Fears over child-care plan
Salmon Arm Observer
Feb 22, 2006

Shuswap Day Care received a $20,000 child-care operating grant that went to wages. If the operating grant is cut the day care will have to raise fees to cover costs, making them unaffordable for some parents.

By Barb Brouwer
EXCERPT

While they don't know all the details, children's advocates are sure of one thing: the Conservative government's decision to kill an historic, five-year early learning and child-care agreement will have a profound impact here.

It will be dumped after one year, leaving parents and children in the lurch, according to local child-care providers and early learning providers. "I think it's pretty unethical of them is what I think," says an emphatic Liz Bateman, director at Jack and Jill Day care. "I haven't heard anything from parents, I think they're so damn busy trying to pay for day care they don't know what's happening."

Karen Bubola, Shuswap Day Care manager, says her day care received a $20,000 child-care operating grant that went to wages.

"We did that so we'd have good staff to care for the kids," Bubola says. "If the new government bans that, we won't be able to afford to pay those wages."

Bubola says, in the Liberal agreement, the subsidy for lower- and middle-income parents went from $368 to $550 per child aged three to five years and more parents were eligible for the subsidy.

"Sixty-nine thousand more parents were eligible for some sort of subsidy," she says.

Bubola is also worried about the capital grants portion of the agreement, which this year allowed Shuswap Day Care to replace carpets and made upgrades that would otherwise not have been possible.

If the operating grant is cut, Bubola says the day care will have to raise fees to cover costs, making them unaffordable for some parents. As a non-profit group, Bubola says Shuswap Day Care's fees are among the lowest in town. But, she worries, if other private day-care facilities have to raise their fees, it will be more than many parents can afford. "We worked so hard to get it (the agreement), it's been many years educators have been working towards positive changes, finally getting the money we needed," she laments. "Now kids could be going into unregulated and maybe unsafe care."

Still unsure of how exactly the cuts will affect child care and early learning programs, Bubola says her society has talked to local Conservative MP Colin Mayes.

"He has agreed to meet with us so we're hoping to hear a little more about what's happening," she says. "When we talked through e-mail, he didn't think it would have that much effect on us."

Lynne Wickett, executive director of the Shuswap Children's Association's Child Care Resource and Referral Program, says the move will have an incredibly negative effect on child care but also a profound effect on literacy programs.

"There's been a recognition the time you can make the most significant impact is before school age," she says.

A November 2005 Ministry of Children and Family Development consultation paper maintains the years between birth and age six are a critical time in a child's life.

"The nurturing that occurs in early childhood influences health, well-being and learning skills for a lifetime."