OTTAWA — The gap between rich and poor in Canada is rising at a faster pace than it is in the U.S., the country with the largest gap in income equality of 17 peer countries, according to a report Tuesday from the Conference Board of Canada.
“Canada had the fourth largest increase in income inequality among its peers,” said Anne Golden, chief executive of the Conference Board.
“Even though the U.S. currently has the largest rich-poor income gap among these countries, the gap in Canada has been rising at a faster rate.”
The trend has been underway since the mid-1990s, the Ottawa think-tank said….
“High inequality both raises a moral question about fairness and can contribute to social tensions,” Golden said….
The board’s study measures Canada against 17 peer countries belonging to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.
It found that between the mid-1990s and the late 2000s, income inequality rose in 10 of 17 peer countries — including Canada — while it remained unchanged in Japan and Norway, and declined in five countries. Sweden, Finland, and Denmark had the three largest increases in income inequality during the 1990s and 2000s, but all three are still considered low-inequality countries.
Governments spend a great deal of time and effort on massaging their messages to the public. And this was on full display in the B.C. government’s recently updated fiscal plan.
In the first quarterly report, Finance Minister Kevin Falcon revealed that this year’s deficit will rise from $769 million to more than $2.8 billion. For 2012-13, the deficit would increase from $434 million to $805 million.
According to the update, that’s due mostly to slower-than-expected economic growth and the cost of repaying a $1.6-billion HST signing bonus to the federal government.
Following the ministry’s lead, the mainstream media linked the bleaker outlook to the demise of the harmonized sales tax.
The fiscal update also suggests there is no money in the kitty to pay for any public-sector salary increases….
Anytime a government wants to make the books look better (like before an election), it can increase the forecasted economic-growth rate. And when it wants to make things look worse (like before negotiating public-sector contracts), it can reduce its growth estimates….
But I can’t help but wonder if this recently updated B.C. government fiscal plan had more to do with upcoming labour negotiations than with anything else. As the February 2009 budget demonstrated, the Ministry of Finance is willing to massage the numbers upward when it suits the politicians in power. It’s not a surprise that the ministry might do the opposite when Falcon wants to present a grimmer picture to the public.
TORONTO — Governments that say they can’t afford to invest in affordable child care are wrong, says a Montreal economist who is releasing a new analysis of Quebec’s popular $7-a-day program Wednesday.
After 12 years, the Quebec scheme more than pays for itself through mothers’ annual income and consumption taxes, says Pierre Fortin, an economics professor at the University of Quebec at Montreal.
For every dollar Quebec invests, it recoups $1.05 while Ottawa receives a 44-cent windfall, he says.
“The argument can no longer be that governments cannot afford it. This program is paying for itself. It is self-financing. That is the main finding,” says Fortin, who is in Toronto to attend an economic forum on child care at the Ontario Institute for Child Studies.
Quebec introduced publicly-funded all-day kindergarten for 5-year-olds in 1997 with $5-a-day after-school care in every school where families requested it.
It began offering $5-a-day daycare for 4-year-olds in 1998. Each year another age was added and by 2000, all children from birth to age 5 were included. The daily parent fee rose to $7 in 2004. About 50 per cent of children under age 5 are currently enrolled in the program.
By 2008, about 70,000 more women with young children had entered the workforce who would not otherwise have been working, a 3.8 per cent increase, Fortin found. The ripple effect of their employment pumped an additional $5.2 billion into the Quebec economy, boosting the province’s Gross Domestic Product by 1.7 per cent.
The increased economic activity, which includes mothers’ income and consumption taxes, more than covered the province’s $1.6 billion annual child-care costs that year. (The province subsidizes each spot by about $10,000 annually.) And it poured more than $700 million in additional revenue into federal coffers….
Previous cost-benefit studies of Quebec’s $7-a-day daycare looked only at mothers’ income taxes and lower government transfers and pegged the benefits at 40 cents for every dollar spent, Fortin says.
But those studies neglected to include the economic impact of working mothers’ increased purchasing power, including increased consumption taxes, investment and corporate taxes, he says….
TORONTO – The average cost of raising a child born in 2010 is US$226,920, according to data released Friday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
In Canada, the figure is slightly lower, according to Tom Drake, an Edmonton-based financial analyst and the owner and head writer for Canadian Finance blog.
According to data by Manitoba Agriculture, Drake estimates the average expenses related to raising a child to 19-years-old is CAD$191,665….
