Childcare providers prepare for battle: Day of protest planned for Feb. 13
Cowichan Valley Citizen
02 Feb 2007
By: Andrea Rondeau

What it's costing childcare centres: $18,000, $21,000, $3,000, $7,000, $42,000, $15,000, $20,000 per year.

What it will cost parents: a safe place to send their children while they work.

That was the message Tuesday evening at a meeting of childcare providers, who gathered at the Cowichan Centre in Duncan to discuss the impact millions of dollars in provincial childcare funding cuts will have on the Cowichan Valley.

"It's the parents who are going to pay for this, it is the children who are going to be impacted," said Cindy Lise, of Success by Six, who facilitated the meeting. "It affects thousands in our community."

The situation is so severe a number of participants at the meeting are looking to organize a walkout and rally Tuesday, Feb. 13 to demonstrate to government the importance of what they do and the power they have to bring the province's economy to a grinding halt.

"We've been pushed to our knees," said one woman. "Now it's time to get up."

"This is the biggest backwards step I've ever seen," said another, who has been in childcare for more than three decades.

"We need to do something really strong," concurred Mary Dolan, a childcare advocate in the Cowichan Valley.

Parents and community members don't realize what the impact of the cuts is going to be, she said, and they need to have their eyes opened, and get onboard to help lobby both the provincial and federal governments to reinstate funds to this vital sector.

This lack of recognition of the seriousness of the crisis was evident, several people noted, in the absence of the Valley's local politicians, including the mayors of Duncan and North Cowichan, who were both invited. Only Cowichan-Ladysmith MLA Doug Routley sent a representative.

The mood was grim as childcare centre representatives were asked to say how much money the cuts were going to be sucking out of their annual budgets.

Just from the centres represented at the meeting, that amounts to almost $130,000 lost from the community.

"How valuable are the children?" one childcare worker asked.

Representatives agreed they can't even begin to absorb such cuts to funding, and will be forced to increase fees to parents or close their doors.

Only 26 per cent of children in the Cowichan Valley have quality, reliable childcare, said Lise. For years childcare has needed more funding, she said, not less.

Since centres don't make much money, staff wages average only $12.30 per hour, which discourages people from training for the field or working in it once they are qualified. They are continually fighting a perception that those working in Early Childhood Education are doing it as a supplementary income, not to pay the rent and put food on the table.

"For so long we have been classed close to babysitters," said Dolan.

Another woman said ECE workers make about half of what any other diploma program graduate would make. "We're the highest-educated, lowest-paid of any industry," she said.

The lack of qualified staff limits the number of spaces facilities can offer, and the deep cuts the province has instituted make the situation more dire.

Though some were reluctant to inconvenience parents with a walkout, others argued it is the only way to get the message across that childcare is a necessary service....

However childcare advocates say the province, with its $2.1-billion surplus, can afford to continue with funding.

The cuts mean the Childcare Resource and Referral Centre in Duncan, and all others across the province, will be closing, participants said.

It's a move that will not only slash important services for parents and childcare centres, but will cost the provincial government about $40 million to accomplish as they buy out leases and contracts and dispose of equipment. Keeping the centres open would cost just $14 million a year.

At a time when the province has a huge surplus, the government's actions are absurd, attendees said.

"When we're cut, how are parents going to go about finding daycares?" said one employee of the Duncan Resource and Referral office.

"There are already little sticky notes showing up around town from parents looking for childcare," said Lise. "They're going to probably have to create a whole new column in the newspaper of parents looking for childcare."

The Resource Centre directs parents to childcare options but also works with licencing of centres, inspections to ensure standards, training for childcare workers, research to support grants and programs, and networking for childcare providers.

"Without them, we haven't got that," one woman said. "Parents won't know if a centre is safe, if care is safe."

"It's a sad, sad day that we have to say goodbye to something like this," said Lise. "My wish is, in a perfect world, that there would be so much uproar over the next few months that the government reverses their decision." ...