Daycare Serving BC's Poorest Forced to Dump Kids: Funding cuts ignore research on early childhood investment, say advocates.
Nov 2, 2009
By Tom Sandborn
TheTyee.ca

"Bridge funding" from the province -- which allowed the Phil Bouvier daycare in Vancouver's Strathcona neighborhood (Canada's poorest postal code) to employ three extra staff members for a short time this year -- ran out this summer.

Now the effects are rippling out. Three staff members had to be laid off, which caused seven children with special needs to have to leave the centre.

"The so-called 'bridge funding' was apparently a bridge to nowhere," says Fern Jeffries, a community activist working with the parents and staff at the beleaguered daycare centre.

"The government provided extra money for Phil Bouvier until after the election was safely past, and then it disappeared," said Jeffries, who served as assistant deputy minister in several B.C. ministries and in other roles in the federal government before her retirement.

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