Day-care centres brace for funding cutbacks
Vancouver Island News Group
29 Nov 2006

EXCERPT

Lingering uncertainty over the status of operating grants for day-care centres has local child-care providers warning parents that fees will rise if the funds aren't kept at current levels.

Many Capital Region day-care providers have in the last month sent notices home urging parents to write letters asking the government to maintain current provincial operating grants, which typically make up one-quarter to one-third of a day care's budget.

"A lot of people are panicking thinking they're taking this away," said Lucy-Ann Smith, director of Happy Campers Daycare in Metchosin and president of the Victoria-based Regional Out of School Care Operators.

"I've had a meeting with three other child-care providers and we're setting up a committee to lobby the government. We want to make sure this stays in effect." ..

"I think we're going to lose the increase we had last year. Other people think we're going to lose more than that," said Lynn Young, director of Arbutus Grove Children's Centre and Frank Hobbs Out of School Care. "It's just caused a great deal of uncertainty and the provincial government isn't really telling us anything."

Linda Reid, Minister of State for Child Care, said that Ottawa's change of course has presented the province with some "challenges" but admitted the government has yet to come up with a solution.

Reid said the province has pledged an indefinite extension of existing subsidies for parents with children in care, an income- based program earmarked for families with a combined household income of $38,000 or less...

The universal child-care benefit, widely criticized as a new version of the old family allowance cheque, provides $100 a month to all Canadians with children under age six in care, regardless of their income.

Day care providers are worried that cuts will force fees higher and eat up most or all of the monthly cash payments parents receive from Ottawa.

Arbutus Grove could be forced to increase its full-time monthly fee of $610 by as much as $100, Young said, adding that her organization receives about 23 per cent of its annual funding - close to $10,000 a month - courtesy of the provincial operating subsidy.

Cindy Fuailefau, manager of Cloverdale Out of School Care in Saanich, said losing the subsidy would force her to raise fee by $50 to $100 a month per parent.

Alex MacCuaig, child-care co-ordinator for the Fairfield Community Association, said his organization would also be forced to hike fees if the $75,000 in operating subsidies it receives each year were to evaporate.

"I just did the math and... if we lose that we'll have raise fees on average about $400 per child, per year," MacCuaig said. "Obviously that's a last resort and we'll do everything we can to avoid it."

Reid said discussions about the federal government's plans to fund day cares are ongoing, but opposition politicians say the B.C. Liberals aren't doing enough.

"I don't know what (Reid) has done behind the scene, but publicly she's not had the backing of the premier on this file," said NDP-MLA Rob Fleming (Victoria-Hillside), noting that B.C. was notably silent while other Canadian provinces decried the Harper government's move to scrap the child-care program.

"We saw absolutely nothing from the premier and his government to protest that a signed agreement between two governments was not honoured," Fleming said.

North Island MLA Claire Trevana, the NDP's child care critic, said regardless of what Ottawa does, the province should maintain the subsidy.

"If we're serious about the future of our children, then we should put the money in," Trevana said.