CBC News
The union, which represents about 13,000 early childhood education workers, reached a tentative agreement with the government Thursday.
Reports say the deal gives them 25 vacation days a year, a pension fund, and a professional development program.
The growth of for-profit child care in Canada was the top concern for the National Child Care Working Group. The committee gathered in Ottawa November 22 –24 to examine ways to improve child care across Canada …
Early childhood education workers from across Canada warned that without a public system of early childhood education and care in Canada we won’t meet the needs of children and families.
“We are seeing too much growth in for-profit child care,” said Jamie Kass, co-chair of the committee. “We are very concerned about this trend because from our perspective, there is simply no place for profit making in child care.”…
“We know that quality affordable child care helps ease poverty, enables parents to enter the workforce and gives our children the best start in life, “ said Randi Gurholt-Seary, co-chair of the committee. “The problem is, too many families don’t have access to child care. Waiting lists are long, fees are too high and there is no system to guarantee access quality care.”
CBC
….13,000 home-based daycare operators went on strike for the day.
Union wants better wages, pension plan
Government-subsidized home daycare workers received the right to unionize in June 2009 when the Quebec government passed Bill 51. However, they are still considered to be independent workers.
Quebec daycare providers held an earlier series of rotating walkouts on Oct. 25. The CSQ wants secured paid vacations, a pension plan and better salaries.
According to the union, home-based daycare workers receive $19 a day per child in provincial subsidies plus and another $7 from parents.
The union is asking the government for $13 more per child per day.
Another 2,000 home-based daycare operators in Quebec are affiliated with the Quebec Federation of Labour, another union umbrella group. They are holding their own contract talks with the government.
EXCERPTS ONLY
PAGE 35 in PDF
British Columbians’ Priorities for Children and Youth
Reflecting the government’s focus on early learning and families, the Finance Committee received several requests to expand early learning initiatives. Other public input included calls for additional resources for services for children and youth with developmental disabilities and their families, and for more child care services for working parents.
Early learning initiatives
Submissions received from early-learning proponents, service providers and school districts applauded the government’s commitment to early childhood learning and care, but believe that more can be done. They all stressed that investing in the early years is a wise social and economic investment.
Proponents expressed their support for current initiatives and suggested the following improvements:
“In order to address our service shortage, we need to make sure parents have access to healthy child and parent check-ins on about a monthly basis, especially during the first 18 months of a kid’s life.
And we need to put in place, after parental leave ends, a system of early learning and care that facilitates those who want or need to be in the paid labour market to be there and to know that their kids are in quality environments.”
(Dr. Paul Kershaw, Human Early Learning Partnership at UBC, Abbotsford public hearing)
“Through StrongStart locations in our schools, partnerships with local pre-school providers and our “Inspirations 44″ Full Day Kindergarten program, our School District has shown leadership and innovation in early learning. Our experience reinforces our belief that the Full Day Kindergarten initiative has great merit in giving students the best possible beginning to school.”
(John Lewis, North Vancouver School District’s Presidents’ Council, Written submission 151)
“What we’re hoping to recommend to all of you is that the ministries of Children and Family Development and Education receive funds to support all early learning initiatives — including group infant-toddler care, group child care and school-age care as well as the StrongStart programs, the Ready, Set, Learn programs and the full-day kindergarten.”
(Lynn Proulx, West Kootenay Early Years Initiative, Castlegar public hearing)
“Most important to us is the healthy development of children in their early years (ages 0-6).”
(Eve Layman, Community Action Toward Children’s Health, On-line survey 426)
“Given that early childhood is increasingly identified as the time of life when education and care is most critical, we believe an integrated system of early childhood education would be a wise investment.”
(Dr. Enid Elliot, Greater Victoria Regional Child Care Council, Victoria public hearing)
PAGE 36 of PDF
Children and youth with disabilities
Early intervention and autism services
The Finance Committee also received requests that the government consider dedicating additional funding for children with special needs and autism. Parents and child development centres in many regions of the province called for increased funding to reduce waitlists for early intervention therapy services and school-aged therapies. The Early Intervention Therapy program targets children before they enter the school system providing their families with access to screening, assessments and therapy services such as speech-language pathology and physiotherapy. School-aged children and youth have access to a similar program that provides occupational and physiotherapy services. This is how parents and some child development centres expressed their requests:
“Our recommendation is that the BC government should, as a start, double the resources available to the Ministry of Children and Family Development contracted provincial early intervention therapies — including physiotherapy, occupational therapy and speech language pathology — from $30.7 million to $61.4 million.”
