Warning: 70% of Canadians Are Defective

So says 'renowned' childcare expert Dr. Fraser Mustard. Mustard and acolytes just released another report calling for the government to spend billions of dollars on a national network of early childhood institutions. The report is based on science showing the importance of the early years in forming children's future 'trajectories' - which is perfectly valid - but it then poses only one solution; the institutional solution. The option of giving support to parents to raise their own children in their own homes is again ignored.

Mustard goes further in media interviews. This morning he told CBC's The Current that only 30% of Canadian parents are 'adequate', and he has this quote in the Red Star this morning:

"Only about one-third of the population are actually highly competent parents, the rest are okay, but about 17 per cent are godawful," said Mustard.

Presumably, it follows from this that since Mustard's utopian vision of a National Socialist childcare system has not yet occurred in Canada, 70% of us Canadians were raised by 'okay' or 'godawful' parents and are therefore defective as individuals, prone to crime, social irresponsibility, behaviour problems, addiction, and general badness. So watch out, people, it's a jungle out there.

Beverley Smith did a masterful job of exposing Mustard's junk science on The Current and really got the point across that the only fair childcare system in Canada will be one that respects parents rather than tossing them into the garbage can, and one that respects choice rather than turning our children into robots of the state.