Lack of day-care spots driving parents to extreme measures: Lining up overnight among ways frantic adults seek spots for kids
Business Edge
By Tess van Straaten
September 19, 2008 - Vol. 8, No. 19

…. While there are no national numbers on how many families are crying out for care, long waiting lists are a reality in cities all across Canada.

In B.C., which is one of the worst provinces for finding licensed day care, the province's capital city has only 404 spots for children under 30 months of age, according to a report last year by the Partnership in Learning and Advocacy for Young Children.

In total, the federally funded report found that there are only 5,377 regulated spots in Victoria at any given time for the 17,500 kids under five that, based on 2006 census numbers, live in the capital region.

"Parents are sleeping overnight in school gyms to line up for (after-school) spots and it's even worse for pre-school and infant spaces," says Victoria child-care advocate and mother of two Michelle Kirby.

"Society has changed. Moms don't stay home - 75 per cent of moms with kids under six now work - so there's a huge shortfall and it's only getting worse."

The child-care crunch hit home for Kirby a couple years ago when, as a stay-at-home mom, she received four calls in one month from friends desperate for day care.

"I had friends and even acquaintances asking me to look after their kids because they had to go back to work and they couldn't find care," Kirby explains.

"The shortage of care is a huge problem not just for parents, but for employers because people either have to quit their jobs - which some of my friends have done - or put their kids in places where I don't feel they're being adequately cared for. The parents sadly keep their kids in those situations because they don't have an alternative and then they worry all day at work and are distracted, so how much does that cost the economy if parents can't concentrate?" Whether it's more productive employees or for an edge in the increasingly competitive arena of staff recruitment, some forward-thinking organizations are finding that providing day care makes good business sense. More than just a perk, onsite child care can be a huge advantage in a tight labour market.

…. "Without child care, we don't have a workforce."

With no national child-care plan - something all experts and advocates agree is long overdue - the day-care dilemma is falling to provincial governments. While some provinces are making progress, none compare to Quebec.

La belle province's heavily subsidized child care is not only accessible, but affordable at only $7 a day or about $140 per month. Compare that to the $600 to $1,600 per child, on average, that parents pay in the rest of Canada and it's easy to understand why the Quebec model is being held up as an example for the rest of the country.

… As for Tate, he never did make it to the top of the waiting lists in Winnipeg. Fearing the worst when we moved to Victoria this summer, I started calling day-care providers months before the move and lucked out ….