(Bruce Sandy, British Columbia Association of Child Development and Intervention, Abbotsford public hearing)
“To bring early intervention therapy services up to a level on a per-child basis that was available ten years ago, we recommend that the province doubles the size of this program provincially at a cost of $30.7 million.”
(Darrell Roze, Child Development Centre of Prince George and
District, Prince George public hearing)
“We would really like to see additional funding for all the early intervention therapies but, in particular, speech-language pathology and occupational therapy.”
(Lorraine Aitken, Comox Valley Child Development Association, Courtenay Public hearing)
At the lower mainland hearings, parents also expressed concerns about the waitlists for the Supported Child Development program that provides support services to children, families and child care centres so that children with additional needs can fully participate in child care settings. The program serves children from birth to age 12 and provides services in some communities for youth aged 12 to 19. A sample of their requests is shared here:
“We would like to see the funding of this Supported Child Development program increased to keep pace with the demand for services. The wait-lists need to be eliminated across the province.
(Wendy Seet, Vancouver public hearing)
“There were almost 80 families in Burnaby and over triple that in Vancouver on wait-lists for supported child care services to provide consultation and staffing support so that their children with special needs can be included in child care settings and before-school and after-school care.”
(Cynthia Stark, Surrey public hearing)
PAGE 37 of PDF
Child care services
Over the course of the pre-budget budget consultations the Finance Committee heard a number of presentations on how to meet the demand for child care services in BC. Social service organizations, school districts and university organizations, unions and parents expressed a need for affordable child care and out-of-school care spaces that accommodate the needs of working parents. Notably the Coalition of Child Care Advocates of BC presented a plan, which was developed in partnership with Early Childhood Educators of BC, that encourages the creation of integrated child care, early care and learning and out-of-school programs. We have included a sample of their requests:
“An integrated system of early care and learning in BC is consistent with the principles that have been presented to this Committee over the years. The dollars must go into integrated programs.”
(Sharon Gregson, Coalition of Child Care Advocates of BC, Surrey public hearing)
‘”We recommend the upcoming budget contain a significant investment in a comprehensive early learning and care plan for children now under five.”
(Adrienne Montani, First Call: BC Child and Youth Advocacy Coalition, Vancouver public hearing)
“Priority of funds should be spent for supporting childcare services which help parents work and go to school.”
(Susie Myers, South Slocan, On-line survey 158)
“We urge the provincial government to invest in quality out-of-school programs…to enhance current supports offered to young families.”
(Carrie Wagner-Miller, Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada – Pacific Region, Written submission 246)
Conclusions
The Finance Committee is persuaded by the argument that investments in early learning are beneficial to society and cost-effective in the long run. We see the role of government as providing leadership in the development of “smart family policy”, with a variety of partners from the private and public sectors. We also propose that serious consideration be given to allocating additional resources for children and youth with disabilities, and for the development of seamless child care.
Children and youth recommendations
The Finance Committee recommends that the provincial government:
23. Provide additional funding for expansion of school-based early learning initiatives (eg StrongStart BC, neighbourhood learning centres); encourage more partnerships with parents, government and business; expand health check-ins for infants and toddlers in existing facilities, and allow flexibility for home visits, as needed; and provide leadership and initiate partnerships with all levels of government for funding, services and capital projects to decrease childhood vulnerability.
24. Improve resourcing to address any delays for early intervention therapy and autism services in order to facilitate the transition of children with special needs into the K-12 system.
25. Facilitate a seamless transfer of services and for youth with special needs transitioning into adulthood, and ensure sufficient resources are available to provide supports for adults with developmental disabilities and their families.
26. Investigate the feasibility of providing seamless child care to address the needs of working parents.
Honorable Mary Polak, Minister of Children and Family Development and Minister responsible for Child Care
cc. local media, local early care and learning programs, local school division partners, kindergarten teachers, provincial partners
On behalf of the West Kootenay child care programs including family child care homes I am writing about the absence of Regulated Child Care in the Government of BC advertisements directed at parents: Helping you prepare your children for tomorrow.
As the Minister responsible for Child Care you must be as dismayed as we are that there is no reference, in these government sponsored advertisements, to Regulated Child Care alongside Ready Set Learn, Strong Start and Full Day Kindergarten identified as Early Learning Programs in the print and radio advertisements. In our opinion, this is a serious oversight.
