Abstract

Exploring the Future of Childcare in Canada: A ROUNDTABLE

Panel Convenor: Susan Prentice

Roundtable Description:

An invited panel of three leading researchers will explore the future of Canadian childcare policy and services in light of new provincial/territorial initiatives and emerging federal proposals. The roundtable will address both social movement organizing as well as the state, and in considering the future of childcare in Canada, will draw on comparative as well as historical research Their collective aim is to consider how, and to what extent, child care policy in Canada is likely to proceed along or diverge from the current “liberal” model, with high reliance on the market, family, and voluntary sector The conference themes highlighted in this panel include: social inclusion, the urban agenda, and social development.

Bios

Panel Convenor

Susan Prentice is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Manitoba and has a longstanding interest in historical and contemporary childcare policy and social movement advocacy. Her current project involves working with the Child Care Coalition of Manitoba to undertake a social and economic impact study of licensed childcare in Winnipeg, as a way to leverage increased local-level interest and involvement in childcare. Her most recent book is Changing Child Care: Five Decade of Child Care Advocacy and Policy in Canada (Fernwood, 2001.)

Panelists:

Barbara Cameron is Associate Professor of Political Science in the Atkinson Faculty of Liberal and Professional Studies at York University where she teaches in the areas of public policy and Canadian government. The current focus of her research is federalism, political accountability and social rights. She is now completing for publication in edited volumes articles on “Social Reproduction and Canadian Federalism” and “The Social Union Framework Agreement: A Political and Legal Analysis.” Her past publications include articles and working papers on the topics of social citizenship and the social union in Canada, state regulation of the new labour market, occupational health and safety and non-standard employment, constitutional reform, and gender and trade policy.

Martha Friendly is the founder of the Childcare Resource and Research Unit and has been its coordinator for almost 25 years. She has extensive ECEC and social policy research experience and has published widely. She is a Senior Research Associate at the University of Toronto. Selected recent publications include:” Canary in a Coal Mine: Child Care and Canadian Federalism in the 1990s” (in Cleveland and Krashinsky, University of Toronto Press, 2001); Social Inclusion Through Early Childhood Education and Care (Laidlaw Foundation, 2002); and Early Childhood Education and Care in Canada 1998 and 2001 .

Rianne Mahon is director of the Institute of Political Economy, and Professor at the School of Public Policy and Administration and the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, at Carleton University. Her recent work focuses on child care as a window into welfare state redesign, with particular reference to Canada and Sweden. She co-edited Child Care Policy at the Crossroads: Gender and Welfare State Restructuring (Routledge: 2002) with Sonya Michel. Her most recent publication is “Toward What Kind of ‘Social Europe’?: Child Care Policy,” Social Politics 2003.

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