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With his party's family policies, PQ leader Bernard Landry is promising “the biggest change in Quebec society since the Quiet Revolution.” The Liberals and ADQ call the plans unrealistic, and are offering their own ways to make family life easier for Quebecers. Two major family-friendly planks getting a lot of attention in this election are:
A much-debated issue under the banner of family care is that of the four-day work week. If the public network of early childhood education centres is the pride of the Parti Québécois family policy, then it is no big surprise that "Grandpapa" Landry chose a model day-care centre in Old Montreal as the backdrop for the first major announcement of this campaign. There Landry promised to make family life easier by offering workers with pre-teen children the option of a shortened work week. Parents who participate would give up the equivalent of a day's pay without any loss in benefits. His plan would also force businesses to provide at least three weeks of paid holidays per year, up from two. How it would work If he's re-elected, Landry says parents of children under 12 will be offered a four-day work week and will get the three weeks of paid holidays by next year. His original proposal called for one day off per week. But pressure from business forced Landry to adopt a more flexible arrangement, where parents would be able to work 20 per cent fewer hours without pay. The proposal would not cost the government anything. The employers would have to pick up any costs associated with the system. As well, the extra week of holidays would be an employer expense, which Landry says could cost $500 million. Can't be taken seriously: Charest Jean Charest is highly skeptical about the four-day plan, partly because it appeared in the pre-election budget as an experiment, a pilot project. "Find me the phrase in Marois' budget that indicates there is going to be a four-day week," the Liberal leader said. "Now, that being the case, is there anyone who really takes Mr. Landry seriously? I don't think so." However, the idea of the four-day work week must have generated an awful lot of phone calls and e-mails at PQ headquarters, because now Landry says it will be law by January if the PQ is re-elected. Charest says it's a headline grabber, but not likely to ever happen. The Liberals are also talking about reconciling work and family, but Charest's action plan is based on a commitment to slash Quebecers' personal income tax by $1 billion a year. The idea is to put more money in the pockets of parents with dependent children, to spend as they see fit. Dumont's alternative Mario Dumont is also skeptical about Landry's four-day promise. He says the PQ hasn't thought this one through. For instance, Dumont says the four-day plan would trigger emergency room overcrowding as nurses begin working less. The ADQ is promising instead to double the number of days parents can take off for family matters; employers would be forced to pay for half those days. The cost to the province would be nearly $130 million. "We prefer to have realistic, flexible solutions that we want to implement, not just creating more hopes before the election," Dumont said. Dumont's alternative is a more modest one, doubling the number of days parents are entitled to take off for family obligations from 10 to 20. Half of those would be unpaid, while the other half would be paid for by employers. As for Quebec's popular $5-a-day child care, the other major plank when it comes to reconciling family and work, read on. Related Stories:
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