When the Liberals and NDP signed a parliamentary cooperation pact this week, the dominant Conservative instinct in Ottawa was to attack the agreement's legitimacy and ignore the substance of the headline policy priorities like dental care and pharmacare. Playbook asked MELANIE PARADIS, a deputy campaign manager on ERIN O'TOOLE's leadership bid and then director of strategic communications in O'Toole's office, for a little straight talk on the Tory strategy. Her response: talk more about ideas. You tweeted this week about the need for Conservatives to develop competitive childcare, pharma and dental care plans. Conservatives don’t generally like growing government, so what would this look like? Honestly, the idea that we can’t have nice things without growing government is just lazy. When did we stop being creative problem-solvers? For years, all Conservatives have been saying is "we need to respect parents” and “one-size fits all doesn’t work for everyone,” and then offering a tax credit for child care. We also, without fail, pivot to “the Liberals have been promising childcare for years and never deliver” — as if “yeah well, they are liars” is somehow cover for “we also aren’t going to help you.” In 2021, ERIN O’TOOLE's proposed tax credit would have lowered childcare costs by 75 percent for low-income families. That was identical to what DOUG FORD offered Ontario in 2018, but didn’t solve for creating spaces. In 2019, Scheer didn’t have anything in the platform about childcare — just a bunch of boutique tax credits that were, at best, childcare-adjacent. And in both 2019 and 2021, our platforms didn’t even mention pharmacare or dental. But we have to offer solutions. We need to say, “OK, here’s how we can do this without bankrupting the country.” What about the argument that these are all provincial issues? Yeah, some will argue that we campaigned to increase health transfers to the provinces, which could include more access to drugs and dental. And that’s true. But it’s also a complete misunderstanding of the assignment. Because no one knows what the hell you mean at the doors. Busy mom of two doesn’t give a flying fig about health transfers. She just wants to know if she can take her kid to the dentist, if there is an actual spot for her kid in daycare, and how much antibiotics will cost. "Health transfers'' is as meaningless as saying, “Oh, that’s a provincial matter” when knocking on doors. When you say that, you are telling that mom you are going to do absolutely nothing for her. So why should she bother voting for you? We need to offer tangibles. OK, so what should be the Conservative version of these policies? We just went through this exercise of finding innovative solutions fast in the middle of a pandemic. Why don’t Conservatives apply that same creative problem-solving to find real solutions for childcare, pharmacare and dental care? In Ontario, Premier Ford figured out how to get more kids pharmacare by turning the government into “the second payer.” So, if your parents have health insurance, the private insurer is still the primary payer. The government only pays for the kids whose parents don’t have that insurance. Why can’t we build off that nationally? And how do we make it easier for employers to offer dental benefits and use a second-payer model for some essential dental services? People will say childcare is a provincial and municipal matter. But so is most of what’s wrong with our housing supply right now, yet every Conservative is falling over themselves because 35-year-old men are "trapped in their parents’ basements." God forbid we apply the same enthusiasm to helping women go back to work. Two ideas to start: scaling up training for thousands of early childcare educators like we did for nurses during the pandemic. And fast-tracking family reunification if grandparents looking to move here would be caring for kids. SPEAK OF THE DEVIL — Tory MP TOM KMIEC tabled a motion Thursday that called on the government to axe its First Time Home Buyers' Incentive program and "pursue new programs that exclusively increase the supply of housing."
| 