In British Columbia, approximately 145,000 children ages 0-5 have mothers in the paid labour force (2007), 60,000 of these children receive early learning and care in quality, regulated child care spaces (2007/08) by trained early childhood educators.
Quality aspects of appropriate training, child/staff ratios and group size are in place to best ensure developmentally appropriate practice. All aspects of children’s development are addressed through a play based curriculum guided by the B.C. Early Learning Framework. Children are receiving care and education at the earliest of ages which is most critical to success in school.
We look forward to future advertising which includes a recognition that Regulated Child Care is an integral part of a comprehensive strategy to meet the needs of all families, including those parents who balance caring and earning.
What is early learning? “Early learning refers to the emerging and expanding of young children’s physical, intellectual, emotional, social, and creative capacities” (British Columbia Early Learning Framework, pg.2)
THIS IS HAPPENING IN OUR CHILD CARE SYSTEM EVERY DAY
Thank you for consideration of our expressed concern.
On behalf of children, parents, early childhood educators and family child care providers in the West Kootenay
Dorothy Kaytor, Regional Early Years Coordinator
Kootenay Boundary Community Services Co-operative
David E. Park for Justice Institute of BC and the Vancouver Board of Trade
September 2010
Calgary Herald News Services
Child Care – A fast-growing company that went public in May on the TSX Venture Exchange announced a deal Tuesday to buy three Calgary child care facilities for $2.24 million, ….
The acquisition will add 283 licensed child care spaces to Edleun’s portfolio, increasing its total to 1,851 spaces in 20 centres that have been purchased or are in the process of being purchased. The company raised $40 million through two private placement offerings.
Economic Impact Analysis of Introduction of The Early Learning and Care System Proposed by Pascal for Ontario
By Robert Fairholm and Jerome Davis
The Centre for Spatial Economics for Atkinson Centre for Society and Child Development
Executive Summary / Full Report
Related article:
UK families face highest costs for childcare: Average weekly nursery bill is £160
By Daniel Martin
23rd August 2010
Working mothers have to fork out more for childcare in Britain than in any other country in the developed world.
A third of family income goes towards nurseries and childminders – almost four times the cost in Germany and three times that of France….
A study from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, a group of 32 industrialised nations, found that 33 per cent of a British family’s net income goes towards the cost of childcare.
This is higher than every other country in Europe and the rest of the Western world. German parents pay just 8 per cent of their net income towards childcare, while in France the figure is 11 per cent. Costs tend to be higher in English-speaking countries: 19 per cent in the U.S, 22 per cent in Canada, 28 per cent in New Zealand and 29 per cent in Ireland.
But none exceed the amount paid by British parents. The OECD average is just 13 per cent of income, the report says….
European countries tend to provide much more funding for childcare to allow mothers to continue in work. In Sweden, for example, pre-school places are available from the age of one, and no one pays more than 3 per cent of their monthly income per child.
The OECD report, Gender Brief, compared childcare costs before tax breaks and state help; and then childcare costs after this help. …
Willem Adema, one of the report’s authors, said: ‘The British system is geared towards lower income groups, with various tax credits focused at them….
Telegraph Journal
By Elsie Hambrook, chairwoman of the New Brunswick Advisory Council on the Status of Women
Who would have thought that, during a Canadian summer, so many would get angry about a government decision to collect less information? Probably not the federal government.
The federal government has managed to outrage marketers and feminist groups, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and stay-at home mothers, progressive economists and the Canadian Association of Business Economists, genealogists, investors, the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives and researchers and editorialists of all stripes.
What it did was announce …in next year’s national Census, it will not distribute the long census form to 20 per cent of Canadians, as in the past. The form will be replaced with a voluntary survey of some Canadians. …
The long form allowed Statistics Canada to tell us about ourselves. What proportion is bilingual? How many are handicapped? How many hours are spent on unpaid care of children or seniors? How many people have some high school education? How quickly are immigrants integrated? All of this sorted by province or region.
This is a devastating decision!
In a voluntary survey, only those who feel like responding do so. The people least likely to respond are the most vulnerable groups – the disadvantaged, aboriginal people, immigrants. This will make these groups even more invisible. Data from the voluntary survey will be biased, unreliable and not representative of the population mix. It will not be comparable to previous census information.
