Province introduces new child care legislation

Jun 8, 2021 | 3:18 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – The Province introduced two new bills today, both aimed at improving access to affordable child care.

The introduction of the early learning and child care (ELCC) act and the early childhood educators (ECEs) act recaptures the momentum of the original BC Child Care Act introduced in 1996 to begin building an accessible, affordable, quality, inclusive child care system.

“Families have been experiencing child care chaos for too long,” said Katrina Chen, Minister of State for Child Care. “This legislation is an important step in our 10-year Childcare BC plan to give families access to quality, affordable child care.”

The proposed acts build on the $10aDay Plan introduced in 2018, which includes a pilot program to have several daycares in the province with $10-a-day daycare, and the Family Y of Northern BC is one of those sites.

“It’s been phenomenal for families,” says Lynette Mikalishen, Director of Child Care Services, YMCA of Northern BC. “I can’t say enough. We know it’s been a life-changer, right? People being able to afford child care.”

The pandemic highlighted the struggles with child care in the province after it was declared an essential service. And Mikalishen says Early Childhood Education is a field that has been chronically underfunded for years.

“It’s not always been a greatly recognized sector. The people who do this work are incredible people who are truly underpaid and under-appreciated. So it’s been really hard to grow in terms of recruitment to the field. And it’s predominantly women so I think there’s piece there around equity that plays into it.”

She says if there is a silver lining to the pandemic, recognition of the importance of child care and child care workers is one of them.