it cannot pass up. 2.Secondly, English Canada’s inaction is about the unpredictability of cost given the track record of its crown jewel, Medicare, a program ridiculed on sustainability ground in the United States in political seasons. 3.smarting from a general perception of overreach in the design of social security, in the eyes of the Canadian electorate, therefore, a convincing case is yet to be made as to whether this child-care ‘stock’ has a high return enough to be added to the mutual fund of programs that now has retirement and Medicare in it. So discussions here centers on socio-political explanation of inaction – covariance of policy response tied to anxiety on electorate struggle at cost containment of existing programs and desirability of adding new ones. Quebec found the latter as a ‘national’/linguistic security issue. English Canada has not.