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North Island MLA Claire Trevena has tabled a motion in the Legislature calling on the provincial government to address the crisis in childcare.
Last week Trevena, the NDP's Childcare Critic, tabled a motion calling for a high quality, affordable, accessible, universal, and publicly funded childcare system for B.C.
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Trevena tabled the motion as concern mounted about the foreign takeover of B.C.'s childcare centres by big box operators looking for big profits.
"We're dealing with a growing crisis," she said. "But big box childcare would be a catastrophe. It is the commercialization of childcare. In countries where these commercial childcare centres are operating, standards have dropped and it is the children who suffer.
"This government should commit to a well funded childcare plan, which allows access to all parents who want their children to have the opportunity for childcare."
Provincial government officials maintain they've increased funding. They say funding shortfalls rest with the federal government which cancelled the 2005 Early Learning and Child Care Agreement in March, representing a loss to B.C. of $455 million over the next three years. Victoria says Ottawa's Child Care Spaces Initiative will provide $99 million over three years, a significant reduction of $356 million to the Province.
Victoria says the Province has maintained its contribution to child care services in B.C. and maintained significant enhancements to programs that support vulnerable children and families, including investing $12.5 million in major capital funding to support the creation of licensed child care spaces.
- reprinted from the Campbell River Courier-Islander