Future of $25/day childcare unknown

By JEREMY APPEL on January 16, 2020.

jappel@medicinehatnews.com@MHNJeremyAppel

The fate of $25-a-day childcare in the province is up in the air after the government confirmed Wednesday it won’t be renewing the first round of contracts following a brief extension.

On Jan. 10, parents with children enrolled in the Westlock Child Care Society in northern Alberta – one of 22 daycare centres part of the first round of three-year contracts in 2017 – received letters from the centre notifying them that the pilot will come to an end in April, warning of increased costs for parents and job losses for staff.

Minister of Children’s Services Rebecca Schulz said in a statement these contracts will be extended until June “to ensure a smooth transition to childcare subsidies through the summer, as we work on a new bilateral funding agreement with the federal government.”

This leaves in limbo the other 100 centres which were part of the second round of contracts that came out in 2018, including Medicine Hat’s two YMCA-run centres – the John Miller and Crescent Heights child development centres – as well as Mother Nature’s Preschool and Pitter Patter Child Development.

The pilot project was funded in part by the federal government’s Multilateral Early Learning and Child Care Framework to expand the availability of childcare services to the tune of $1.2 billion over three years.

“We don’t know anything for sure,” Jennifer Usher of the Medicine Hat & District Early Childhood Coalition told the News.

“The contracts may be coming to an end, but it doesn’t necessarily mean the government has decided to cut that program. We haven’t heard yet if they’re thinking of doing that or not.”

She assured Hatters “there’s no reason to worry just yet.”

If the program is ultimately cut next year, Usher says it will result not only in parents paying more for daycare, but employees’ wages being reduced.

“The centres that are with that $25-a-day are also paying their staff more than what other centres are able to offer,” she explained.

Usher says the pilot had its flaws.

For instance, the subsidies only applied to non-profit centres, excluding private centres, day home agencies and pre-schools.

“It will be interesting to see what the government does with the money that comes from the bilateral agreement with the federal government,” said Usher, who supports a “comprehensive system for all types of child care.”

Joel French of Edmonton-based think tank Public Interest Alberta told the News the writing’s on the wall for the program’s future.

“I think it would be a little bit generous even to call it ‘uncertainty.’ Most folks in the childcare sector feel pretty certain that funding is going to disappear once it expires,” said French.

He says he doesn’t have any confidence in the UCP’s review of the program, but is also critical of the previous NDP government’s interim review, which he depicted as a rubber stamp.

“Governments often govern based on what talking points are going to sound good, rather than what is good policy,” French said. “Image is sometimes more important to governments than substance, unfortunately.”

PIA issued a report Tuesday, which cited subsidized daycare as one means for addressing poverty.

“If it doesn’t make sense economically for people to work because they would have to have childcare, then sometimes they end up with a much more meagre level of existence, staying home and trying to care for their children,” French explained.

UCP, NDP clash over narrative

In her statement, Schulz emphasized the program’s terms “have not changed.”

“We are committed to working with all Early Learning and Childcare Centres to ensure the families most in need continue to be supported to access the workforce or pursue post-secondary education,” she wrote.

However, Schulz’s statement suggests significant changes to any future childcare program.

“Reviewing the data from the $25-a-day pilot program will help inform how we move forward with childcare in Alberta,” she wrote.

Cypress-Medicine Hat MLA Drew Barnes told the News he believes there is “little risk in starting fresh.”

“One of the weaknesses with the NDP pilot project of $25-a-day daycare was it was providing funding for a lot of people that were higher income and didn’t need support,” said Barnes.

He said reducing provincial debt and the interest payments associated with it will “more than compensate for the early childhood daycare we need.”

In the UCP’s inaugural budget, the provincial deficit increased to $8.7 billion from $6.7 billion.

NDP child services critic Rakhi Pancholi held a news conference Wednesday, where she lambasted the government’s non-renewal of the first round of contracts.

“This news means some parents will have to quit their jobs to stay home, and let’s be honest, many of them are women,” said Pancholi.

She was particularly critical of Schulz’s level of communication with stakeholders.

“To be clear – these centres were forced into this decision,” Pancholi said. “The minister didn’t have the decency to give parents and operators the information they needed to make decisions about their lives and businesses.”

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