Federal government cancels its agreements for early learning and child care, representing a loss of $455 million
Powell River Peak
October 11, 2006

Questions continue to outweigh answers around a recent letter to parents and child-care providers from Linda Reid, BC minister of state for child care. Issued September 12, the letter informs child-care providers and parents that the current child-care subsidy will continue to the end of the current school year.

Reid wrote the letter to also reassure parents and child-care providers that the province will maintain all other child-care services to the end of the current school year despite the cancellation of the federal early learning and child care agreement, which represents a loss of $455 million in federal funding.

The Coalition of Child Care Advocates was quick to reply, issuing a release that called Reid's letter "outrageous, unacceptable and irresponsible."

"With no assurance that operating funding will be maintained beyond June 30, 2007, licensed family, group and school age care providers across BC will have no choice but to increase monthly parent fees to make up for the expected funding cuts or to close their doors," stated the release.

The coalition called for a guarantee that BC will not cut operating funds to licenced child-care providers, clarification of the government's short- and long-term plans for child care and a demonstration that the government is 100 per cent committed to supporting the needs of working parents by adequately funding affordable, quality, regulated daycare services in BC. Alison Bledsoe, project coordinator for Powell River Child, Youth and Family Services, had her own concerns around Reid's letter.

"It is my understanding that much of the funding from federal transfer dollars went to supporting programs outside of child care," she told the Peak in an email. "What about infant development programs? Supported child development programs? Child-care resource and referral programs? Ready, Set, Learn initiatives? Early childhood health programs? Family resource programs?"

Bledsoe was worried about the outlook for the aforementioned programs, which she called vital support components for BC's young children and their families, after March 31, 2007, when all current early childhood, early learning and child-care funding agreements with the federal government will be finished.

"Between the 2001/2002 fiscal year and the 2005/2006 fiscal year, the Government of BC reduced child-care funding by $48 million," wrote Bledsoe. Funding from agreements with the federal government was used to subsidize these reductions.

"If the federal funding is gone, will the government of BC be able to reinstate their own early childhood/child-care funding to previous levels?" When faced with these questions, Reid directed the Peak to the consultation report on the ministry of children and family development website at www.mcf.gov.bc.ca/childcare, which contained no answers to the long-term questions asked.

"We'll have more detail as we go forward," she added. The delivery of the child-care subsidy program was recently transferred from the ministry of employment and income assistance to the ministry of children and family development.