See text below.
Letter to the editor:
I'm in a rage. I found out Monday morning that despite signing my daughter up for kindergarten after-school care in June 2007 for a spot in September 2009 - that's 27 months early - she's seventh on the waiting list. Apparently, I missed the boat by not signing her up when I was pregnant. That's what some families do.
I thought I was past this nonsense when, at six weeks pregnant, I signed the baby up for Camosun's Toddler Centre for children of 18 months to three years. When Juliana was 16 months, I still didn't have a spot; if a student hadn't dropped out of her program, I might still be looking for daycare.
And then I read the Times Colonist's front-page list of election issues. Included were the economy, taxes and health care. Not included was child care.
The daycare situation is a crisis. The newspaper reported recently that across Canada early childhood educators are being harassed by parents desperate because they cannot find regulated child care. Some of those parents are single parents who cannot work if they cannot find child care.
Adults with small children cannot contribute to the economy if they can't work. They pay fewer taxes. And they are not going to produce second children if they can't find care for the first ones, and those children are needed to provide the tax base and the caregivers to support our health-care system 20 years from now.
The daycare crisis affects all of us. Name it as a crisis and name it as an election issue.
Elizabeth Smyth, Victoria
- reprinted from the Victoria Times Colonist