Advocates look to help ease child-care crisis
Victoria News online
By Rebecca Aldous
September 2, 2008 

It’s time for municipalities to start addressing Greater Victoria’s child-care crisis, says a young children advocacy group.

Between March 2007 and January 2008, Victoria lost 24 child care spaces, reports Play (Partnership in Learning and Advocacy for Young Children). There are approximately 3,245 non-school aged young children living in Victoria and 1,070 licensed child-care spaces as of January 2008. This equals a ratio of one space for every 2.5 children aged five and under. To reach the organization’s regional goal of one space per every 1.4 children, 1,000 additional spots are required.

“(These figures) are not shock statements that aren’t based in reality,” Jan White, PLAY co-ordinator said. “They are based in reality.”

The organization wants to work in partnership with the City of Victoria to address daycare shortages, affordability and lack of quality staffing. Municipalities have the power to improve the situation, White said.

Through bylaws, zoning and policies, municipalities can create funds that would support the capital costs of creating spaces, encourage businesses to support on-site child care, add child-care facilities to bonus density policies and draw up strategies to accommodate licensed family and group centres in populated areas, she said.

“What we are trying to do is raise the awareness of how child care should be part of a systems approach in communities,” White said. “So looking at their bylaws and zoning, and if we have developments coming in that the question is raised, ‘is there a need for a child care space in that development.’”

Kate Breckon, mother of seven-month-old Hannah Oliver, said any improvements to the current failing system are welcome. Breckon and her partner, who is in the navy, have been on the wait list for the military daycare for a year. She’s also added her name to wait lists at eight other child-care centres.

“It is really next to impossible,” the Colwood resident said.

Cost is also an issue. Of the centres Breckon researched, prices for full-time care ranged between $850 and $1,000 a month.

In Greater Victoria, a family with two wages and children aged seven and under can spend up to 19 per cent of their income on child care, states the 2008 Living Wage study. After dishing out the child care cheque, Breckon will bring home less money than she would on employment insurance.

Victoria council does not mandate developers to look into child care services, but it welcomes it, Coun. Helen Hughes said. Victoria needs a child-care service downtown, which the municipality is trying to encourage, she added. When the $160 million Radius project was cancelled, it also eliminated the city’s hopes for a new child-care centre, which was a component of the development.

Traditionally, Esquimalt doesn’t review child-care demands when looking at development proposals, Mayor Chris Clement said. But it is certainly something to think about for the future. Esquimalt’s demographic is rapidly changing, he noted, as more families are attracted to the community’s affordable housing relative to neighbouring areas.