BC Coalition of Women's Centres
Home
Action!
Archives
Info
Media
Site Map
|
BC Coalition of Women’s Centres
For immediate release
November 7, 2002
Child care cuts – a huge blow to women’s
equality in BC
Accumulated cuts will devastate many daycares
Cuts to BC’s Contribution and Compensation Staff Incentive Program,
as reported recently in the media, are only the tip of the iceberg when
it comes to cuts affecting childcare in British Columbia.
The accumulation of these cuts will be a huge blow to women in BC, setting
the women’s equality clock back as far as forty years. Cuts will also
devastate many daycares in BC, especially those run by small, non-profit
organizations, which must seek funding from as many as five different BC
Ministries in order to keep their doors open.
The Ministry of Community, Aboriginal and Women’s Services is not only
cutting the Contribution and Compensation program, which provided a meagre
increase of approximately 11% to childcare workers with appropriate higher
education, but has also cut Funding Assistance for Out of School Care.
The Ministry will be cutting the Child Care Resource and Referral, which
provides mothers with a database of childcare spaces; the One Stop Access
Program, which provides supported childcare subsidies in the north; and
funding to Westcoast Resource and Inform, which provides information and
resources to rural childcares.
Upcoming changes in the way childcare in BC is funded—moving to a “per
child” system based on enrolment—will mean a further cut of up to 30% in
funding to daycares.
The Ministry of Advanced Education has also made deep cuts in closing
Early Childhood Education programs, making faculty reductions, suspending
programs in some institutions and reducing course offerings in others.
The Ministry of Children and Family Development has reduced supported childcare
for developmentally delayed children by 28%.
And one of the largest blows to women, with their statistically lower
incomes and their majority responsibility for childcare in BC, has been
the lowering of the threshold of qualifying income for childcare subsidies
by the Ministry of Human Resources.
“The 1984 Royal Commission on Equality of Employment noted that ‘child
care is the ramp that provides equal access to the work force for mothers’
(see Abella, 1984, 1978). Child care is also a major source of employment
for women. According to census data, in 1991 there were 181,830 women
providing child care. For mothers, lack of affordable child care may
mean having to be out of the work force for several years, or part-time
participation only. This results in a reduction of lifetime earnings,
lost opportunities for career advancement and smaller pension benefits than
would have been the case otherwise. For providers of child care, the
reduction in government financial support means job insecurity and deteriorating
working conditions.”*
The social consequences of not providing adequate and supportive government
funding to childcare are great. According to researcher Gillian Doherty*,
parents may be forced to use unregulated care; to have one parent, or the
lone parent, remain out of the paid work force or work only part-time in
order to be home to care for the children; to arrange to work different shifts,
thereby enabling one parent to be at home at all times (this “solution”
has its own consequences, for example, a significant reduction in the amount
of time the family unit is together); or to leave their child unattended
or in the care of an older sibling.
Without access to affordable childcare, women will face increased job
insecurity, an increased level of stress, diminished access to educational
opportunities, increased polarization based on socio-economic status, and
a reduction in women’s choices regarding participation in the paid work
force.
Child care is essential for women in their role as mothers to assist
them to obtain economic equality and to support them in their role as parents.
At the same time, women make up 97% of child care providers.
The BC Coalition calls on the provincial government to ensure the affordability
and availability of child care in BC. Further, the BC Coalition of
Women’s Centres calls on Minister of State for Women’s Equality, Lynn Stephens,
to stand up and speak in the Legislature on behalf of women. Childcare
is fundamental to women’s equality, and Minister Stephens cannot maintain
her customary silence on women’s equality issues while the systemic dismantling
of childcare is taking place in British Columbia.
_____________________________
* Doherty, Gillian. 1998. Women’s
support, women’s work: child care in an era of deficit reduction,
devolution, downsizing and deregulation. Canada, Status of Women Canada.
Ottawa.
|
If you have questions/comments for BCCWC, please
e-mail us at
bcwomen@telus.net
For other contact information,
please go to our
Information Page
BC Coalition of Women's Centres
•
British Columbia,
Canada
100 Mile House • Campbell River • Chetwynd
• Comox Valley •
Cranbrook •
Fernie • Fort Nelson • Fort St. John • Golden
• Grand Forks • Howe Sound • Kamloops •
Kelowna • Kitimat • Nanaimo • North Shore • Penticton
• Port Alberni • Port Coquitlam
•
Queen Charlotte Islands • Quesnel
• Richmond • Ridge Meadows • Sunshine
Coast • South Surrey/White Rock •
Surrey • Terrace • Vancouver • Vernon
• Victoria •
Westcoast •
West
Kootenay • Williams Lake
This page last updated:
November 13, 2002
created
entirely with volunteer labour by
Doodlebug Grrl
No Budget Productions
|