Another Black Friday for child care in BC

The Campbell government is making further child care service cuts and closures that will immediately begin to affect thousands of BC families and child care providers. The news came without notice or consultation in a surprise call made today by the government to child care resource and referral centres around the province.

The BC Government and Service Employees' Union has learned that the impact will include the outright closures of Kitimat, Gibsons, and Langley (Walnut Grove) Child Care Resource and Referral satellite offices. Out of 44 centres, Richmond and Elk Valley have already closed, following the BC government's first round of cuts in January.

As well, the total elimination of the Westcoast Child Care Resource Centre $800,000 annual provincial services budget means there will be no more province-wide ‘Safe Spaces' anti-bullying training for caregivers of young children; the end of a provincial lending library with a strong multicultural focus that circulates some 19,000 toys, videos and learning materials annually; and the end to business management advisory services that supported 2,500 child care providers last year.

Vancouver Child Care Resource and Referral - which matches parents with child care provider contact information and other services, will also lose one-third of its budget. This will likely mean the closure of a number of its nine decentralized neighbourhood house sites around the city, and reductions to other family-support programs.

"This is another Black Friday for child care in BC," says BC Government and Service Employees' Union president George Heyman. "It is outrageous that the Campbell government is choosing to make these cuts today, when just yesterday we heard that the federal government will be sending $32-million for child care to BC this year."

"The BC government continues to turn its back on the needs of families by recklessly cutting these community lifelines connecting working families and child care operators in every community."

Heyman also questions how the BC government has arrived at a reallocation formula that fixes child care service funding for Vancouver's 68,726 children at about $9 per child, while the Sechelt area, with an estimated population of 3,320 children, will receive funding of close to $56 per child.

"It makes little sense that while the BC government is trying to lure back former residents to address our province's growing skills and labour shortage - it is cutting the child care supports that make it possible for parents to work," Heyman adds.

Heyman notes further that, "This government does not even have the courage to make a public announcement, beyond a ministry website posting this afternoon, to inform parents and child care providers about these latest cuts. Instead they make this move on the eve of Spring Break, without consultation with families or providers."

The BCGEU represents 600 child care workers, and nine Child Care Resource and Referral Centres.

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Media, contact Teresa Marshall, BCGEU communications at 604-473-5454 or 313-6103

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