Child care waiting lists overflowing
By Katherine Mortimer
Vernon Morning Star
Nov 19, 2006

With too many children and too few spaces, child care is in a crisis in this country.

Childcare providers around the province are faced with long waiting lists, particularly for their infant-toddler programs.

"Our waitlist is 200 people, and every day care centre, including the family day cares, are full," said Lynne Reside, executive director of the North Okanagan Child Care and Montessori Preschool Society, which provides group child care, from infant to after-school.

Some of the reasons for the crisis point to a healthy economy: more jobs means more people stay in the community. And Reside said there has also been a decrease in the number of family day cares operating, limiting parents' choices.

"People have to make the best choice for their families, to find a work-life balance, it's about supporting families," she said.

Reside said the child care crisis took a turn for the worse with the federal government's cancellation of its early learning and childcare agreement, federal transfers to the province representing a $5 billion payment roll-out over five years to increase the number of child care spaces.

"It would have been an upping of the grants we already get," she said. "When the Conservatives came in, it was cancelled as of March 2007."

What the federal government replaced it with is the Universal Child Care Benefit, a monthly payment of $100 to families for each child under the age of six.

"So rather than having the money go to child care spaces, everybody with kids under six gets it, and has it regardless of whether or not they need it," said Reside. "We advocated for so many years for this national child care policy and then to have it cut like that is really hard. The problem is that if we lose all of our operating funding then no new day care centres are going to open."

Beginning in 2007, the federal government has said it will spend $250 million to create up to 25,000 new child care spaces annually.

"That was one of their election promises, but we haven't received any information about it, so we don't know how it's going to roll out," said Reside. "It's nice for people to get the $100 a month and it does benefit the people who are in the majority of wage earners. But $100 a month would only pay for two or three days of child care."

When the government funding ends in March 2007, the provincial government will lose its federal transfers, but has committed to maintaining the existing grants until June 30, 2007.

"I'm concerned that some child care centres might then raise their fees by $100 a month to make up for the loss in grants, which means the Universal Child Care Benefit hasn't benefited families at all," said Reside. "It's the middle income working families I'm concerned about."

Reside said there is also a staffing crisis in early childhood education. Those working in the field take a two-year course, after which they're generally offered a low wage. It means that people aren't entering the field or are leaving for jobs that pay better.

"We need more ECE's in the field, but we can only attract them if we can compensate them," she said.

Reside said she would love to see corporations installing their own on-site day cares, which she also calls an ideal way of attracting employees. She would like to see employers get proactive, offering incentives such as flex time to employees, or giving them the chance to work from home.

"People should look at supporting child care in the community; this community is great for that, but we need to do more," she said. "It's the idea that child care is good for the economy."

Local childcare providers met recently with Tom Christensen, Minister of Children and Family Development.

"We met with him, and he understands because he has young kids of his own; it gives him a good perspective of things," said Reside.

Christensen told the group that at one time child care was a necessity for parents, and then it became necessary for children's development; now it's essential for economic development.

"I think it's an emerging economic issue and I think that's something we haven't faced before to a great degree," said Christensen. "Most people aren't aware of the crisis in child care until they have to live through it and try and find space for their children. It is a significant challenge."

Christensen said the cancellation of the federal early learning and child care agreement represents a loss of $455 million in funding to the province, but the provincial government has committed to maintaining the increase to subsidy over the long term and to maintain all other child-care services to the end of the current school year.

Last year, the province increased subsidy rates to help parents cover the cost of child care, as well as increasing the subsidy threshold from an annual income of $21,000 to $38,000.

"It's about the number of parents who are qualifying for subsidy, and that's a program that provides a direct benefit to low-middle income families, so we announced in September that for sure that's going to be maintained," said Christensen. "And the parts that we're still working on are the other things that were funded in child care, and one is direct operating grants to licensed child care facilities as well as licensed family child care.

"We had made some enhancements to the operating grants last fall, so that's what we're trying to figure out now, and we don't have a clear answer for that yet."

Christensen said he found it helpful to meet with the early childhood educators in Vernon, and he enjoyed the opportunity to meet with both group and family child care operators and employees.

"One of the challenges in child care that is becoming more acute is the retention of workers, the wages are not particularly competitive and what's happening is with the economy being so strong people are finding that there are other jobs," he said. "Some of the people working in child care said three or four years ago they'd have to look hard to get a job, now the child care operators are finding it difficult to keep people.

"So there's no question that there's a number of elements at play that makes this complex. The economy is strong, I'm certainly noticing a lot of help wanted ads everywhere in the province, so we're having an existing or an emerging labour shortage, and if both parents are going to be working, you want safe, reliable child care that you're comfortable with."

Reside said child care walks hand in hand with employment and that not allowing parents to work because of a lack of child care spaces means they lose the chance for advancement in their career.

"It's not the '50s," she said. "It was a small blip in time where moms could stay home with their kids."

Reside added that even with cuts to funding, low wages and long hours, early childhood education is still one of the most rewarding of careers....