A number of Alberta child care facilities shut their doors Tuesday, protesting what they say are problems with the $10-a-day child-care program.
The Association of Alberta Childcare Entrepreneurs said the job action is meant to draw attention to the issues that come with offering parents low-cost child care without ensuring the cost of delivery is still covered.
“It’s been underfunded from the beginning,” said Krystal Churcher, the chair of the Association of Alberta Childcare Entrepreneurs. “There is not enough funding to ensure that the level of quality is going to be continuing on at a high level in this province.
“You can’t even buy coffee and a muffin for $10 a day,” said Churcher. “We’re walking out in protest.
“It’s one day. We purposely only chose one day because we thought that this would be enough for parents to be in a position where they might want to listen and choose education over fear.”
The federal government’s 2021 budget included a $30-billion, five-year offer that would eventually cut costs to families to $10 a day by 2025-26.
Every province and territory has signed on to the deal. In exchange for the federal money, provinces had to implement the federal vision, which, while cutting fees, also sought to increase wages for child-care workers.
Some operators have said the federal-provincial agreements limit the fees they can charge while not providing enough support to cover all their costs.
Little Worlds Learning Centre in Calgary was one of the facilities that shut its door on Tuesday. Staff, who were still working, said they wanted to show their solidarity with facilities that are struggling.
“We decided to be together because we wanted to support the child care (centres) that are going through a lot right now,” supervisor Alda Clavijo said.
“This is to stand up for all of us… We are passionate about what we do.
“In the future, the ones that are going to pay the price are the parents, because a lot of the centres are going to close… They are not going to be able to sustain themselves. We are a business.”
Assistant Jessica Molina said they would like to see the child care grants paid directly to families, rather than passed on through operators.
A letter went out to parents with children at Little Worlds Learning Centre on Monday, notifying them that the facility would be taking part in the rolling closures happening at facilities across Alberta.
Shay Ayotte’s four-year-old son attends Little Worlds. She said she is sympathetic to child-care providers.
“I think primarily the fault is on the government. They didn’t plan it well,” she said.
“I am very sympathetic of this daycare… they took us in, they made us family here. So I’m a little disappointed, yeah, but I’m not mad at them. I’m sympathetic.
“What I want to see is for them to find a compromise that’s going to work for everybody to ensure the kids are going to have this.
“I’m more concerned about my son. He’s going to be a victim.”
Federal Minister of Families, Children and Social Development Jenna Sudds said Tuesday morning they are “following closely” what’s happening in Alberta, adding provinces and territories knew what they were getting into with these deals.
“When we signed on, we made a historic $30-billion commitment to build this national system. Every province and territory has benefited from that funding, they had certainty of what that looked like, it increases every July in their annual payment. So we expect, of course, that the provinces are also contributing,” she said.
Sudds added that she fully expects all provinces and territories will “execute on their agreements, they’ll follow through on the commitments and I’m sure Alberta will be no exception.”
Alberta’s Minister of Children and Family Services Searle Turton said he is disappointed to see a small number of child care operators “scare families with random closures” rather than negotiating in good faith.
“I know that there (are) a number of families that are scrambling this morning and I will be looking at absolutely every option available to me as the minister to make sure that those children and families are looked after,” Turton told Global News Tuesday morning.
Turton said he’s heard from a number of operators who would like to see Alberta pull out of the program altogether, a move he calls “disastrous.”
“While we are continuously working through the issues that this program has, I also think that there are a number of operators that have been very clear about their actual intentions, which is to have Alberta pull out of the agreement. I think this would have disastrous effects on families over the entire province, it would lead to the increasing of fees and gouging of pocketbooks for families right across the entire province. This is not going to be a path that we’re going to go down.”
Turton added in a statement that the premier will request a meeting with the federal minister to discuss this further “and to urge the federal government to consider changes to the framework that would support operators facing inflationary pressures.”
“Affordability is a major concern for all Albertans right now,” Turton said. “Our priority must be ensuring an affordable and sustainable child-care system for operators and families.”
In a statement on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, Premier Danielle Smith said the current cost-control framework established by the federal government does not recognize inflationary pressures faced by child-care operators.
“Alberta’s government remains committed to protecting the affordability and sustainability of the child-care system. I will be requesting a meeting with the federal government to discuss this further and to urge the federal government to consider changes to the framework that would support operators facing inflationary pressures,” Smith wrote.
“Child care is the responsibility of the provincial government, and if the federal government doesn’t meet us at the table we will ensure Albertans can continue to access an affordable and sustainable child-care system our way. Over the coming weeks, I will be meeting with our incredible child-care operators to work on solutions together.”
In a statement, the Alberta NDP’s critic for child care and children and family services said the UCP’s funding formula for the provincial-federal deal is broken.
“For the last two years, daycare operators have been shouldering the weight of the UCP’s poor decisions. The federal program is a cost-sharing agreement and the UCP has failed to invest anything new to support our economy and these business owners,” Diana Batten said.
“It shouldn’t have to come to this. Child care providers shouldn’t have to shut their doors, leaving families without options, just to get the government’s attention.”
The Association of Alberta Childcare Entrepreneurs said Tuesday’s closures will affect about 30,000 child-care spaces.
— with files from The Canadian Press.