Child care costs. WTF?

I'm laying in bed trying to sleep the other night when something occurs to me. I work almost expressly to send my two children to babysitters. To put it another way, I'm busting my ass daily in order to have the privilege of having someone else raise my kids. What the hell is that all about?

Fully 3/4 of my weekly salary goes toward paying someone else to look after my kids. Most of the rest of it goes towards our car payment. I make about $400 a week (fortunately, my wife makes a hell of a lot more than I do, or we'd be in serious financial shit), $300 of that goes to the babysitters, about $80 goes to the car, leaving $20 for various other bills.

If I were to quit my job, stay home with the girls, and get a part time job working nights we would be in a better finacial position. An $8.00/hr job for let's say 15 hours per week would give me $120 per week (less tax, I know). That would pay the car payment, a bit of the bills, and I could raise the kids myself.

I know raising and watching kids is not easy. I've done it. I actually used some of my wife's parental leave after out second child was born. But holy shit, it's not easy watching 75% of what you work for go to what is basically a stranger in order to raise your children.

The problem now becomes, do I quit my job, lose my seniority at work (it's a unionized factory), raise my kids myself while working a part-time job for the next 3 years, or do I grit my teeth and shell out the money every week?

Why in the fuck doesn't Canada have a universal child care system in place? It seems like a no brainer to me.