Tags: $10/day plan, advocacy, advocates, affordable, BC, Canada, childcare, coalition, families, generational, government, political, spending, squeeze, will

Can BC afford affordable daycare?

March 10, 2013

Written by: Talia

I posted last month about why Buddings is supporting the CCCABC’s Community Plan for Integrated Care and Early Learning AKA $10/day childcare, and it’s been exciting to answer your questions. Opening the dialogue around what it would take to support families and children is the first and most important step towards implementing change.

The Plan calls for a huge public investment, and complete overhaul of the childcare sector, and the rationale was taken directly from a model developed at UBC’s Human Early Learning Partnership (HELP) by Lynell Anderson, senior researcher at HELP and Certified General Accountant.

HELP’s campaign – Generation Squeeze – focuses on the differences in life circumstances faced by modern families, as compared to that of families a generation ago. Working longer hours for a lower average annual income and faced with prohibitive and inaccessible childcare costs, Generation Squeeze aims to draw attention to the tight space families occupy in Canada.

Governments currently spend an average of $45,000/year for Canadians over the age of 65, and just $12,000 for Canadians under the age of 45. A small increase in spending can have a huge impact when it’s in the right place, and for HELP, Generation Squeeze, and Lynell Anderson, the biggest bang for the buck comes from universally accessible childcare.

Making funds available to families to access an 18 month parental leave (essentially cutting out the need for infant care, which is exorbitantly expensive and basically non-existent anyway), plus capping parent fees at $10/day for quality care for children under 6, would amount to an average increase of just $1,000 per young Canadian, and would save families the equivalent of $50,000 over the first five years of their child’s life.

Can we afford to invest in children and families? We can, and it doesn’t cost anything more than the political will to do so. Ready to do something about it?

1. Educate yourself about the plan, impacts to families, finances, and business.

2. Endorse the plan yourself and share the information with all the families you know. We’ve got prepared postcards you can even leave at Buddings and we’ll get them to Victoria on your behalf.

3. Join Buddings by writing a letter endorsing the plan on behalf of your business (any business can do this!) and help us make sure childcare is a priority for the next provincial government.