According to Drake’s calculations, the bottom line of an average Canadian family will be greatest hit by child care costs associated with raising a child in the first 12 years.
Accommodation costs like furnishings and other household operations is the next greatest expense, followed by food expenses.
“Interestingly, the data I’ve looked at shows boys eating more groceries, but only $500 total throughout their childhood,” Drake says about the cost difference between raising boys and girls….
“There are many expenses that can be reduced when you have more than one child, especially if they’re the same sex. Everything from furniture to clothing can be handed down,” Drake says….
To see the chart of estimated costs involved with raising a child in Canada. [The figures were compiled from Manitoba Agriculture data and adjusted to reflect inflation in 2011.]
The cuts to supports for people with “developmental disabilities” – what we once called the mentally handicapped – are taking a terrible toll. And worse times are ahead.
According to Community Living B.C., the Crown corporation set up to provide services, the amount of funding per client has fallen every year since it was created six years ago.
In 2006/7, the first full year of operation, funding provided an average $51,154 per client. This year, funding will be $45,306. By 2013, according to the government projections, it will be cut to $41,225 per client.
If you factor in inflation, by 2013 the funding available for each client will be 30 per cent less than it was in 2006. (There is a small amount of additional money for a personalized supports initiative; it doesn’t change the reality of the annual cuts.)
The result is damaging. People who have lived in group homes for years, happily and in a family-like setting, are being forced out as homes are closed to save money.
People who once had full lives – supported in jobs and social activities – are now spending all day alone. The supports that involved them in the community, helped them keep jobs and gave them rich lives have been pulled away.
Waiting lists for services are growing and, in many cases, services are just denied. No money, says CLBC….
Teens who have been thriving with effective supports face disaster when they become adults…
But CLBC says it has no money. Jonathan will go on a wait list, with no real chance of getting support.
At the other end of the age spectrum, CLBC reports that people with developmental disabilities are living longer and needing more support as they age.
At the same time, many aging family caregivers, usually parents, can no longer provide as much support and are turning to CLBC.
They are finding the support isn’t there.
That is particularly cruel. All parents worry about their children. But most enter old age knowing that their sons and daughters are launched.
Imagine the anguish in fearing that your death or incapacity will leave your developmentally disabled adult child at risk of exploitation or neglect. Knowing that the efforts you made to help ensure a safe, productive, satisfying life could end in tragedy.
The B.C. Association for Community Living has supported CLBC since its creation and continues to applaud the efforts to provide individualized supports.
But executive director Faith Bodnar says underfunding has reached a critical point. “Insufficient funding to CLBC has meant reacting to crisis only and the real danger of relegating people to lives of isolation and subsistence as their supports and services are cut,” she wrote this month. “For people with developmental disabilities and their families it has created uncertainty, desperation, vulnerability and real suffering as they experience cuts to services or are placed on waitlists without hope.”…
Footnote: CLBC notes that part of the pressure from services comes from the province’s “five great goals,” set by the government in 2005. The third goal called for B.C. to “build the best system of supports for persons with disabilities, those with special needs, children at risk and seniors.” It turns out families believed the government was serious.
From Well-being — Canadians can’t complain: Better Life Index
Renata D’Aliesio, Globe and Mail
All in all, Canadians are a pretty comfortable and happy lot.
The country ranks at or near the top in many of 11 well-being indicators in a new quality of life index, unveiled Tuesday by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. Only Australia topped Canada.
“Overall, I think Canada seems to be a pretty good place to be,” said Matthias Rumpf, an OECD spokesman in Washington. “But,” he cautioned, “it shouldn’t make them complacent about everything.”
…. The OECD’s comparison of 34 member countries shows Canada has one of the best education systems in the world and employment remains relatively high, even amid a lingering economic downturn.
Child care
Finding affordable and good quality child care is a challenge for parents across Canada, the OECD notes. Roughly 40 per cent of children under the age of six are enrolled in formal care programs, lagging behind the international economic organization’s standards. Single parents are particularly vulnerable. Their child-care costs are among the highest in the OECD.
“I think we really are off the mark when it comes to understanding the importance of child care to economic stability and economic growth in Canada,” said Paulette Senior, YWCA Canada’s chief executive. “We need to take it as seriously as we take education, as we take health care.” ….
