Council Briefs: Spring Creek day care closures moves to provincial level
Pique Newsmagazine
October 22, 2008

MLA Joan McIntyre will continue lobbying the provincial government about Whistler’s day care challenges, after meeting with council this week to discuss the problem.

The West Vancouver-Garibaldi MLA is familiar with Spring Creek day care’s announced closures, as well as other issues Whistler has faced over the past few years, said Mayor Ken Melamed.

“Ms. McIntyre is well versed on the file and has been speaking with her minister responsible, trying to find out what we can do,” said Melamed, stressing that childcare is a federal and provincial government responsibility, not a municipal one.

“We told Ms. McIntyre that the municipality is looking at its bylaws around home care provision, but that is really as far as we can go. The province is the one that regulates and sets training levels and provides the training courses.”

McIntyre has also told the municipality that she will be looking at speeding up the accreditation process for childcare workers who are not from B.C., although Melamed acknowledged this legislation will probably not come on board in time to save the Spring Creek program.

To further alert higher levels of government about local day care challenges, Melamed said the municipality is also speaking to newly elected MP ….