Crying out for care
Vancouver Island News Group - Saanich News
February 22, 2008

Michelle Kirby learned how difficult finding quality child care can be when she started shopping around for a place to put her son Liam, now four years old. After being turned down by every provider in the book, a friend offered to look after her son.

"My personal story is of total luck. Everyone else I know and everyone I've talked to since had a horror story."

Friends of hers were not so lucky and many have had to postpone returning to work or juggle different babysitters and child care providers every day of the week.

The experience inspired her to start a website (www.parentsforchildcare.ca) to post news, list events and initiate e-mail campaigns to support child care.

In June 2007, the Regional Child Care Council, to which Kirby belongs, conducted a survey to determine wait lists for child care in the Capital Regional District.

From a sampling of 50 providers, 37 maintained wait lists with an average length of 44 families.

The most popular provider had 400 families on the list and receives about 30 calls a week.

In total, the CRD has 1,801 child care spaces for 30 months to school age, 1, 287 preschool spaces and 404 child care spaces for children under 36 months, according to the Partnership in Learning and Advocacy for Young Children and the Community Council of Greater Victoria.

In total, this leaves only about 3.500 spaces for the 17,500 children five and under in the area, including those on First Nations reserves, according to the 2006 census.

…"It doesn't make any sense to assume that the economy can somehow function without women."

Victoria MP Denise Savoie agrees.

"Through economic policies, we've put parents in a situation where they're working longer, harder, and the children in many cases pay the price. If we value the kind of society where we care for each other, where our children are valued, then we're going to re-establish a place where they have high quality learning opportunities."

Given the pressing shortage of child care spaces, Savoie said the provincial government's study into the feasibility of full-day kindergarten isn't getting the job done fast enough. Child care standards need to be set nationally so Canadians across the country have guaranteed access.

Savoie's early learning and child care bill aims to do just that by seeking to legislate reliable and adequate transfer payments to support the infrastructure and competitive salaries to ensure universal care….