Public Service Alliance of Canada BC

By Pieta Woolley
Publish Date: December 13, 2007

On weekday mornings, Nancy Liang leaves her home in Coquitlam and drives her two-year-old son to his daycare, which is in a grey industrial-business zone in Richmond. The building that contains his child-care centre looks dismal. A furniture store takes up the whole first floor. It borders a gravel parking lot and is across the street from a cement factory. Truck traffic on Sea Island Way trundles by.

But on the second floor of the two-storey building sit the spacious offices of Syscon Justice Systems, a software company that designs computer programs for jails and prisons. This is where Liang works as an application developer and where little Bernard Liu attends daycare with seven other kids aged one to five.

Workplace childcare is relatively new to Canada, but it’s poised to revolutionize how the service is delivered. This year, both the B.C. and federal governments changed laws to make workplace daycares more attractive to businesses. The City of Vancouver will consider a report in the spring of 2008 that could facilitate on-site daycare in office buildings. However, some child-care lobbyists–who have been fighting for a taxpayer-funded system for three decades–hate the idea. (more…)

May is Child Care Month. The Child Care – Let’s Make It Happen! and Code Blue 2007 tour will be visiting a half-dozen BC communities between May 11-25. Events are being co-organized with local groups in Victoria, Duncan, Vernon, Castlegar, Prince Rupert and Richmond. This tour has come together very quickly, and details are still being finalized in locations such as Prince Rupert.

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• Thursday, April 12 – 6:30pm
• Heritage Hall 3102 Main St.
• Vancouver, B.C.
• Info: 604-291-9611

Vancouver Child Care Resource is losing half of its provincial funding at the end of April. Ten neighbourhood-based CCRR services that help families with referrals and subsidies, and give family child care providers training and business support, will be gone.

The Campbell government is also cutting 100% of the Westcoast Provincial Services budget. That means no more access to the unique Westcoast Resource Library that promotes diversity and multiculturalism outside of Vancouver. And, significantly reduced access to the Safe Spaces bullying prevention training for caregivers of 3-5 year olds.
Waitlists are growing and parent fees are rising. Families, child care providers and community leaders are not sitting still for these cuts to urgently-needed child care services.

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Via BC Federation of Labour

• Saturday, March 31, 11am – 12:30pm
• Burrard Bridge, Vancouver
• Gather at 11am at Seaforth Peace Flame Park (south end of bridge by Cornwall Ave.)
• Calling parents, grandparents, early childhood educators and child care supporters to span the bridge sidewalks with signs and songs!

March 30-31 marks the elimination of federal-provincial childcare funding agreements by the Harper Conservatives. It also marks the closure of several childcare resource and referral centres in BC and the elimination of critical services to working families as a result of funding cuts by the Campbell Liberals.

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Tuesday, February 20 is BC Budget Day. The Campbell government began this year by cutting the child care budget. Any announcements they make now will likely be one-time only, stopgap funding that does not even begin to fix the child care problems they’ve caused.

British Columbians are urged to flood the Campbell government with a strong message – restore child care funding and build a child care system!

Please take a moment to fax:

• Premier Gordon Campbell at 250-387-0087
• Minister of Finance Carole Taylor at 250-387-5594
• Minister of State for Child Care Linda Reid at 250-356-8337

Download the fax form here (pdf), and please send a copy of your message to your Liberal MLA. Click for MLA fax numbers.

Working families in every BC community need child care. The provincial government’s funding cuts and attacks on child care programs affects us all, but especially children in BC. By cutting child care funding again, the Campbell government has shown it doesn’t care about the future of our children or working families.

Community response to the most recent child care cuts is building around the province of BC. There are many ways you can help get the message to political leaders that child care funding must be restored immediately and that BC can afford to build a quality, affordable, accessible, public child care system now. Visit bcgeu.ca for more information.

Rallies and protests are scheduled across the province this month, click for a calendar of events (pdf).

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