NDP in town for day care fact gathering; Common Complaints: Wages Too Low, Funding Not Stable
The Daily News (Kamloops)
May 2, 2008
By: Michele Young

The NDP's child-care critic came through Kamloops on Thursday on an information-gathering tour that will go into the party's child-care plan.

Claire Trevena is travelling throughout B.C. to glean insight and ideas about day care realities and needs in B.C. The child-care plan is expected to be released in fall.

….Trevena said the messages she's hearing are the same: wages are too low to retain staff, and funding for day-care centres needs to be stabilized like it is for education or health.

Thursday's Kamloops visit took her to the Cariboo Child Care Society on campus at Thompson Rivers University. There, she talked with staff and parents about improvements they'd like to see.

Executive director Marian Hardy said in her 22 years in child care, she's seen the issues go around in circles. Staffing shortages are due to low wages, spaces are lacking, waiting lists grow, fees go up and parents worry about how they're going to pay for it.

"We need a completely different viewpoint on it. We aren't being listened to."

Hardy said her own centre's rates are going up soon to pay more than the $12 an hour her staff get. Even though her board is trying to retain employees with good benefits and professional development opportunities, that's not enough.

Having seen 24 to 30 positions for early-childhood educators advertised on a regular basis, Hardy said changes are drastically needed.

Parent and board member Sherri Watson said there are employees working at the centre who can't live off their pay so they work …on the side.

Another parent and board member, Mairi MacKay, told Trevena the workers deserve more than what they're being paid.

As a parent, Watson has been on the side of finding a good day care and getting her child in.

"It's very stressful for parents going back to work," she said.

Parents who want to go back to work part time after having a child face an even bigger challenge, as day-care centres rarely have part-time spaces available. They need to maximize their income, so they prefer full-time kids, Watson said. …

Watson said she knows parents who had a second child and kept the first one in day care while the mother was on maternity leave, simply to keep the spot for when she returned to work.

Trevena … didn't expect, however, that the NDP plan will totally reinvent the system.

"We have to look at what we have and how we can make it work," she said.