Canada is tied for dead last when it comes to supporting child care
The Daily Courier (Kelowna)
15 Dec 2008
By: Shelley Nicholl

So, Canada is tied for dead last when it comes to supporting child care. It's appalling. According to a report from UNICEF out last week, of the 25 more affluent UN countries analyzed, Canada was last in its efforts to meet 10 proposed child-care standards. We got only one. This is shocking. Or it should be.

We should all feel truly ashamed of our showing and lobby our federal and provincial governments accordingly.

Those in power to make change should take this as a warning to pay attention to our childcare issues and to adjust funding and policies.

This should be a call to action.

I fear, however, it will trigger nothing more than words for a day or two and then be brushed aside. Like the rest of the mile-high stacks of information about how to improve our sad state of child-care support, it will end up in a recycling bin somewhere.

I'm not sure what it will take to put child care in the forefront. We are so far behind in our collective wisdom to help families. It's at the point that it is affecting many parents' ability to go to work because they can't find space for their toddlers, and if they don't work, they can't afford to raise the child.

European countries understand how important it is to support families; families work and need child care. Sweden, Iceland, Denmark and France all have higher financial and effective support for families. It is expected the country helps its own. Paid parental leave from the employer, flexible work schedules and in-house child care are considered normal, not exceptions.

We have a "universal childcare benefit," but it is nothing of the sort. It's listed as part of the federal child-care policy, but can anyone show me how it actually addresses child care?

.. It's a lovely gesture, and I'm sure a help to some families, but it is definitely not a child-care plan.

It doesn't help create safe places for our children. It's doesn't support early learning. It doesn't help hire child-care workers. It doesn't help parents struggling with the costs of child care or finding care.

… Everyone knows the solutions. It's not that complicated. But, for some reason, child care is always shoved aside as not significant enough to warrant adequate funding or a proper national plan.

UNICEF recommends developed countries should spend one per cent of their gross domestic product on child-supportive services. I'd settle for half that.

Apparently, we spend less than a third that amount, which includes the $100 child bonus.

In B.C., there has been provincial government money spent on adding child-care spaces in the past few years, but it is barely noticeable compared to the large and dire need.

Parents with low incomes can get subsidizes, but the threshold isn't that high. It's not uncommon for a family to spend upwards of $1,000 per month on child care for two children not yet in school.

… According to UNICEF, about 80 per cent of children aged three to six are in some form of care outside the home while parents work. We are not talking about a teeny section of the population. These are our families. This is our reality.

The days of two-parent households, with one bread winner and another at home with the children disappeared with all those episodes of Leave it to Beaver….

If we want families to raise healthy children, we have to support them. We all know it takes a village to raise a child. It also helps if the province and country are in line, too.

Here's hoping for a better grade next time in the UNICEF analysis - for the sake of our kids.