WASHINGTON /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — More than 600 police chiefs, sheriffs, prosecutors and other law enforcement leaders in all 50 states delivered a letter to Congress, urging them to reject proposed cuts to early care and education programs as they continue intense negotiations over the federal budget. In the letter, the law enforcement leaders said that they support high-quality early education as a critical strategy to reduce crime, lower prison costs and save taxpayers money.
The national anti-crime organization Fight Crime: Invest in Kids is sponsoring a nationwide law enforcement campaign to promote support for high-quality early childhood education. Law enforcement leaders across the country are signaling their support during visits to early learning programs.
The letter to Congress from law enforcement leaders comes as the National Institute of Early Education Research (NIEER)—a leading research organization on early learning—prepares to release a comprehensive state-by-state survey of pre-kindergarten programs on Tuesday. The NIEER report is expected to show that severe cuts to some state preschool programs has caused thousands of children to lose early care and education services. For more information, go to http://www.nieer.org
Congress and state legislatures are considering spending cuts that could force hundreds of thousands of children to lose access to early care and education programs, adding to the vast unmet need of young, at-risk children who cannot attend. However, a new series of research briefs called “Pay Now or Pay Much More Later” details evidence showing that high-quality early care and education can help at-risk children succeed, significantly reduce the likelihood that they will commit crimes and save taxpayer dollars from reduced prison expenses and other costs.
While overall crime rates are decreasing in many jurisdictions, the nation spends almost $50 billion each year on corrections with over 2.3 million adults locked up in either state or federal prisons and local jails. Nationwide, state expenditures on corrections quadrupled between 1982 and 2008, according to U.S. Department of Justice and Census Bureau data.
A long-term study of Michigan’s Perry Preschool found that at-risk children who did not participate in the high-quality program were five times more likely to be chronic offenders by age 27 than children who did attend. Because of their increased involvement in crime, the children who did not attend were 86 percent more likely to be sentenced to jail or prison by the age of 40…..
Law enforcement leaders are urging policymakers to protect and strengthen early care and education programs. …
1910: The National Council of Women go public in favour of suffrage.
1916: Between January and April, women in Manitoba won the right to vote in provincial elections followed by women in Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario.
1918: Women over 21 get the right to vote at the federal elections. Women also won the franchise in Nova Scotia.
1919: Women get the right to run for election to the House of Commons, and also get the right to vote in provincial elections in New Brunswick.
1921: Agnes Macphail was the first woman elected to the House of Commons.
1922: Right to vote in P.E.I. elections extended to women.
1925: Women in Newfoundland get the right to vote.
1927: The Supreme Court of Canada ruled that women are not “persons” under the law.
1929: The Famous Five appealed their case the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in England and win. Women are declared “persons” under the law and qualify to be appointed to the Senate.
1934: Women in New Brunswick allowed to run for provincial office.
1940: Women in Quebec finally allowed to vote provincially.
1967: Royal Commission on the Status of Women launched.
1970: Report of the Royal Commission of the Status of Women is tabled.
1971: The first federal minister responsible for the status of women is appointed. Robert Andras is the first of seven men appointed to the position.
1972: Rosemary Brown became the first black women elected to provincial office in Canada. She was an MLA in B.C. for 14 years. 1986: The federal employment equity Act is passed.
The history of IWD is a history of the struggle of ordinary women to throw off the burden of the oppression and discrimination they faced. In 1908, 15,000 women marched through New York City demanding shorter hours, better pay and voting rights. The first National Women’s Day was celebrated in 1909 to demand right to vote, be trained, hold office and an end to discrimination on March 19.
Socialist women in Germany and Russia fought for an international women’s day to recognize the struggles of working-class women for better jobs, training and working conditions within the context of the fight for women’s suffrage and at the same time to push the socialist movement, massive at that time, to take seriously women’s demand for the vote and political participation. From the beginning, IWD was about a more inclusive women’s movement and a more feminist political movement.
In 1911, the first International Women’s Day marches were held across Europe. A few days later on March 25, 146 immigrant women were killed in the Triangle Factory fire because the bosses locked the doors from the outside. Russian socialist Alexander Kollentai proposed that the next year IWD would honour these women and the theme of IWD became bread and roses and the date March 8.
At the time, most women workers in Canada were domestic or textile workers. As soon as they got married or pregnant they were fired. They made up to 80% less than men for the same job. So the demand for bread was obvious.
