ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the early years of childcare advocacy, documenting the shift from an exclusive focus on local and provincial level to an on-going effort to secure a pan-Canadian policy framework in the 1980s. It examines recent developments in the struggle for federal legislation, shows how the focus shifted from gender equality to child poverty and early child development. More recently, gender equality has been added back into the frame as a critical component of the social infrastructure. The chapter focuses on how partisan changes in government have affected the political opportunity structure in different provinces, with the exception of Québec, where childcare became nested within a nationalist frame, cutting across partisan lines. It argues that for the most part, Canadian childcare advocates have been able to navigate the shifting shoals of Canadian federalism with the aim of establishing a pan-Canadian publicly-funded childcare system.
