City council backs call for more daycare money
Cariboo Press -- Terrace Standard
18 Apr 2007

THE CITY of Terrace has joined B.C.'s early childhood educators in pressing the federal and provincial government to put more money into child care.

In response to a plea from about 30 local child care workers and supporters, city council agreed April 10 to write letters urging the federal government to reinstate a program it canceled last year slated to give B.C. $455 million for child care over the next three years.

Council also wants the provincial government to be more vigorous in opposing the elimination of the program.

In response to the federal cuts, the B.C. government then cut the budgets of licensed child care centres as well as regional offices offering information and advice to parents and day care centres.

Councillor Lynne Christiansen said, "It's an important issue. We were doing appallingly little to start with so to take that away (is a mistake)."

"We should be doing our part and doing what we can be doing to speak up," Christiansen said of the city's decision to lend support.

According to the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development, Canada rates last in early childhood spending, committing only .25 per cent of its GDP while other developed countries spend up to two per cent of theirs.

And research shows children who receive high quality child care need less public funds for employment, education and social programs.

In light of these facts, Christiansen, along with Terrace's early childhood educators, feel that not only will the cuts have detrimental effects on local families and child care centres now - higher fees, employee layoffs, decreased quality and closures - they put the town's future at risk.

Sasa Loggin of Terrace's Make Children First Network said 90 per cent of the brain's development happens in the first five years of life making them critical to a child's success later on.

So if families are left without government support, children of families that can afford education and care will do better than those of families that can't, Loggin said.

Money should come from the federal government to create a system of support or a cycle of poverty will continue, Loggin continued.

"From the whole point of view for economy or growth, if we have those systems in place, people can go to work," she said.

The B.C. government has no excuse either as every other province maintained their child care spending despite federal changes, Loggin added....

Child care workers here insist the individual cheques are inadequate as they fail to provide a quality system or create more child care spaces of which there is already a shortage.

Ann Peltier, executive administrator of Terrace's child care resource office at The Family Place says of 44 such offices in B.C., the government has shut down three, including Terrace's satellite service in Kitimat.

The local office's budget was also cut by 22 per cent making reductions in service inevitable, Peltier said. "We will have to let some things go for sure."

The 2007 work plan is still under development so the details are uncertain but likely office hours will drop from five to four days a week, she said.

The office here will still provide services in Kitimat once a week and appointments may be available locally in off hours.

The government is also requiring the office to be open two nights a month.

"Looking at statistics, Terrace's children are in a more vulnerable state now than they were two years ago," Peltier said.

"I'm really hopeful that by all the municipalities getting together, the government will hear that people really want this. They really want a system."