Childcare in crisis advocates tell brass
Cowichan Valley Citizen
March 19, 2008
By: Lexi Bainas

Childcare advocates, loaded with Cowichan Valley stories and statistics, gave Child Care Minister Linda Reid both barrels when they traveled to Victoria for a face-to-face meeting last week.

Social Planning Cowichan Chair and Vice-Chair Candace Spilsbury and Valerie Nicol say they felt the crisis in childcare here warranted the effort.

The hard-pressed facilities that are operating in the Valley are full to capacity and desperate parents are left making tough choices, Spilsbury said Tuesday.

"There is simply no place for people to place their children where they feel there's quality care and learning being given. So, people are giving up on going back to school or going to work," she said….

The meeting in Victoria was also attended by Loreen O'Byrne, Early Years Director and Special Advisor to the Minister of State, Lisa Dominato, Ministerial Assistant to Shirley Bond, Minister of Education, and Doug Stewart, Assistant Deputy Minister of Education.

During the 45-minute discussion, Spilsbury and Nicol talked about the Social Planning Child Care Report and the establishment of the Cowichan Regional Child Care Task Force to address the problems.

Spilsbury said that the Minister now knows Cowichan is in crisis.

Nicol agreed, adding that now she's waiting for action.

"We're a bit disappointed, however, that we weren't able to resolve some issues on the spot and we weren't always in agreement, particularly on things like child care wages. Still, we've been heard and they've assured us that they will follow up with more definitive answers."

Spilsbury said Tuesday that wages are so low they are deterring qualified people from even looking at the early education field, particularly when it's a sellers' market.

The task force discovered last year that young people "look at the wages when they graduate before they select and see they can't even pay their student loans if they enter the early childhood educator field. So, they're not choosing to go into that. It's a waste of people who are gifted in that area, who have a love of children and learning."

…. Minister Reid was impressed by the Cowichan presentation, partly because of its wealth of local detail.

"When she gave us provincial figures, my response was, 'I don't know provincially but I can tell you the Cowichan Region.' It was not rhetoric. These are real concerns."

Nicol and Spilsbury left Reid with a number of questions, calling for specific answers on early childhood education wage subsidies or other financial interventions and school capacity counts.

The pair also asked what the results were of the Ministry's new initiatives to increase the number of early childhood educators, offering student loans and $5,000 grants to return to the field.

"Of course, from Cowichan Valley, we've had no response to those initiatives that we know of and we wonder if provincially they are making any difference," Spilsbury said.

Social Planning Cowichan also wants be part of the Early Learning Agency.

Finally, they have asked Minister Reid to visit the Valley and see centres to see for herself how they work and to listen to parents.

Spilsbury said she had been pleased to see Education Minister Shirley Bond also sit in on the Victoria session and has also met recently with NDP Child Care critic Claire Trevena at her request. Trevena was in the Valley last Thursday to kick off a provincial fact-finding mission into childcare.