Critics slam fed child care benefit
Cariboo Press -- Terrace Standard
20 Sep 2006

EXCERPT

Three days of childcare at $35 per day or four packages of diapers at $25 each.

That's what parents can expect to glean from the federal government's new Universal Child Care Benefit cheques which amount to $100 per child under the age of six.

The benefits were rolled out in July by the federal Conservatives. They are receiving mixed reviews from parents and child care advocates and public officials.

"If you are paying $30 a day for child care and you get $100 then you can buy three and third days of care," says Coco Shau, a coordinator for the Skeena Child Care Resource and Referral office in Terrace.

"Does that help? Sure. If that is taxed then you can buy less."

The benefit is taxable and Skeena-Bulkley Valley MP Nathan Cullen charges that taxing $100 a month is "offensive", given the long waiting lists and high costs of child care.

"It doesn't even come close to meeting the needs," says Cullen, who has spoken to constituents who say there is a dire shortage of licensed daycare spaces in the northwest and he's hearing the same reports from MPs across the country.

"People are finding months and sometimes years for waiting lists," Cullen says, adding the severity of the shortage varies from community to community.

Parents receiving the money say it's welcome, but it does not address the greater problem of providing day care spaces.

Annette Krause, a mother of twin 19-month-old girls, says the money would barely help cover the monthly cost of gasoline to drive between her home at Lakelse Lake and the girls' daycare in Terrace, never mind subsidizing the cost of childcare.

Krause is a student at Northwest Community College and her children go to a licensed daycare nearby.

"I think it helps, but I don't think it's enough," says the mother of three.

"I think Stephen Harper should be in our situation and try it himself and see how far it gets him."

Shau says she hasn't heard a lot of feedback on the new program from parents but worries the money can't replace federal funding to the province that has been cut.

"I think that money is welcome but I don't think parents are really aware of the kind of funding that it is replacing," Shau says.

The federal government cut $455 million in federal funding from its Early Learning and Child Care Agreement , leaving childcare providers and advocates throughout the province wondering what will replace that money.

Linda Reid, the new minister of the beleaguered children and families ministry, released a letter last week in an attempt to reassure parents that though the federal money has been cut off, the B.C. government "will endeavour to maintain all other child care services to the end of the current school year." ...