Monthly child-care benefit garners lukewarm response
Times Colonist (Victoria)
May 3, 2006
By: Louise Dickson
EXCERPT:

The Conservative government kept its promise to introduce a universal child-care benefit of $1,200 a year to parents for each child under the age of six.

But parents and Greater Victoria day-care operators say it's not enough to help families cope with their child-care needs.

"I would prefer to see a national child-care program," engineering student Darko Stelkic said Tuesday, while picking up his son Nikolas at the UVic day-care centre. "But I also heard about it for years from the previous government. If this government can do something in the short term, I'm for it."

"This kind of solution, I'm not sure it will really help families," said UVic finance professor Basma Majerbi, who pays $656 a month for her four-year-old at the day-care centre. "I paid $800 a month last year for child care, and I prefer a system where there is universal child care, like in Quebec. I used to live there and it was just paradise."

The child-care benefit will start July 1 and will cost $3.7 billion over two years. The benefit will not trigger clawbacks for the Canada Child Tax Benefit or the GST credit, and it will not reduce the amount that parents can deduct for child-care expenses…

Brenda Gottfried, owner of the Freedom Child Care Centre on View Street, said she wondered who is advising Prime Minister Stephen Harper on his child-care policy.

"This $100 a month is just to get votes," she said. "And it got him votes. But in the field of child care, it has no significance at all. I don't know what happens in March 2007, but if the operating grants are cut significantly, every day care in Victoria will have to hike their fees."

Everybody wants new day-care spaces, said Gottfried. But building day-care centres costs hundreds of thousands of dollars.

When the centre is up and running, you still have to have funds to keep it running, she said. "It may be good startup money, but it won't keep you going."

The budget does nothing to address the shortage of early childhood and infant-toddler educators, said Gottfried.

April Haussman, who has a 10-year-old son, stayed home to raise him and runs a home-based after-school care program. She said she approves of the universal child-care benefit.

"I'm glad he's allowed people to put the money where they want," said Haussman. "Some parents want to keep their kids out of day-care centres. Some children just can't cope with those situations."