Lisa Pasolli

Lisa Pasolli, “The Illusion of Childcare Reform: The Child Care Expense Deduction, Tax Expenditures, and Social Policy,” Canadian Historical Review, Volume 105, Issue 4, December 2024, pp. 473-497.

This is a thoroughly researched and rigorously argued treatment of a significant and understudied topic. Pasolli traces the subtleties of the processes of neo-liberalization in the 1970s and 1980s, as state/government concern with the costs of universality manifested itself in childcare policies embracing privatization. Pasolli skillfully unpacks how the focus on “parental choice,” and the largely middle-class self-conceptualization of “deserving taxpayers,” significantly contributed to these processes, undercutting the potential for creating a comprehensive, state-funded and national childcare policy. This article is a strong, original piece of research into a transformative period in the history of the Canadian state.