Child Care for Canadian Children and Families. Occasional Paper No. 1.

This report explains the state of child care in Canada and proposes specific solutions to remedy the inadequacies of the current system. Part one discusses the changing composition and needs of Canadian families, defines the nature of child care, and explains what a comprehensive child care system should consist of. Part two addresses the difficulties that many families have in obtaining adequate child care, the availability of regulated child care, the high cost of such care, and the components of high quality child care. Part three presents some solutions to these problems, outlining the current national child care policy, the debate about child care policy in the 1980s, and possible solutions for the future. Contains 84 references. (MDM)