PHOTO COURTESY CHILDCARE IS ESSENTIAL

A few years ago, Kisa MacIsaac, an early childhood educator (ECE) and mother of three in Winnipeg, tried to calculate the feasibility of putting three children in childcare for the summer. At 70 dollars per day, she “would have been working for nothing, anyways,” she says.

She ended up taking the summer off while her husband’s salary carried them through, but she knows that many others aren’t as lucky. Although Manitoba’s childcare fees are the second lowest in the country, “for many it’s still very, very expensive, especially if you have two or three children,” she says.

The lack of access to affordable childcare, especially during a global pandemic, when many people around the country have lost their jobs, was striking to MacIsaac. As government leaders began discussing what school would look like in the time of COVID-19, MacIsaac heard no mention of childcare. That’s why she joined a group of parents, ECEs, and community members to form Childcare is Essential, a Manitoba-based group advocating for publicly funded, high-quality daycare in the province.

When brainstorming a name, MacIsaac says, “The messaging that kept coming through is the words ‘childcare is essential.’” So, they went with it. Through weekly Zoom meetings, they planned campaigns and activities, ultimately mobilizing community members at a rally in late August in front of the Minister of Families, Heather Stefanson’s, office.

Members aren’t sure why affordable childcare isn’t on the provincial government’s priority list. Studies show that for every dollar invested in early childhood education, the payback is anywhere from six to 12 dollars. An investment in childcare, then, is an investment in an entire community.

There’s on-the-ground evidence to suggest this, too. In 2012, the provincial government added an early child development centre, Lord Selkirk Park Child Care Centre, and family resource centre in a social housing complex in northern Winnipeg. Using a learning approach specialized for under-resourced families, Healthy Child Manitoba, Manidoo Gi-Miini Gonaan, and Red River College studied the centre and found that children in the program made considerable gains in language development. Parents also reported multiple benefits, from financial security, to having time to work or go back to school, to developing trusting relationships with ECEs.

“If it wasn’t for the daycare, I wouldn’t have made it … I wouldn’t have gone to school. I wouldn’t have been working; I would still be on welfare,” one participant wrote online.

MacIsaac says she sees similar cases at the non-profit early learning and childcare program where she works. Families living below the poverty line receive a subsidy—a two-parent family with two preschool-aged children needs to make below $22,504 to receive the maximum subsidy. The extra time and money can give them opportunities to find new jobs or start saving to pay off loans or move into a nicer home. But as soon as they’re making a little more money, “their childcare subsidy gets clawed back and suddenly they can’t afford their childcare anymore,” she says.

In March, the government of Manitoba set aside $18 million to help ECEs open their own childcare centres at home or in the community in response to the COVID-19 childcare centre closures. But, MacIsaac says, “That’s not an exciting opportunity for me at all. I work in an extremely high-quality program with an amazing team.” It makes sense—evidence shows that on average, in North America, quality of care is higher in non-profit childcare centres.

And that’s what Childcare is Essential is fighting for. MacIsaac says success for the group looks like high-quality, universally accessible childcare with trained ECEs for anyone who needs—or wants—a space for their child.

“It sounds cheesy to be like ‘the children are our future,’ but they literally are, and anything we can do to help children in their early years is going to help everyone in the long term.”

For our special 50th anniversary issue, Canada’s brightest, boldest, and most rebellious thinkers, doers, and creators share their best big ideas. Through ideas macro and micro, radical and everyday, we present 50 essays, think pieces, and calls to action. Picture: plans for sustainable food systems, radical legislation, revolutionary health care, a greener planet, Indigenous self-government, vibrant cities, safe spaces, peaceful collaboration, and more—we encouraged our writers to dream big, to hope, and to courageously share their ideas and wish lists for our collective better future. Here’s to another 50 years!

As I sat down to write this, I found myself thinking about the many aspects of child care that matter to me—from my abhorrence of the trend to “schoolify” very young children to my deep belief that child care should be an affordable not-for-profit publicly supported service. But my overall frustration is that for nearly five decades, politicians of all stripes have used child care to gain political points during both federal and provincial election campaigns but so far none of our governments, except Quebec, have been brave enough to comprehensively address the matter.

Since 1970, when the Royal Commission on the Status of Women proposed a national day-care act, it has been a two-steps-forward, one-step-back dance. On International Women’s Day in 1986 Brian Mulroney’s Conservative government released the “Report of the Task Force on Child Care.” That report, initiated by the previous Liberal government, called for “a universal system of child care, co-funded by federal and provincial governments.” It recommended a system of nonprofit services, designed and managed by the provinces, guided by national standards. The system would be affordable and enhanced through a gradual increase in supply until 2001 when it would serve all children.

Yes! Progress at last!

But alas, instead of acting on the report’s fine recommendations, the same Conservative government set up its own task force on child care and a year later issued “Sharing the Responsibility.” The report recommended tax breaks for parents, grants to for-profit centres, and business incentives to create workplace child care. This set the stage for the ideological shift from funding service providers to funding consumers and from a vision of child care as a community service to child care as a business.

Through the 1990s child care was off the national political agenda. It returned in 2003 when a national child care program came closest to reality under Paul Martin’s federal Liberal Party government. In 2004, Martin said he would make good on a pledge for national child care program worth $5 billion over five years and by late 2005, Social Development Minister Ken Dryden had finessed bilateral agreements with 10 provinces based on quality, universality, and accessibility, all through a developmental focus.

Unfortunately, many steps back followed all this forward movement. The Liberals lost the election in January 2006. One of the first things Stephen Harper’s new government did was terminate the bilateral agreements and “replace” them with a new taxable monthly allowance of $100 for children under six, disingenuously called the Universal Child Care Benefit (at best it paid for one or two days of child care a month).

Now 10 years later we are facing another potential step forward. In his November 2015 mandate letter to Jean-Yves Duclos, Minister of Families, Children, and Social Development, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau requested that consultations begin with provinces, territories and Indigenous Peoples “as a first step towards delivering affordable, high-quality, flexible, and fully inclusive child care.”

Our work must be tireless. All of us must put the pressure on. We must tell our political representatives, both federal and provincial, that children, women, families, communities, and the economy will all benefit when we have a system of quality affordable child care across the country—and that won’t happen through commercial big-box services.

In B.C. we are ready with a plan for public investment into a system of child care that will provide; affordable access for families, fees set at no more than $10 a day, more high-quality spaces for children, and better wages for early childhood educators. Any first steps taken towards delivering affordable, high-quality, flexible, and fully inclusive child care must be taken within the context of that B.C. Plan.

We don’t want—or need—false solutions. Tax transfers to families are useful—I gratefully accepted my baby bonus years ago—but tax transfers do not build child care services or make them affordable. We must not let history repeat itself. Instead, let us work to ensure our next steps are a foundation for a public system of integrated care and learning.