Text of the press release:
Tomorrow, March 8, 2001, marks the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day (IWD), and CUPE Nova Scotia has a gift suggestion for Canadian governments who may be wondering exactly how they might celebrate the occasion.
President Danny Cavanagh says, "There could be no better gift for working women than to deliver on decades of promises for a universal child care program. And here in Nova Scotia, the provincial government would do well to heed the advice of a couple of new reports which spell out the economic advantages of expanding child care.
"This week, YWCA Canada issued a new report which shows the 'gap in child care' created by the failure of the 'free market' to provide what modern, working families really need is hurting the economy in a big way," says Cavanagh.
"Even the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies (AIMS) -- not exactly a proponent of state intervention -- issued its own report a couple of months back which urged the provincial government to put more money into early childhood education and care, citing (of all things), market failure," he says.
Says Cavanagh, "Nova Scotians are keenly aware of the increasing importance of enticing younger people to stay in Nova Scotia, facilitating women's earlier entry into the labour market and getting more people to move to Nova Scotia -- immigrants as well as Canadians from other provinces and territories.
The need for ECEC infrastructure couldn't be clearer. And it should not be anywhere but in public hands -- and to respond to our changing demographics -- and to respond to the lack of spaces and desperately long wait-lists at almost all child care centres. Countless studies have shown that public delivery actually provides better quality care for the children.
Later this month, CUPE Nova Scotia will release some ground-breaking new research which shows that expanding child care is not only good for the economy, it is the single most effective economic development tool that governments have at their disposal.