Daycare not a luxury
Cariboo Press - Penticton Western News
October 23, 2008
Opinion: Joy Lang, Penticton

Re: the letter by Ashley Rattee, of Oct 10. She claims national daycare would be grandiose and expensive and equates it to higher carbon taxes.

Carbon taxes are the better of the environment, while good daycare is for the betterment of our most vulnerable little children who must live in that environment. European countries have long had government funded daycare; it is not considered grandiose. Communist countries have long had children's centres right in the factories where the parents work, also not grandiose and certainly not expensive.

The scale of child poverty is an embarrassment in a country as nice as ours. Money given to all parents, regardless of need, does nothing to build or maintain daycare centres or to pay teachers, which are both in short supply.

…. Individual initiative will have a hard time finding good daycare, nationally for all children, which would allow parents to put their individual initiatives to work making a living.