Facts are a good thing on which to base spending of public funds, even if they are inconvenient when they get in the hands of those who contradict us….
The decision will increase our ignorance about ourselves and make it easier for governments to manipulate us, as Richard Shearmur, the Canada Chair in Spatial Statistics and Public Policy, says.
Editorialists and critics have suggested that the federal government is doing this to limit the data and analysis coming from Statistics Canada, which the government sometimes finds inconvenient when the facts don’t support its agenda….
The worse news for anyone who cares about families is that the questions about household activity – hours worked without pay at child care, elder care or household tasks – may be dropped, even from the voluntary form. …
ctvmontreal.ca
Thousands of daycare operators in Quebec opened their doors two hours later than normal on Monday.
It was a pressure tactic by workers who are in the process of negotiating their first contract with the provincial government.
Employees at home-based daycares, represented by the CSQ, have been in negotiations since February, but the government has put talks on hold until the end of August.
The union says most of its 12,500 members work 60 to 65 hours a week for less than minimum wage.
Monday’s job action affected about 90,000 children, or roughly 40 percent of the children in daycare in Quebec.
The Australian
Today, 570 of the failed ABC centres will be transferred to the not-for-profit company GoodStart, a consortium that includes the charities Mission Australia and Brotherhood of St Laurence.
Taxpayers have lent GoodStart $15 million to help it buy the centres, through a seven-year federal government loan.
Childcare Minister Kate Ellis yesterday said the handover would increase the not-for-profit share of the childcare market from just over a quarter of the market to more than a third….
Childcare union the Liquor Hospitality and Miscellaneous Union yesterday welcomed the sale as “the end of a long and sad saga for childcare”.
LHMU assistant secretary Sue Lines said the new non-profit owners would be more stable than the listed ABC Learning, which collapsed with $1.6 billion in debts in November 2008, affecting more than 100,000 children and 13,000 workers in 1037 centres.
Donald Gutstein, Georgia Straight
Supporters of public education need to realize they’re in the middle of a war for its future, …. Lost in the debate are the goals of universally accessible, publicly funded education, such as preparing children for citizenship, cultivating a skilled work force, and developing critical-thinking skills…
Thanks to massive corporate backing and to the work over many decades of the Fraser Institute and similar think tanks around the world, market fundamentalism has extended its grip on much of public-policy debate in Canada and the United States….
If public-education supporters hope to counter the success of market fundamentalism, they must stop denying the free-market frame and start constructing a frame based on social justice, and they must be prepared to do this consistently for many years.
On April 28, YWCA Vancouver released the results of a new survey at a symposium on early learning and care. The survey, conducted by the YWCA and paid for by Vancity, produced some surprising results concerning public support for comprehensive family policy. The poll surveyed 800 respondents throughout BC and revealed overwhelming support for government spending on family services and support programs. However, it also revealed some popular misconceptions.
Family Support and Early Learning and Child Care
The survey demonstrated strong support for early learning and child care services regardless of age, region, gender and income level. Respondents overwhelmingly supported improving access to affordable child care in BC. By far the most popular policy options for achieving this goal were:
1) increasing affordable quality child care services and
2) additional income supports for low income parents.
There was also substantial support for additional government spending to ensure families and children get the help needed to succeed.
Popular Misconceptions
While the survey revealed a remarkable degree of public support for increased government spending on early learning and child care, it also demonstrated that BC residents shared some popular misconceptions around key issues. The majority of respondents severely underestimated the number of BC children considered vulnerable or at risk, while an overwhelming majority didn’t know that Canada ranks near last among OECD nations in support for families with young children.
Some key findings:
– 88% of respondents support the BC government in meeting its goal of reducing the number of vulnerable children to 15% by 2015.
To achieve the above goal:
– Read more about the YWCA’s approach to Universal Early Learning and Child Care
The Ontario legislature passed the Full-Day Early Learning Statute Law Amendment Act, 2010. The legislation includes a number of amendments, including clarifying the roles of teachers and early childhood educators in full-day early learning classrooms.
“Full-day early learning is a key part of the government’s Open Ontario plan to strengthen education in Ontario. It will increase student achievement, build a stronger workforce and help break the cycle of poverty.”
