Child resource centre axed
The Grand Forks Gazette
24 Jan 2007
Byl: Kyra Hoggan

The Boundary Child Care Resource and Referral (BCCRR) office will close its doors for good this October, along with the 44 other CCRR offices across the province, as both provincial and federal budget cuts make themselves felt.

Grand Forks City Council, in their meeting Monday evening, voted unanimously to support a motion through the Union of B.C. Municipalities, calling on the provincial government to reverse the decision.

Meanwhile, MLA Katrine Conroy today issued a press release saying she's, "appalled with the recent announcement by Linda Reid, Minister of State for Childcare (regarding) CCRR cuts in the region.

"The minister has just added to the crisis in childcare, and suggesting parents should have to make up for the funding once again shows the minister's total disregard for the needs of families in rural B.C.," Conroy says.

"There will be a direct spin-off to the economy as parents are trying to find affordable, quality child care in order to stay employed or further their education.

"At a time when we have a $2.2 billion surplus, instead of getting an injection of funds, the minister chooses to attack and create hardships for families," she adds.

Louise Heck, BCCRR program coordinator, says the funding cuts announced by the province Jan. 5, and the subsequent closures, will wreak havoc within the already-beleaguered provincial child care network. She goes on to say the provincial government is blaming the closures on federal funding cuts, an argument she says seems, at the very least, questionable.

"They're saying it's because of cuts to federal transfer payments, specifically the Early Learning and Child Care Agreement, but they have a $200 million provincial surplus," Heck says.

"Besides that, the CCRR programming was initially run without any federal funding at all."

She says CCRR programming has been in place for as long as three decades in B.C., providing a variety of services including training and networking opportunities for child care providers, lending libraries of toys and reources, outreach programming, drop-in play space for children and caregivers, parent education, family-friendly event facilitation and more. She says becoming a child care provider is challenging, which contributes to a shortage of adequate child care in the Boundary.

This is why, she says, one of her concerns is that prospective providers will choose not to open day homes or other facilities because, without CCRR assistance, it will be too hard to navigate the licensing requirements, develop and formalize policy, network and share best practices with other agencies and so forth.

She says her frustration at the closure is compounded by the economic fall-out that will likely result from shutting down all CCRR facilities.

"Just one year ago, the CCRR offices were told we needed to be more visible, to increase our community profile by hiring more staff and moving to central storefront locations with bigger, brighter offices," she says, adding that now the province will have to buy out the lease agreements for these more-expensive locales.

"The move alone, to a new location, cost about $40,000," she says.

"For all 45 offices, the cost was closer to $500,000. That's now totally wasted money paying for property they can no longer use."

She says the funding cuts will take place in stages, with March 31 seeing a $5-million reduction in what is now a $14-million budget.

That amount is scheduled to go down again in autumn, with all CCRR offices closing their doors by Oct. 1.

Some offices, says Heck, won't try to limp along with greatly diminished operating funds, and instead will be closing their doors on March 31. The Boundary office will, however, stay open as long as possible, she adds, explaining that it will be easier to defend an existing program than to re-start one that has already been dismantled.

She says that, on top of the lost programming and money wasted, the region will lose two and a half jobs and a $162,000-operating budget. Furthermore, federal cuts also mean child care operating funds will go down an average of $2 a day, a loss she says most providers will have to pass on to parents. She says early childhood service providers are already underpaid in the context of their education and the demands of the job, and this latest announcement just adds insult to injury, particularly in the Boundary, where quality child care is already scarce.

"In this past year, since we moved to our new storefront location in the mall, we have had so many people come in," she says. "We've been able to support these people, providing referrals and pointing them in the right direction to get what they're looking for; what they need."

More than anything, Heck says she's discouraged by the priorities these cuts seem to imply, both at a provincial and at a federal level.

"Child care is so critical for children's healthy development and parents' ability to function effectively in the workplace," she says, adding this is why she intends to continue lobbying to keep the CCRR program up and running.