As the song Bread and Roses, which has become an anthem of the women’s movement says, “Hearts starve as well as bodies, give us bread but give us roses.” The rose is a powerful symbol of the female and of love. That symbol comes not only from its beauty but also from its tenacity. ….
In Europe, women’s groups continued to celebrate but the IWD tradition was lost in North America even once a new generation challenged patriarchy in the late 60s and early 70s. On the 50th anniversary of IWD in 1960, delegates from women’s groups in 73 countries adopted a declaration for the political, economic and social rights of women. Then in 1975 the UN declared International Women’s Year and women’s liberation became official….
We have achieved a revolution in the status of women in the hundred years since IWD began. Our grandmothers who fought those early battles couldn’t even have imagined how much closer to liberation we are today. But we have not yet fully transformed the ancient system of patriarchy that continues to promote male domination, militarism and the objectification and oppression of women. That will take a new generation, of women and men, to take power out of the hands of the politicians, the corporations, including the media, and the experts, into their own hands and share it more equally and fairly.
Laurel Rothman, Katherine Scott and Martha Friendly National Post
As Canada gears up for a possible federal election, child care has roared back onto the public agenda. Tuning into the media on child care last week was a strangely déjà-vu experience. Is this 2011 or are we back in the run-up to the 2006 federal election? The public discourse on childcare has not changed in the past five years; but, regrettably, while this sterile and shopworn debate is playing out in the media and Parliament, another generation of families and children are the losers.
A recent National Post editorial weighed in on the subject, recycling familiar phrases: “institutionalized daycare,” “pushing babies out of the nest,” “farming children out to strangers at a tender age,” and “forcing” parents to use “a massive coast-to-coast daycare program.” In this day and age, these represent contrarian views that are out- of-touch with realities faced by families across Canada on a daily basis and inconsistent with the abundant research on children and families.
The idea of a national childcare program has been around since the Royal Commission on the Status of Women put it on the political agenda in 1970. Arguing that reliable child care is fundamental to women’s equality in employment, the Commission recommended that “the federal government immediately take steps to enter into agreements with provinces leading to adoption of a national Daycare Act.”
Most mothers now work outside the home — the first good reason Canada needs a national childcare program. Since the Royal Commission’s report, mothers’ labour-force participation has more than doubled. Young mothers work to contribute to family income, to keep their families out of poverty and to pursue careers — just like young fathers. As the Vanier Institute of the Family notes: “Most women and men expect to have jobs and careers. [Given] the high cost of living, most families require two earners to achieve an average standard of living.”
Knowledge about young children acquired over the last two decades provides the second — at least as compelling — good reason Canada needs a national child-care program. We know that young children can — and do — thrive in enriching environments outside their homes, with other adults as well as their parents, and through interacting with other children, even at an early age.
In the last 20 years, extensive research has shown that good early childhood services play a valuable role in early childhood. It is exceedingly clear that quality matters. An expert American panel studying developmental science concluded: “The quality of child care children receive is linked to virtually every measure of development that has been studied.”
Other things, such as families’ resources or vulnerability also make a difference. So does the child’s age — which is what motivates those who advocate for child care to support well-paid, year-long flexible parental leave as complementary to child care. Overall, the research solidly supports the benefits of high-quality early childhood education and child care for young children, whether mothers are sole-support, low- or middle-income, in the labour force or at-home, whether children are in early childhood programs for part or all of the day. New studies regularly appear that corroborate these ideas.
A third good reason why Canada should have a national child care program is that early childhood systems are shown to be good for society overall in several ways, including providing hefty economic stimulus benefits, as recent Canadian research shows. Inclusive early childhood programs can also offer “a welcome for every child” — newcomer, special needs, advantaged and disadvantaged — in the best Canadian tradition. And universal child care as one part of a strategy to fight poverty is a given.
What does “national child care” mean? Not a “massive coast-to-coast program” but provincially-designed early-childhood systems and locally-managed programs supported by an overarching national policy framework analogous to Medicare. Not “farming children out to strangers at a tender age” but strengthening and extending maternity, parental, and fathers’ leave and ensuring more family time. Not “forced” attendance but offering families with diverse needs some good options amongst which to choose.
A national child-care program will have clear goals, objectives, targets and timetables — and ongoing evaluation — participation by three levels of government and the community, a well-planned approach and adequate public spending. However, without the financial and policy participation of the federal government — which represents all Canadians — early childhood education and care will continue to be inadequate, fragmented, inequitable, and erratic, even if some provinces are trying to modernize their programs.