The Canberra Times
The Rudd Government copped some mild criticism last week for dumping its pre-election pledge to build more than 220 child-care centres. …It’s a shame, though, that the politics around Ms Ellis’s announcement was more discussed than the policy itself. …
[Ms Ellis] also argued that after Labor promised the extra centres, the collapse of ABC Learning had reshaped the industry. …
A more likely reason for the decision against building new centres is the changing nature of supply. The child-care sector’s rapid growth has attracted many businesses. An industry once run mostly by community groups is now dominated by private companies, which control three in four centres across Australia. Over time, they have demanded bigger subsidies to keep their fees affordable. It’s likely they have also lobbied against new centres, which would increase competition. Governments have complied, and taxpayers now foot up to half of the cost of child care. It’s a dangerous business model, as any future decision to cut these rebates could cripple exposed providers.
Perhaps it’s time for governments to stop treating child care as just another ”market”, to be guided by regulation and propped up with subsidies. …Child care is no longer a middle-class luxury; it is crucial to society.
This begs the question: should governments approach child care as they do schools? The consensus of educationalists is that early childhood learning experiences have a greater effect on a student’s future than primary or secondary school. Yet the public education system still reflects 20th-century thinking on when formal learning begins. Governments are the main provider of schools in Australia because they believe schooling is too important to be left entirely to the market. In contrast, only 3 per cent of child-care centres are government-owned and managed….
TORONTO /CNW Telbec/ – Parents and early childhood educators are being asked to keep the Pascal vision alive by insisting the Ontario government adopt the full plan for education and child care reform presented by its early learning advisor.
“Charles Pascal’s report was the best thing to hit education in two decades,” Annie Kidder of the parent organization, People for Education told a Queen’s Park press conference today. “But the Ontario government’s fragmented approach to implementation is jeopardizing its own strategy,” she said.
“Choosing to put in place only part of one recommendation in the report – full day learning for four and five year olds, operating on school days only – doesn’t meet the child care needs of families and leaves child care operators to ponder their continued viability,” she said.
Some of the problems lie with Bill 242 which amends the Education Act allowing school boards to operate full day learning and care programs.
“The failure to require school boards to operate the program year round and the government’s silence on how the needs of children under 3 years old and those 6-12 will be met is creating anxiety for parents and unanswered questions for school boards, municipalities and child care operators,” said Zeenat Janmohamed, a faculty member in Department of Early Childhood and Community Services at George Brown College.
In response some school boards have lobbied to have childcare agencies continue to operate before and after school activities. Advocates say this would effectively dismantle Pascal’s approach for a single, seamless, continuum of programming for children from birth to age 12.
“The Pascal report attacked the fragmentation that has two parallel programs serving the same children, while other children receive no service at all. Allowing school boards to contract out a portion of the program entrenches the fragmentation,” Janmohamed said. “Children will continue to bounce between different operators and early childhood educators will be divided between those who have good full time jobs working in schools and those who work part time in daycare topping and tailing the school day.”
Janmohamed urged educators and parents to stay the course and demand the comprehensive early learning system developed by the Premier’s early advisor. “Maintaining the $63-million in the recent Budget is good start to stabilizing child care. The government now needs to take the next steps and help child care programs refocus on younger children and support school boards to expand their approach to families. There is no shortage of children who need early learning and care but we need to make smart decisions about who does what and how to best maximize our investments in children,” she said.
Private Members’ Motions
Morning Sitting, Volume 12, Number 6
MOTION 6 — GOVERNMENT ACTION ON POVERTY REDUCTION
EXCERPT ONLY
S. Simpson: I move the following motion.
Be it resolved that this House discuss and debate that the BC Government should immediately develop a comprehensive poverty reduction strategy….
[L. Reid in the chair.]
At the last estimate there are about a half a million British Columbians today who live in poverty based on the federal standard, the low-income cutoff. Of those, about 140,000 are children. I would also point out that these are 2007 numbers, the last year that these statistics were available for. ….
What we know is that more than half of the people who live in poverty in this province today have a full-time income coming into their homes, but because of the levels of minimum wage, because of the levels of those incomes, people continue to live in poverty….
The cost of poverty is substantial. …
The other thing we know, when we look at British Columbia and the situation here, is that the National Council of Welfare, a federal non-profit organization that advises the federal government on issues related to welfare, has looked at this question of poverty across the country.
When they looked across the country, they determined that eight provinces in this country have succeeded in reducing their poverty rates…. “Eight provinces reached record low poverty rates in 2007. Only Ontario and British Columbia did not.”
