Prime Minister Paul Martin is expected to answer Stephen Harper's plan to put day-care cash directly into parents' pockets with a promise to double his child-care deal with the provinces.

Expected Tuesday, Martin's proposal would come just one day after Conservative Leader Stephen Harper unveiled his pledge to give parents an annual allowance of $1,200 for each of their children under the age of six.

Speaking at an Ottawa day-care centre Monday morning, Harper said his party's plan would give families' the freedom to spend as they see fit.

Details of the Conservative plan include:

• a $1,200-a-year allowance for every child under the age of six per household -- money which families can use in any way they want; and
• $250 million in annual tax credits to fund a community child-care investment program.
• The $1,200 "Choice in Child Care Allowance" would be taxable in the hands of the spouse with the lower income.

"Now, of course, it costs more than $1,200 a year to raise a child," said Harper. "But this will help parents with the choices they have to make."

Harper said that unlike many of the current child benefits, his proposed child care allowance will not be clawed back from middle-income families.

He added his program is not intended to replace any existing benefit program -- it would be in addition to the current Canada Child Tax Benefit, the National Child Benefit Supplement and the Child Care Expense Deduction.

"It's hard enough to be a parent, but governments should support your choices, not limit them," he said. "In fact, the only people who should be making these choices are parents, not politicians, not the government."

Harper said he expects the tax-credit system will create 125,000 new child-care spaces over the next five years.

Martin: Tory plan falls short

Reacting to Harper's latest announcement, Liberal Leader Paul Martin said that with each passing day, the contrasting values between the two parties are growing more obvious.

"My understanding of what he's talking about is a program that will probably give you roughly $25 a week. An awful lot of Canadians spend that in a day," said Martin during a press conference in St. John's, N.L.

"What are low- and middle-income Canadians going to do for the rest of the week?"

Monica Lysack, executive director of the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada, shares Martin's criticism.

"A small cash payment -- well, large when you look at the billions of dollars that it will take to pay for this -- is not a very cost-effective approach," she said in an interview on CTV Newsnet. "And is not child care."

While she agreed with Harper in terms of parents needing choices when it comes to child care: "I think that simply giving them money to solve their own problem doesn't do it.

"I think we need to continue to invest in child care as a public system."

To that end, in his first major platform announcement of the week old campaign, Martin is expected Tuesday to double his government's $5-billion child-care deal with the provinces.

In his remarks Monday, Martin hinted that he intends to draw a sharp contrast between Harper and himself on the issue. The Conservative child-care strategy, he said, fails to address quality, accessibility and development, "And I will certainly be dealing with this over the course of this campaign, quite substantively."

But in the meantime, when asked what Liberals have in store for stay-at-home parents in light of the Tory promise, Martin said his party's income tax-cut plan would benefit families with one working parent.

"One of the reasons that we are focusing very heavily on a personal income tax plan ... is that in fact we're putting money back into the pockets of Canadians," said Martin "And if you look at the way the income tax act works, in fact, when you cut taxes, those are the families who benefit the most."

Earlier Monday, as part of a wide-ranging speech in front of the St. John's Board of Trade, Martin addressed Harper's child-care plan.

"We're investing $5 billion in future generations of Canadians in urban and rural areas," said Martin. "Now, Stephen Harper repeated today that he doesn't believe public money should be put into day-care centres. Well I do."

Before the Grits' fall from power, Social Development Minister Ken Dryden said the Liberal day-care deal wouldn't necessarily be threatened if the opposition chooses to bring the government down, because momentum would be created in each province for the plan.

Under the Liberals' current child-care deals with 10 provinces, the premiers have control over day-care spending.

Ontario, for example, has been promised first-year funding of $272 million, while Quebec will get $1.1-billion deal over the next five years. The money for the provinces was announced in the June budget, and first-year funding has been placed in a trust fund.

On Monday, Harper promised the Tories would honour the existing one-year bilateral commitments to the provinces for institutional care.

The Conservative Leader compared the Liberals' national system of institutional day care to a "Henry Ford model" of child care.

"You can choose any colour you like, so long as it's black. You can choose any child care you like so long as it's nine-to-five institutional care, but who speaks for shift workers? Who speaks for the low-income parent who cannot afford institutional care? Who speaks for rural Canadians?" said Harper.

Harper, during his announcement, made light of the fact he had to compete with crying children as he delivered his strategy, quipping, "this is just like a caucus meeting."