Ranking points to child- care shortage: worker
The Daily News -- Kamloops
10 May 2007
By: Mike Youds

An international report that suggests child welfare in Canada is in a backslide is disappointing but not surprising, the manager of Make Children First said Wednesday.

"It definitely speaks to the priority we're putting on children," said Val Janz, who oversees an initiative supporting healthy early childhood development.

The report from the charity Save the Children, released Tuesday, ranks Canada 25th in the world, down from fifth place in 2006, on its children's index....

Save the Children Canada attributes the backslide to cutbacks in social spending. Canada spends 0.25 per cent of its GDP on early childhood programs -- 17th overall -- while other developed countries spend up to two per cent.

Janz said the report underscores a need for communities and governments to rethink existing policies on child care and related funding.

"A lot of it's related to child care," she said. "More kids are living in poverty and fewer families are accessing quality child care."

As of July 1, there will be a rollback in government services affecting child care, and fees will rise as a result of the Conservative government's decision not to renew a federal-provincial agreement on early childhood learning and child care.

Instead, the Conservatives are sticking to their policy of providing direct payments of $100 a month to parents for every child under school age and incentives to businesses to create child-care spaces.

"When you look at the stats for B.C. -- 25 per cent of kids living in poverty -- and you look at the changes the government has made -- putting money in parents' pockets -- is it working?"

MP Betty Hinton said the report doesn't fault government at all. She understood from the Globe and Mail that Canada's ranking is 15th not 25th and that the report measures accidents, intentional harm, drowning, falling, fire and poisoning. However, the index is a much broader measure and the Globe and Mail report clearly stated Canada is ranked 25th.

The MP maintained that government spending on child care has increased....

MLA Claude Richmond, minister of employment and income, noted that the report is wide-ranging and that statistics suggest the lot of children in B.C. has improved.

"We've gone a long ways to support families and children, and we also have the best health care in the country," Richmond said.

He cited statistics indicating the number of B.C. children in families on welfare has declined to 32,000 in 2007 from 131,000 in 1996.

"It used to be one in seven and now it's one in 30, so we've come a long way."

Janz feels it is necessary to enlist the support of businesses before government will sit up and take notice. Faced with labour shortages, the private sector should recognize the direct relationship between accessible, quality day care and the ability of parents of young children, particularly single parents, to remain in the workforce. Some are choosing not to have children, a factor in the country's plummeting birth rate.

"We're thinking about immigration" to offset the birth rate, Janz noted. "But immigrants have children, too. Every place in this province doesn't have enough child care."

While it's important to develop new child-care spaces, those spaces need to be professionally supported. TRU's early childhood education program is under capacity because the field offers relatively poor financial reward, Janz said.

"You can go to Tim Hortons and pour coffee and make more money, I'm sure."

Part of the difficulty in getting through is that child-care advocates lobbying for more funding appear to be self-serving, Janz said.

"We need more parents coming forward. We need the larger Canadian community to understand there are serious economic impacts in a community from not having a functioning child-care system."