Parents to gather at childcare forum
Nelson Daily News
29 Jan 2007
By: Sara Newham

With childcare services threatened in Nelson and communities across the province, parents are urged to attend a local forum February 1.

Hosted by Nelson Dads for Childcare and the Social Planning Action Network [SPAN], the forum is a response to a recent announcement by the provincial government that it would cut operating funds to group and in-home centres across B.C. by 27 per cent and Childcare Resource and Referral (CCRR) programs like the one in Nelson must shut down after September 30.

"The Forum is intended] to foster some sort of response to say that childcare as a presence in communities has always been chronically under-funded," said Murray Kimber of Nelson Dads for Childcare. "It's always been under siege, but there are certain times when cuts -- particularly when they're made in the vacuum of any sort of rationale or plan -- are particularly crippling and that's what this is."

That provincial government decision comes on the heels of a federal government decision to cancel the Early Learning and Childcare agreement made by the former federal Liberal government with the provinces.

"The whole system is in crisis already. This has just literally thrown us into a state of absolute despair," Kim Adamson, West Kootenay Coordinator for Children First and Success by Six, told the Daily News two weeks ago.

The closures mean a loss of all CCRR services.... "It's kind of the glue that holds childcare providers together and it's particularly important in small communities and rural areas like Nelson," said Kimber.

The provincial government -- according to Adamson -- is expected to pay for the shut down costs of the CCRR programs and would use federal money earmarked for improving childcare costs to do so. A year ago, the provincial government told the programs to renovate their spaces and improve their services.

"It's a blatant waste of taxpayer's dollars," said Adamson. "The key point about the CCRRs is that they [the B.C. government] knowingly had them spend a lot of money last year to improve and enhance their services when they knew that the federal money was going to be gone this year anyway."

The forum will address these issues and explain how the cuts impact parents, childcare providers, local employers and children in the community. Nelson-Creston MLA Corky Evans and Mayor John Dooley are expected to attend.

"We'll be giving people who attend some actions that they could take on behalf of families and children that are being affected by this," said Adamson, adding that the hosts of the event hope parents will come out to show community leaders that this is an important issue for the community.

The forum will be held Thursday in the Hume Hotel's Hume Room at 7 p.m. and support for babysitting costs is available for those who need some assistance.

"What the forum is designed to do is to say that this is one of those times when these cuts which make no sense are having a crushing impact on childcare," said Kimber.