Good child care so parents can work, study and participate in their communities while children thrive is in the best interests of all Canadians — as are public education, publicly-funded universities and publicly-funded health care. A thoughtful national child-care program can become a real social program like those at which Canada used to excel.
Laurel Rothman is the national co-ordinator of Campaign 2000, a Canadian public education movement aimed at ending child poverty. Katherine Scott is director of Programs at the Vanier Institute of the Family, a think-tank devoted to strengthening Canadian families. Martha Friendly is founder and executive director of the Childcare Resource and Research Unit, a policy group that focuses on early-childhood education and care.
February 6 marks the 5th anniversary of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s cancellation of a national child care program and child care advocates and women’s groups have a message for the government: Canada urgently needs a public system of early childhood education and care.
“Cancelling the national child care program has put a huge burden on low, modest and middle income families,” said Sue Delanoy of the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada. “Mr. Harper claims he’s delivered ‘choice in child care’ but the facts show that for most families, the options are severely limited. What families need is a quality system that’s accessible and affordable for everyone.”
In 2006 the Conservatives’ first act in government was to terminate federal-provincial agreements that would have established a new $1 billion a year national program. Instead the government is spending twice as much on its substitute Universal Child Care Benefit which pays $100/month to parents for each child under age six. However fees for infant care in some Canadian cities can be higher than $1,200 a month.
Laurel Rothman of Campaign 2000, a national group fighting child poverty explained: “The Harper government has spent $11 billion in scarce public funds and has nothing to show. Most parents are still scrambling to find child care. Instead, we could have been building a real child care system that by now could have offered 500,000 more families a choice of quality services.”
A decline in growth of regulated child care spaces has made finding good child care even harder. Many families are forced to rely on unregulated care and on the growing for-profit child care sector. In 2008 there were regulated child care spaces for just 20 per cent of 0-5 year olds, with rural communities and children with special needs even more poorly served. International child care studies rank Canada behind even the United States and Australia.
“Five years ago, Mr. Harper made a choice that has put many parents and especially women in a tough dilemma,” said Paul Moist, national president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE). “Parents who have to go to work don’t have choices. They can’t find a quality space and can’t afford the high cost. It shouldn’t be this way. A public option would give families the quality choices for their kids that all parents want.”
Child care advocates note that five years later, Harper’s choice doesn’t address the actual cost of child care, doesn’t build for the future, and makes finding quality affordable child care a serious challenge for Canadian families.
Signed by: Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada; Campaign 2000; Childcare Resource and Research Unit; Canadian Union of Public Employees; Ad-Hoc Coalition for Women’s Equality and Human Rights; Canadian Federation of University Women
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Five years on, children still wait for quality care Toronto Star
February 4, 2011
Laurie Monsebraaten
…think back to the frigid February morning in 2006 …
Coincidentally in Ottawa that day, many harried parents were grieving an untimely death.
In his first policy announcement as prime minister, Stephen Harper took an axe to Canada’s year-old, $5-billion national child-care plan — a plan aimed at helping … and tens of thousands of young children attend affordable daycare while their mothers worked.
“It is a day that will live in infamy,” says child-care expert Martha Friendly of the Childcare Resource and Research Unit, which has been tracking Canada’s lack of progress for decades.
On Thursday in the Commons, Harper’s human resources minister, Diane Finley, rubbed salt in the wound when she said reviving the national child-care program would force parents “to have other people raise their children.”
The remark, which drew outrage in Ottawa and across the country, has propelled the issue back onto the political agenda with the Liberals and NDP vowing to make child care an issue in the next federal election.
Without a national child-care plan, Canada seems doomed to remain a child-care laggard on the international stage.
A 2008 study by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) ranked Canada dead last with Ireland in early learning and child-care services among 25 developed countries.
Friendly’s data shows fewer than 20 per cent of Canadian children under age 6 have access to government-regulated care. Meanwhile, more than 70 per cent of mothers of young children are in the paid labour force — one of the highest workforce participation rates for mothers in the developed world.
This “child-care gap” shows how heavily families rely on informal child-care arrangements, she says.
Many of these arrangements include extended family members and trusted neighbours, and serve children and families well.
But numerous studies have shown that unregulated, home-based child-care businesses often fail to meet children’s developmental needs. Sometimes the care can be harmful….
