Quebec's parental-leave program has run a deficit every single one of the three years of its existence.
Despite a hike of 15 per cent since 2006 in the contributions paid by employers and workers, the program is reportedly headed toward a $716-million hole by 2013.
The program, which makes Quebec the most child-friendly province, is a good one, giving new parents achoice at an exciting and important time in any family's life. But to sustain it, the government will simply have to find someplace else to cut spending.
We're too good at generous programs. We have $7-a-day daycare, an extensive network of early childhood education centres, and after-school care at nominal cost, to mention only childhood programs.
Parental leave came in as part of Quebec's effort to raise its birth rate. It allows a mother to stay home with her baby for up to 40 weeks at equivalent to 75 per cent pay, while the baby's father gets a minimum three weeks' leave, also at 75 per cent salary. The couple can also divide the leave differently, still collecting 75 per cent of salary.
However, in planning the program Quebec seriously underestimated the number of young parents, especially fathers, who would be willing to stay home with their babies for an average of $450 a week.
We just can't keep loading social programs one on top of the other, no matter how worthy or popular they are. We can have a generous parental-leave program, but either it becomes entirely self-funding - as it was supposed to be originally - or something else has to be cut.
There are no other acceptable options. Increasing taxes should be a non-starter. And equalization payments won't be rising; indeed people elsewhere in Canada are noticing with rising annoyance that they are helping pay for our social programs, which are more generous than theirs.
There is a solution in sight: In a surprising poll this fall, Quebecers seem to signal that cutbacks in some spending might be acceptable after all. The poll, done by Léger Marketing for the Conseil du patronat, showed that 92 per cent of Quebecers think that every time the provincial government announces a new program, project, or policy, it should have to identify exactly what it plans to cut to find money for the new program.
Only 15 per cent of the more 1,000 Quebecers polled thought the government should keep hiking employee contributions to keep up with the costs of contribution-financed programs such as parental leaves.
"Live within your means" is a message that hasn't resonated in Quebec - until now. The government should listen. Taxpayers already seem to have taken it to heart.