Motives behind child-care cuts
Trail Daily Times
05 Feb 2007
Opinion
By: Kate Skye

Tuesday is Code Blue Day for Child Care. It's the day, a year ago, that Stephen Harper took office as Prime Minister and all hopes and dreams of a universal child-care system slipped down the drain.

Now 47 Child Care Resource and Referral programs (CCRRs) have had the plug pulled. The programs, including the one in Trail, will have the life blood sucked out of them over the next few months as funding is slashed by 37 per cent April 1, and gone altogether Sept. 30.

I plan to participate in Code Blue Day by wearing black and blue. After all, the news of the recent cuts feels like a good hard thump to me. The bruising has yet to come....

In no time at all, Harper implemented his own plan, a $100-a-month universal child benefit for all children under six.

Now the province is cutting CCRR funding and says in June it will chop away at child-care operating grants. But rather than dip into its $2 billion surplus to support these programs, it's saying, "Don't blame us, blame the feds." Early childhood educators and many parents are furious.

Existing child-care operating grants allow child-care fees to remain manageable for lower- to middle-income families. Grants also allow child-care centres to pay their workers more than minimum wage....

Sue McIntosh and the staff at our local CCRR understand child care in this area. They have been providing resources and support to families and caregivers for almost two decades. Cutting their funding, less than a year after they were told to beef up their service and become more visible, shows terrible financial management. The Trail office alone will pay $22,000 to end the lease for its photocopier.

But I think the people in Victoria are smart. I think there are other motives at play here. Campbell's throne speech in 2005 did commit to using underutilized school spaces to deliver "early learning programs." But these early learning programs mean everything and anything but "child care."

I think the cuts prove the B.C. Liberals don't value child care and furthermore, want to shift early learning programs to the Ministry of Education.

Three weeks before the province announced cuts to the CCRRs, Tom Christensen, Minister of Children and Family Development, announced in a press release, that the province will spend millions to start a provincial Strong Start program. Strong Start centres will be located in "underutilized spaces" in schools, he said, and will be funded by the Ministry of Education.

For Greater Trail, that's too bad because we don't have much underutilized space in any of our schools anymore. The closing of schools in recent years and selling off of assets means space is scarce, despite student numbers dwindling.

"Investing in early learning makes sense," said Linda Reid, Minister of State for Child Care in the same press release as the Strong Start announcement. "Creating opportunities for parents to engage their children in enriched environments will only strengthen their capacity to build and nurture their families."

But CCRRs are already doing this. Fruitvale Elementary has been running a parent-child drop-in program, managed and facilitated by CCRR staff, for over a year.

The province says it will give $50,000 to each Strong Start centre to "prepare in-school space, fund the first year of operating costs, including staff and supplies and healthy snacks." Centres will receive another $30,000 for the second year of operations.

The government says Strong Start centres will offer free early-learning drop-in programs for children aged three and four, as long as their parents and caregivers attend with them. They clearly say, on the B.C. Ministry of Education website, "These are not designated as child-care programs."

If the province has its way, parents who need child care while they work, go to school, or just manage living, will eventually have to fund the system themselves, despite every single child-care program having early learning opportunities embedded in it. Unfortunately, Harper's $100 universal child benefit won't go very far towards paying for a parent-fee only system.

If closing the CCRRs is another way for this government to show its distaste for child care, it's a pretty mean way of doing it. It shows complete disrespect for the people who have poured their hearts and souls into building something that works.

If our elected officials were really honest with us about their motives, perhaps we wouldn't feel so bruised every time they come up with a new idea about what is best for our children.