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http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/article/1259446--politicians-must-adjust-to-canada-s-new-family-values

CANADA - POLITICIANS MUST ADJUST TO CANADA'S NEW "FAMILY VALUES"

Traditional families, such as Prime Minister Stephen Harper's, are now in the minority.

September 19, 2012 - Politicians, right across the ideological spectrum, love to talk about families – usually “hard-working families” who will benefit from their favourite policy scheme. “Strong families help to build a strong Canada,” Stephen Harper declared in a typical flourish during the 2011 election campaign as he introduced the Conservatives’ latest bauble for “families” – a tax credit for kids in arts programs.

Now, as Statistics Canada makes abundantly clear in its latest census report, the cherished “typical family” is more myth than reality. Instead of Mom, Dad and the kids, we have a complex array of domestic arrangements that all qualify as family: stepfamilies, complex stepfamilies, same-sex families, even “skip-generation” families. And, oh yes, “intact families” – the dwindling minority of old-style married couples with kids at home.

Today the most typical family is a couple with no children at home. And for the first time there are more one-person households than there are couples with kids.

All this has big implications for how we govern ourselves, and who we choose to govern us.The Harper Conservatives have targeted traditional families in the last three elections, offering tax breaks for kids in sports and leisure programs, and income-sharing. That fitted well with their “family values” vision of Canada, but it sounds increasingly off-key when couples with children make up just 26.5 per cent of homes.

There are more common-law couples, more single-parent families, more blended families, and way more same-sex couples and families than in 2006, when the last census numbers came out. Parties that want to succeed in the new reality will have to embrace these changes and figure out policies tailored to their needs.

Old-style social conservatism, with its nostalgia for the long-gone nuclear family, won’t cut it in this world. No wonder the Conservatives are quietly taking their distance from their more traditional supporters. And no wonder progressive parties are finding their message resonates more with voters.

Our families are getting smaller, too. The average number of people per family is just 2.9 (down from 3.9 in 1961) because women simply aren’t having as many children. That’s below the replacement rate. In Canada, only Quebec has tackled this head-on with such policies as $7-a-day daycare and more generous parental leave, making it possible for more women to combine career and child-rearing. That’s had some success, but it comes at enormous cost.

Keeping the doors open to immigration has helped moderate this downward trend bybringing in people from countries with higher birthrates. StatsCan paints a portrait of a Canada divided between stagnant, aging regions and burgeoning communities packed with immigrants with strong family ties. It provides more evidence that the Conservatives have been wise to keep immigration levels high, even as they overhaul some aspects of Canada’s immigration system.

A census throws into sharp relief what we intuitively know – that our families are more complex and more diverse than ever. This one shows old-style “family values” are long past their sell-by date. Politicians who ignore that do so at their peril – and that’s all to the good.