Mixed reaction to daycare money
Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows Times
May 5, 2006
By: Danna Johnson
EXCERPT:

For working mom Linda Wong-Morrison, $1,200 per child under six is better than a kick in the pants.

But on the grand scale, it won't help much, and it doesn't do anything to address the lack of available daycare spaces.

The mother of three has two children under the age of seven, which means that starting in July, should the Conservative budget pass, the federal government will begin cutting her a cheque for $200 each month.

"I think any time you get money it's useful," she said.

"It's obviously more than I was getting before...but I'm waiting to see how it pans out."

Wong-Morrison's biggest beef with the credit is that it's applied across the board. Families that can afford to have one parent stay home and look after the children will be getting the $100 per child just the same as those parents who must pay for daycare.

"The whole program doesn't make any sense to me. I've got a seven-year-old and she doesn't qualify for the $100 per month.

"Someone down the street who has a two-year-old and doesn't have to work does," she said.

"It turns into a handout for anybody who has young children at the expense of the others who need it."

Any childcare program, she said, must be "needs based."

To add to that, the $1,200 per child is also taxable to the lowest income earner, so the stay-at-home parent gets full advantage of the tax credit, whereas the working parents will be forced to pay some of the subsidy back.

Michelle Ferguson, who operates Neighbourhood Mom Daycare in Maple Ridge and has for the past decade, said the credit is a start.

"It's a step in the right direction, but do I think it will end the problem parents have in terms of paying for daycare? No. Parents are stressed and every little bit will help them," Ferguson said.

Ferguson sees no problem in giving the money to parents directly rather than to daycare facilities, and she isn't bothered that stay-at-home parents get to take advantage of it, too.

"Those people made the sacrifice to stay home," she said.

But the plan leaves out parents of school-aged children, Ferguson said.

It can cost a parent as much for a few hours of after school care as it does for a whole day of care for a toddler.

"Parents who need before and after school care can end up paying a fair bit of money for not a lot of service," she said.

Ferguson has been offering her daycare service for a decade, and because she is moving, is having to shut it down.

In doing so, and trying to find available spaces in other centres to refer clients to, she has become well aware of the lack of childcare available in the community.

In the last five years, she said, openings in her centre have been rare.

"There are just no spaces," she said, adding that she isn't sure how the Conservative plan will help to address that.

According to Pitt Meadows-Maple Ridge-Mission MP Randy Kamp, however, the Conservative child care plan is one step ahead of what the Liberals had on the go.

"The Liberal plan never delivered. It was a separate arrangement with the provinces to use that money however they saw fit," he said on Thursday from Ottawa.

"They just basically changed the subsidy level for those who are already participating in the daycare system ... very few spaces were created."

Kamp added that along with the $1,200 per year for childcare, the Conservatives have addressed the lack of spaces by providing incentives for companies to open daycare on site...