Child and family issues dominate election trail

Families and children dominated the campaign trail. The Liberals and NDP tackled child care issues at campaign stops in Ontario while the Conservatives promised changes to tobacco marketing in an effort to protect kids.

Liberal Leader Stephane Dion kicked off the day campaigning in London, Ont., where he promised to make post-secondary education more accessible with a grant that would be delivered to students four times a year.

Dion, speaking at the University of Western Ontario, said the quarterly education grant would replace complicated and "often irrelevant" tax credits for students.

He said the Liberals would also create a 20-year education endowment fund worth $25 billion.

If elected, over the next four years, the Liberal plan would allow the government to provide 200,000 needs-based bursaries of up to $3,500 annually.

For certain minority groups, the plan would provide 100,000 access grants of up to $4000 per year, by the fourth year of the plan.

Dion said every student, regardless of parental income, would be eligible for a $5,000 student loan.

The plan also would support the indirect costs of university-based research by more than 60 per cent to $500 million a year.


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