Child care cuts could impact workplace
Child care advocates alarmed about cuts: Town hall meeting planned for Tuesday evening in Campbell River
Courier-Islander (Campbell River)
02 Feb 2007
By: Denise Sharkey

A projected increase in child care fees and a continuing dearth of space in child care centres has parents, and child care advocates, angry at the provincial and federal governments about funding cuts that affect working families.

"These cuts really hurt the working parents, the middle class parents," said Kristi McReynolds, mother of two in Campbell River. "We're the ones being affected."

McReynolds has two children, age three and eight months. She's on maternity leave but hopes to go back to work in April if she can find licensed child care for her baby. Infant child care is expensive and often difficult to find, due to long wait lists. McReynolds and her husband will have to pay $43 per day for infant child care at a licensed centre. For three-year-olds to five-year-olds, it's $32 per day. At a total cost of $75 per day and approximately 20 work days a month, the McReynolds family is looking at a monthly child care tab of $1,500 - and that's not counting any projected fee increases.

"If you have two children and you make minimum wage, you wouldn't be able to afford to work at all," she said.

In Campbell River, as in many other towns and cities, plans are in place to draw attention to child care funding cuts on Tuesday, Feb. 6. In Campbell River, a town hall meeting is slated for Tuesday night at the Christian Life Daycare on Merecroft Road. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. and the meeting goes from 7:15 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Monica Brown, director at Christian Life Daycare, said she's hoping there will be a big turnout because the problem affects everyone in the long run.

"We want to try and get as many people to come as possible," she said. "This issue is important to the business community, it's important to small businesses, big employers, all of us. We all run the risk of not having enough workers." ...