EDITORIAL: Essential in every way
THE ISSUE: Child Care. WE SAY: It's as essential a service as health care or education
Squamish Chief - Question
May 30, 2008 

In Canada, we pride ourselves on having universal health care, especially by comparison to our neighbours to the south. Every now and again, we hear about families whose lives are burdened by heavy health insurance premiums – or shattered by a medical problem that they can’t afford – and we shake our heads smugly, thankful that it can’t happen to us.

The problem is the same thing is essentially happening right now in Canada – except instead of health care, it’s child care.

All across Canada, but especially in places like Squamish, where the cost of living is skyrocketing, families need at least two incomes to stay afloat – even when there’s only one parent – and that makes child care an absolute necessity.

But many families find a staggering amount of that second (or third) paycheque goes right back out the door to child care – yet they still can’t quite afford to have one parent stay at home.

So how is B.C. dealing with this? By cutting funding to organizations that provide child care, like Sea to Sky Community Services (SSCS).

That leaves child care providers with three difficult options: increase costs, reduce hours or cut staff wages. In Squamish, SSCS has tried not to pass along the burden to parents, cutting staff wages instead.

That creates a staffing crisis, where child care workers that were making more than $16 an hour are now making a little more than $12 – the same neighbourhood as fast food and retail outlets are paying, for a difficult job that requires specialized education and training. Little wonder that child care providers are finding it difficult to find staff and keep the doors open.

And even so, the cost of child care is rising beyond the ability of families to afford it.

If this were school boards laying off or cutting wages for teachers or health authorities cutting nurses, the outcry would be province-wide – after all, education and health care are recognized as essential services, whether an individual uses them or not.

That’s the kind of thinking that needs to happen when we think of child care. It’s not a convenience for a privileged minority – it is now a basic necessity for a functioning society, and if it’s lacking, it will hurt all of us in the long run. Lack of child care today means more poverty tomorrow, more homelessness tomorrow, more crime tomorrow.

In short, child care is just like health care and education – an essential service. And like those two, it’s going to be expensive to do it properly.

The challenge is making governments – and the voters that elect them – realize that.