Birthday money

In the announcement on Tuesday of his plan to induce not just labour, but pregnancy itself, the Premier said:

We've had some lengthy discussions on this in caucus and at cabinet... and what we've done is we've looked at the jurisdictions across Canada, to the best of our ability, and as quickly as we could in advance of the election, government had started to do this process, but it's a very detailed process, and we want to make sure we follow through. We're also looking at some precedent in Europe, and other modern countries, trying to encourage young families to have children. It's a clear problem, and it's an economic problem... This government is open to suggestions, and good suggestions... It's probably one of the key points in our platform, that we feel very strongly about. It's something we'd certainly like to implement as soon as possible. It hasn't been budgetted. One of the best jurisdictions and one of the most successful, of course, was Quebec. And they have found it to be one of the most successful initiatives. But I'd be remiss in saying that we're still preliminary on this.

Observations:

• "looked at... quickly... advance of election..." We're still making things up as we go along, in other words?



• "precedent in Europe". Iceland, Ireland, and Norway, you mean?



• "haven't budgetted". And not much need to. In 2006, there were 4,292 live births in Newfoundland and Labrador. At $1000 per little miracle, that's just under $4.3-million. Even if the $1000 baby bonus doubles the annual number of births over recent figures, it's still less than $9-million a year. There. Budgeting done.



• "Quebec". The chart below shows the ratio of births per year/total population, for NL, QC, and Canada as a whole.
  
  Quebec brought in its "pay-the-stork" plan in 1988. The birth rate blipped up, though in line with previous, pre-baby-bonus blips, and in concert with a similar trend elsewhere.
  
  It promptly started to blip back down.