Budget cuts worry child advocates
By Mark Hasiuk
Vancouver Courier
24 Mar 06

The looming city budget must maintain levels of funding for Vancouver childcare centres, says a local childcare advocate.

"We cannot afford to lose any of the civic funding," said Sharon Gregson, director of childcare services at the Collingwood Neighbourhood House, a community centre that offers services for infants, toddlers and school-age children.

Gregson pointed to the cost-cutting measures of the new Conservative Stephen Harper government, and the erosion of provincial social spending since 2001 under B.C. Liberal Premier Gordon Campbell, as proof the city needs to continue providing money for childcare.

"We're fighting a battle federally, we're fighting a battle provincially, we can't afford to be fighting a battle municipally," she said.

Gregson, who is also the spokesperson for the Coalition of Childcare Advocates of B.C., spoke at city hall recently and encouraged the NPA-dominated council to maintain its commitments to community centres that run childcare programs.

Although the province pays the operating costs at Collingwood, the bulk of the centre's budget comes from parent fees. City money has helped poorer families access Collingwood's services. The city provides funding to childcare centres in the form of grants that can be spent by the individual centres as they see fit.

Leslie Thomas, the childcare manager at the Britannia Community Services Centre in the Commercial Drive area, said Britannia has received city grants since the mid-'90s. The grants help fund its food program, including hot lunches to allow children to eat together in a home-like environment.

She said if city funding was cut, changes would be made to the food program that feeds up to 125 pre-school and school-age children per day. "Whether we take away the hot meal program and the staff that goes with it would depend on our city grants."

In 2004, Britannia received $17,000 in city grants, equaling roughly five per cent of its overall budget of $363,900.

Although this may seem like a relatively small figure, Thomas said any reduction in funding has a ripple effect on the entire community centre. "We'd have to look at trimming the overall quality of our program."

NPA Coun. Peter Ladner, whose party promised a return to "fiscal responsibility" during last fall's election campaign, said city council is taking a close look at all community services, including childcare.

Ladner would not speculate on future cuts in city funding, but said council must recognize the services local taxpayers should pay for.

"There's an endless amount of social services we could be providing in all areas, if we decided to pick up all the downloading from other levels of government," he said, noting that childcare has traditionally been the responsibility of the provincial and federal governments. "We have to be careful about how much further we get into it."