Black day marked on Feb. 6
The Daily Courier -- Kelowna
01 Feb 2007
Letters -- By: Linda McKinlay

During the past two weeks, child caregivers, day-care managers and childcare advocates have been meeting all over B.C. to strategize ways of responding to the massive childcare cuts recently announced by the Minister of State for Childcare, Linda Reid.

The Okanagan group has decided to launch a stepped up campaign in anticipation of the rate increases that will affect all families of children in care.

The bottom line is that all parents will have to pay more. I urge all families to pay attention to the lunch box campaign that will be launched in the next few weeks.

As you clear out your child's half-eaten sandwich at the end of the day, there will be notes left in their lunch kit explaining the extraordinary impact of the recent childcare cuts to you and your caregivers and what you can do about it.

In her announcement of cuts to childcare programs in early January, Reid didn't tell you that the B.C. government has been making cuts to childcare spending since 2002. Even though transfer dollars were coming from the federal government prior to the election last year, not one cent was ever spent on childcare in this province.

What Reid did not tell you was that her ministry, after months of provincial consultation with childcare stakeholders, never did create the much anticipated child-care plan, as promised.

What Reid did not tell you was that even if you paid your daycare the entire federal $100 dollars per child a month, it will not cover the true costs of sustaining quality childcare in your community.

Funding cuts will include the disintegration of vital systems parents use to access quality care, train caregivers, start up quality new environments and support parent subsidy applications. What Reid did not tell you was that her government only cares about childcare when someone else foots the bill.

On Feb. 6, check your child's lunch kit for some of those messages. They will tell you who to call and what the cuts will mean to you in dollars and cents.

Talk to your MLAs and demand an explanation of why the provincial government makes cuts to childcare but no other health, educational or economic programs.

Feb. 6 will be a black day at childcare centres across the Okanagan. It is the day Stephen Harper took office and the day that early learning and childcare went to the bottom of Canada's political agenda.

The childcare community will be wearing black and sharing messages of grieving as, yet again, we must deal with the disregard of both the provincial and federal governments.