This report also showed that no matter what standard you use, British Columbia has the highest poverty rates and has continually had the highest poverty rates in Canada, based on the work of the National Council of Welfare. They look at that whether it be the low-income cutoff or using the market basket measure. No matter which measurement you use, British Columbia has the highest levels of poverty in this country….
It’s time for us in this province to move forward, to put a poverty reduction strategy in place, to join the six other provinces in this country that are moving ahead with poverty reduction strategies — provinces from across the political spectrum. It’s time that we had a comprehensive plan that deals with housing, with child care, with training and with income levels….
N. Simons: I am pleased to add my support to the motion presented by my colleague calling for the government to establish a comprehensive child poverty reduction plan with targets and timelines, achievable outcomes, measurable outcomes so that we can look at the success or failure of the programs that we’re engaged in.
Now, we often hear about the statistics — how many children, what it represents, how many families live in poverty — and we really should remind ourselves that it’s not just a statistic. We’re talking about little children …if they happen to be living in poverty, they can see that their government has done nothing to address that in any comprehensive way.
The members opposite speak of various programs. Some of them are good programs. Most of the ones mentioned have been significantly cut recently. They all are programs that have been in place in one way or another for the past six years, yet we see six years of being the first in this country in terms of child poverty….
What is it that this government has against a comprehensive plan when it comes to addressing child poverty? Why is it? Is it because their failures are going to be enumerated for the public to see? Perhaps.
But I think that the goal at the end of the day is more important than this government saving face on their failure. It’s about children — children who are going to school hungry, children who are going to school unable to be properly supported in that environment, children who are going to school without access to programs that other children have because their parents don’t have the extra cost, with clothing and nutrition below the standard. We know what those outcomes are….
M. Elmore: I am very pleased to rise and speak in favour of my colleague calling for the province to adopt and implement a poverty reduction strategy. …
I just want to address one aspect in terms of…. Okay, how do we gauge and how do we measure the levels of poverty in the province? One of the measures is conducted by a study by the human early learning partnership at UBC measuring the rates of vulnerability in students, particularly their readiness going into kindergarten — the vulnerability rates. The study concluded that there is a rate of 29 percent of vulnerability in young children entering kindergarten — that they actually weren’t ready in terms of all the developmental aspects to be able to fully participate in kindergarten.
That’s certainly a concern, and the target laid out by the government is for a 15-by-15 — to lower the vulnerability rate to 15 percent by 2015. That’s certainly a worthy goal.
…. I want to address two main issues: one, to reduce poverty for those children and families who experience that vulnerability, early vulnerability problems, by ensuring that our investment in early childhood development, early learning and child care — that there is a comprehensive system that families can access, a system that provides for child care spaces and quality early learning, and parents can feel comfortable leaving their kids there.
In particular, I think what the shortage is in B.C. is the need for working families to have access to these spaces and for families, working parents, particularly working mothers who disproportionately are in the records of experiencing the highest poverty rates…. The support for those families in terms of being able to access the workforce and being able to support their families — that’s a necessity.
The benefits, as well, in terms of a comprehensive investment in early learning…. The scale that the report talks about is a significant investment of several billion dollars a year. The benefits would be to support children at these early years, zero to six — has found that those are the critical years in terms of optimal investment and development for children in terms of their psychological, social and intellectual development to enable them to really progress through school, to graduate and to be successful as well in pursue post-secondary studies, and that that is the best start in life.
It’s a benefit not only to children and support for families, but there is also a benefit to our economy in terms of increased productivity with that investment in those kids and the concept of investing in human capital or investing in people. Those early years are a fundamental window in terms of when government public policy can be most effective. So in terms of a comprehensive early learning and child care system, that’s important.
Providing that support not only for working families but also in terms of public policy to increase the maternity and also paternity leaves for parents to spend more quality time with their families….
I think those are the aspects that are important. I speak in favour of a universal, accessible, affordable and quality child care system. … We actually rank lowest in terms of our investment in early child care and early learning relative to the other OECD countries. So relative to the western industrialized countries, I think we have a long way to go.
In terms of who we’re talking about — families, particularly disproportionately affected by poverty; children; aboriginal children, aboriginal families; new immigrants; families who have children with disabilities…. These are the families, I think, that we need to target. We need to support and enable them and enable these kids — certainly the future of our province — the best start.
