[andyt]

Canadian_Mind Canadian_Mind:

andyt andyt:

Canadian_Mind Canadian_Mind:

I'm pretty sure a single mother of 2 children with no family and no friends to help her out is the exception, not the norm.

Really? No childcare problems in Canada at all, huh? Even for two parent families, never mind single parents.

"Exception" doesn't mean non-existant. I'm sure there are cases out there. But I don't think the government should have to jump through hoops for rare cases. No need to over-complicate a system that is satisfactory for 90% of the population. Having a system that caters to even more would be an unneeded expense. Instead, have a separate system in place that will look after those last 10% on a case-by-case basis that aren't adequately served by the "current system".

By "current system" I mean a welfare system that is revamped to be better then the current one.

Exception, are you fucking kidding? Even couples earning good money have trouble finding good, affordable daycare.

[OnTheIce]

Brenda Brenda:

Daycare is free? When you work for $10/hr, and daycare (or a sitter) is $8/hr, what would your choice be?

Oh, another thing, daycare where I live closes during EVERY school holiday, regardless of the age of the kids. That means 2 weeks at Christmas, 10 weeks in Summer, and 2 weeks in Spring. My boss is not going to pay me for the time I am not there. How am I supposed to solve THAT problem? Teenagers? Sure, they will do it for free (not).

Daycare is free, for thousands of low-income mothers, fathers and families here in Ontario.

My wife, a former supervisor of a daycare centre in Toronto had 90% of her kids on daycare subsidy. Some, who didn't qualify for full payment, had to pay between $2-$5/day.

[Gunnair]

OnTheIce OnTheIce:

Brenda Brenda:

Daycare is free? When you work for $10/hr, and daycare (or a sitter) is $8/hr, what would your choice be?

Oh, another thing, daycare where I live closes during EVERY school holiday, regardless of the age of the kids. That means 2 weeks at Christmas, 10 weeks in Summer, and 2 weeks in Spring. My boss is not going to pay me for the time I am not there. How am I supposed to solve THAT problem? Teenagers? Sure, they will do it for free (not).

Daycare is free, for thousands of low-income mothers, fathers and families here in Ontario.

My wife, a former supervisor of a daycare centre in Toronto had 90% of her kids on daycare subsidy. Some, who didn't qualify for full payment, had to pay between $2-$5/day.

It's heavily subsidized in BC as well.

[andyt]

$1:

In urban areas like Vancouver and Victoria, child-care fees can account for 20 percent of families’ total expenses—the second highest cost after housing. A Vancouver family with a four-year-old child in full-time childcare and a seven-year-old child in after-school care will pay at least $982 a month or $11,784 a year for childcare.

A large Vancouve-based child-care provider reports that without a significant increase in provincial funding, next year fees could be as high as $1,000 a month for three- to five-year-old children

But this is not just an urban issue. From 2001 to 2006, annual child-care fees for preschool-aged children in B.C. went up by $672. For school-aged care, the increase was more than $800.

The crisis doesn’t stop there. There still aren’t enough quality spaces.

Wait lists for quality childcare are years long. Only 14 percent of B.C. children under the age of 12 have access to a licensed child-care space. Despite government’s claims that they are creating new spaces, this is only a two percent increase since 2001 and still falls far short of the need.

And, low wages have created a staffing crisis in child care.

A recent survey of B.C.’s early childhood educators reports that almost half of these college-trained professionals earn less than $16 an hour. This includes people with 20 years experience in the field.

The B.C. child-care crisis didn’t fall from the sky. The seeds were planted in 2002 when the newly elected provincial government scrapped the $7-a-day school-aged child-care program that funded 15,000 affordable, quality spaces and cancelled plans to extend funding to care for other age groups.

Then, the government cut $40 million from its own child-care budget. These dollars were only replaced when the federal government transferred funds to B.C. that could only be spent on child care. The reality is that B.C. is spending fewer provincial dollars on childcare than in 2001.

As a result, long-time providers are teetering on the brink of closing their doors because of lack of funding. The tragic irony is that despite demand, not all spaces are filled because parents cannot afford the high fees.

[Brenda]

The after school care-program my kids were in (on a casual basis, depending on availability and regulars come first, logically) from 14:15 till 17:30 (not a second later) was $8/hr for 2 kids.