… Sultana Jahangir, knows all too well how immigrant women and their children get lost in the city’s low-income apartment towers.
“They become isolated and depressed,” says Jahangir, who founded the South Asian Women’s Rights Organization in 2007 to push for more subsidized child care. “It is not good for their children.”
“These women need child care so they can go to school, improve their English and get work to provide for their families,” Jahangir says. “The children need it so their mothers are happy and they are ready for school.”
Few would seriously argue that finding a caregiver on the Internet or a grocery store bulletin board is an acceptable “choice” for parents who must work, especially if they are poor or newcomers to Canada, says Friendly.
According to Friendly’s most recent survey of Canadian child care in 2008, there are just 867,000 government-regulated child-care spots, barely enough for one in five kids under age 13.
“Mothers’ labour force participation is one of the most significant social shifts of the past four decades, but the child-care situation has not changed fundamentally since the 1980s,” she says.
The city of Toronto oversees about 56,600 spaces in licensed centres and home daycares. But there are just 24,000 subsidies and more than 17,000 children are on the waiting list.
Even for families that can afford the $10,000 to $15,000 yearly cost of licensed care, the lack of spaces means parents have to put their names on daycare waiting lists before their children are born.
Building a system of high-quality early-childhood care and education creates jobs and allows parents to work and pay taxes, the UNICEF report said.
Canada’s poor showing represents a lost opportunity for economic growth at a time of economic uncertainty, said the report by UNICEF’s Innocenti Research Centre in Florence, Italy.
“Investing in early child care and education is a key strategy to respond to current economic challenges and to promote economic stimulus and recovery,” said UNICEF Canada in its response to the report.
Ottawa must act by introducing “measurable standards, guidelines and appropriate funding for child care and solutions by July 2009,” the agency added.
The Harper government makes no apologies for its child-care policies.
Ottawa is providing “choice in child care” by sending $100 monthly cheques to parents for every child under age 6….
Some 1.5 million families receive the Universal Child Care Benefit on behalf of about 2 million children, Sparrow said. About $2.6 billion will be spent this year.
Ottawa also spends about $760 million through the Child Care Expense Deduction, which offsets child-care expenses for parents.
In addition, Ottawa transfers $1.2 billion annually to the provinces to spend on child care, Sparrow said. But it is up to provinces to determine how best to spend that money, he noted.
Under the previous Liberal government’s five-year child-care plan, $1 billion more would have been transferred to the provinces annually to build a system of high quality, affordable and accessible care. The chance to create almost 240,000 more government-funded spaces was lost when Harper derailed the plan, estimates the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada.
The $12 billion Harper has spent sending child-care cheques to parents since 2006 could have provided high quality child care for another 500,000 children by now, advocates say….
Neither the Liberals nor the NDP would scrap the $100 cheques.
But both parties would return to building a national child-care system.
NDP child-care critic Olivia Chow says the cornerstone of her party’s plan would be legislation to ensure federal money earmarked for child care goes toward high quality, affordable, accessible and non-profit care.
Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff says “a national system of early learning and child care for every child that needs it” is one of his top three or four priorities.
If elected, he would work with the provinces and child-care experts and move quickly to make up for lost time.
“Everywhere I go I see queues, people waiting; it’s an urgent demand of Canadian families,” he said in an interview. “It will be a commitment in the first Liberal budget.”
Ignatieff would not indicate how much the Liberals would invest, but said it would be “substantial” and “fully costed” in the party’s platform when an election is called….
Progress Board reports show Liberal record barely average
Paul Willcocks, Feb 17, 2011
Two things should stand out. First, on the board’s economy, innovation and education indicators, the province improved in six measures, went backward on seven and stayed the same on three.
It is a middling performance. A little worse than other provinces, but basically simply average…. B.C. went backward on three other social and health measures. It has fallen from the sixth-worst province for poverty to last. Infant health, as measured by low birth weight, has gone from second to fifth place.
….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.
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)
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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)
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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
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. …
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.
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:
89% supported increasing affordable quality child care services.
83% supported increasing income supports for low income parents.
60% supported an investment of $1 billion or more additional government spending to ensure families and children get the help needed to succeed.
37% supported spending “whatever it takes” to achieve this goal.
70% underestimated the number of children in BC who are ‘vulnerable’ or ‘at risk’. (The current number in BC is 29%).
Only 14% correctly guessed that Canada ranks near last among OECD nations in support for families with young children.
