Child Care Minister Should Resign
Sunshine Coast Reporter
Jan 19, 2007
Letter to editor by: Dianne Goldberg

I expected that the Minister of State for Child Care, Linda Reid, was appointed by Premier Campbell to champion building a top notch affordable child care system for BC's children and families.

Otherwise I figured she would be appropriately titled the "Minister of State for BC's Child Care Crisis"!

I understood that when the finance minister called Budget 2006 " a budget designed to improve services for children", we would see some of the booming provincial surplus go towards supporting new and better policies and funding to make child care more affordable for more families.

I hoped it was also the perfect time to expect improved wages and working conditions for child care workers, so people could stay in their chosen profession and do the job they studied and trained to do.

I knew it was also an excellent time to see significant progress in creating more quality child care spaces that would match the number of children needing access to quality child care in our communities.

But, instead Minister Reid and her government are slashing funding for Child Care Resource and Referral Programs and operating funding that was supposed to make child care more affordable for more families.

I now think a Minister of State for Child Care who does not live up to her title, and is NOT a champion for children, working families and quality, affordable child care, has only one option -- immediately resign!