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From an article by Dr. Brett Taylor, an associate professor of pediatrics and emergency medicine at Dalhousie University.  His website can be found here.

We love our kids, and we try our best to feed, clothe, house and raise them, but we just don't vote as though they matter very much, leaving one to wonder why.

My job exposes me to the cracks in our medical and social systems, and I am a father. Sometimes, these characteristics lead to a certain impatience with the "seen and not heard about" attitudes so often demonstrated by our leaders about our children and youth.

So I have a bias, and it is probably best to just get it out there, right off the bat, by stating what will become the key question of this piece: When it comes to the social and medical health of children, where the heck is Harper?

For instance, just what is going on with daycare in Canada? Competent daycare decreases the incidence of child abuse and neglect in our communities, and is an enabler, allowing parents (very often women) to seek employment and thus escape from the trap of poverty that so often accompanies single parenthood.

Three years ago this month, Harper announced a child-care subsidy of $100 per month for parents of young children, stating that he expected this would "help parents find that balance" between raising a child and making a living. Harper predicted that this plan would create 125,000 new daycare spaces across the country.

Well, that hasn't happened; daycare spaces in Canada are nearly as hard to come by today as they were in 2005. The Liberals, NDP and Greens have all announced measures to provide a federally funded daycare program. On the Conservative website, the only mention that I could find of a national child-care strategy was a restating of the 2005 program.