Since low-income families are generally eligible for day care subsidies and high-income families benefit most from the tax deductions, middle-income families receive the least benefit and are the most likely to carry the full burden of day care expenses.

2. Income tax subsidies for day care expenses can be made by the following:

• the mother may make the deduction for services used to allow her to be employed, carry on a business, or take up an office; undertake an occupational training course for which an Adult Training Allowance is received under the Adult Occupational Training Act; or engage in research or similar work in respect to which she receives a grant. If the money she receives from scholarships, fellowships, bursaries, or prizes is her only income, she may not claim day care expenses.

• the father may claim day care expenses if he is a single-parent under the same conditions as above; or if he is the male-head of a two-parent family in which the mother is incapacitated or cannot fulfill her normal functions as a mother.

The deduction is not transferable to the father unless he meets the above criteria. Therefore, it is not possible to deduct day care expenses from the higher income in the family, unless it happens to be the mother's. No deductions are allowed for attendance at other educational programs. This policy has several outcomes. For example:

• during the stage when a mother is in attendance in an educational program which is to prepare her for entry to the labour force, she is not earning; yet she must wait until she does have money before she can claim for day care expenses. This would actively discourage her from engaging in such educational programs while her children are still pre-schoolers.

• it follows that the mother will not be encouraged to keep herself current in her occupational field nor to prepare herself for future employment by participating in part-time educational activities at this stage. Therefore, when she does return to the labour force she will require more extensive upgrading and retraining than if she had been encouraged to do this over several years.

• the policy does not indicate how much money a woman must earn if she is a student on a scholarship, to be eligible for day care deductions. This particular clause was designed to encourage students to work part-time, at least during the summer months, in order to pay for some of her own educational expenses. In Ontario, for example, students applying for assistance had to show proof that they had at least looked for work. The 1978-79 policy guidelines for those funds have since changed. Mothers of young children are now defined as "full-time workers" if they have been at home caring for these children. This does two things: it makes obtaining funds easier for mothers with young children but does not solve the problem of claiming for day care expenses; and it requires that the mother stay home for at least three years full-time with her children before engaging in educational activities.

• finally, if the mother cannot claim day care expenses how come her education grants are taxable?