Child care changes do little: union; Providers claim they are not as necessary as improved pay, conditions
The Daily News (Prince Rupert)
Tuesday, November 20, 2007 
By: Kris Schumacher

The recent changes to child care regulations announced by the B.C. government weaken quality care standards, say the B.C. Government and Services Employees Union….

The government has made three key changes, the first of which will increase the number of children that family child care operators can take in, from six children to seven. The second change increases the number of children allowed in a home with one Early Childhood Education certified individual, from seven children to eight, under the Family Child Care category. The third change allows new ECE graduates to begin working immediately as fully-qualified staff, and complete their required 500 hours of work experience needed for full licencing within their first year of working.

However, the BCGEU and their partners, the Coalition of Child Care Advocates, say that government has not addressed the real issue that child care providers across the province have been advocating for; improved wages and benefits that would attract and keep qualified staff. They say that instead, the new regulations lower staffing ratio requirements, meaning fewer people are taking care of more children.

"They haven't really addressed the bigger issues of shortages in child care and their cutbacks to child care funding," said Emily Mlieczko of the Westview Child Care Centre. "It feels like they've just done these little things instead of addressing the real issues."

Mlieczko says that the change allowing new graduates to begin working immediately may hold some positive outcomes for child care providers, but she says relaxing regulations doesn't help public perception of child care providers.

"It's really important for us, because we're just starting to be seen as a viable profession in the community, so when they relax the regulations, it downplays the role that we play in education," she said. "It might sound OK, but if you start cutting down the standards set in place, it takes away from the profession."

The BCGEU and their partners also say the government has not begun to address how recent cuts have forced parent fees to rise enough that affordable child care is out of financial reach for thousands of B.C. families, while child care providers can barely pay staff more than minimum wage.