D. Thorne: It’s truly a pleasure for me to rise today and support the poverty reduction plan motion. …
These are the priority areas, with targets and timelines of two years, four years, six years, ten years — so simple, so easy: provide adequate and accessible income support for the non-employed; improve the earnings and working conditions of those in the low-wage workforce — and we all know that’s the lowest-wage workforce in Canada again this year, year after year after year, to our shame and to my personal disgust; improve food security for low-income individuals and families; address homelessness; adopt a comprehensive, affordable housing and supportive housing plan.
I don’t mean willy-nilly. … “We’ll do something here; we’ll do something there.” They mean a plan — targets and timelines and measurable outcomes.
No. 5: provide universal, publicly afforded child care. Now, Madam Speaker, I’m going to stop on that one because I know that the Speaker herself is very interested in this topic, and I know that the member from West Vancouver talks about the great gains that have been made in child care.
Well, I’d like to quote, from 2007, the B.C. Chamber of Commerce — not a known official opposition group, as we all know — which says: “B.C. has chosen not to prioritize child care. The cost of this decision is having an enormous negative-quality impact on the ability of B.C. business to both attract women, young families and skilled workers in general to the workforce.”
So the B.C. Chamber of Commerce doesn’t agree with the government of British Columbia that they have prioritized child care, and they’re obviously very concerned about it in terms of the economy, something I believe the government believes it has a bit of a halo around, unlike…. You know, they say that we couldn’t run a peanut stand. Well, I’m beginning to think the shoe should be on the other foot….
I’d just like to finish with one comment by the Premier’s own Progress Board, the ninth report, which ranked B.C. eighth out of ten for social condition. It’s eight out of ten — dropped two places from sixth-place ranking the year before — on the social condition measure that’s based on the percentage of families with incomes below the after-tax low-income cutoff and on birth rates, personal property crime, etc.
This is the government’s own Progress Board. If you can’t listen to the opposition, if you can’t listen to the 299 hands-on workers who know the people we’re talking about, for goodness’ sake, I expect this government to listen to the progress report that they appointed.
Federal funding under the Early Learning and Child Care Agreement ended in 2006-07 with a final bulk payment of $253 million to the province. Ontario elected to spread that funding out over four years, with the money coming to an end this year.
Federation of Canadian Municipalities
Canada’s social safety net is fraying, cities strain to fill the gaps says new report from FCM
OTTAWA, March 24 /CNW Telbec/ – The federal and provincial retreat from traditional social transfers in the 1990s has frayed Canada’s social safety net, and cities are now struggling to fill the growing gaps.
That trend, exacerbated by the current recession and growing urbanization, is the principal finding of a new report from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM), entitled Mending Canada’s Frayed Social Safety Net: The role of municipal governments. This is the sixth report in a series looking at quality-of-life issues and indicators in Canada’s urban centres.
“We have a new class of working poor in our country; waiting lists for affordable housing that keep getting longer; and people struggling to get to work and find childcare,” said FCM President, Mayor Basil Stewart of Summerside, P.E.I. “More and more, the only things giving these people a fighting chance are the services provided by municipal governments.”
In addition to direct social services, such as affordable housing, emergency shelters, and subsidized childcare, municipal governments deliver public services that help millions of Canadians earn a living and raise their families, like public transit, recreation programs and libraries.
The report looks at the changing face of poverty and the growing reliance on municipal social services for many vulnerable groups in the 24 urban communities that make up FCM’s Quality of Life Reporting System. According to the report, cities are doing what they can to fill the gaps created by federal and provincial program cuts but their limited resources have meant difficult trade-offs.
“Often we have no choice but to rob Peter to pay Paul; deferring investments in roads or water treatment to pay for affordable housing,” says Stewart.
Municipal finances are not robust enough to continue supporting these added responsibilities without help, adds Stewart.
“Not only do we have to make do with just eight cents out of every tax dollar collected, but our forced reliance on the property tax means that we often have to tax the very people we’re trying to help. This challenge is only going to get bigger as cities and towns continue to grow, attracting the lion’s share of our new immigrants.”
Mr. Stewart says the report’s findings support FCM’s call for continued federal support for cities.
“New growth, the recession, and the legacy of the 1990s have changed Canada and are taking a huge toll at street-level. We can’t go on pretending the system isn’t broken. All governments–and all political parties–need to acknowledge the problem and they need to respond.”
News article summarizes some of the facts:
Report: Canadian cities struggle with social services