Photo: Health and Welfare Canada

From her minimum wage, Lita has to pay child care expenses for care during the day while she works. Then she has to pay for child care at night while she goes to school or does her studying or research in the library. These double costs amount to considerably more than the present allowance for tax deduction of two thousand dollars child care expenses per child.

Barbara is at home with two small children. Her husband is the sole income provider. She registered for a course at a local university which has a child care program. When she went from the registrar's office to the child care program to enroll her children for the time she would be in class and at the library studying, she was shocked and angered to find that there was a six-month waiting list for a space in the child care centre. The cost, if a seat had been available, would have been over three hundred dollars a month. She had to withdraw from the course because, while her husband was agreeable to paying the cost of tuition and child care, there was a limit to what he considered reasonable. Tuition was one thing, an additional almost three thousand for child care was another matter again!

Ruby had to withdraw from training because the private home care provided to her baby was not as suitable as she had been led to expect and she was missing too many classes as she tried to arrange alternate care. She was told that an employer would not tolerate such . absences, so the training program would not permit these as excusable absences either.

Mary is a Native Indian attending university full time.