Subsidized daycare study draws ire
GNWT not doing enough to engage public, MLAs complain
Randi Beers
Northern News Services
Published Friday, November 28 2014
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
A government feasibility study on subsidized daycare has brought to light criticisms of programs the department already offers.
The Department of Education, Culture, and Employment has embarked on the study in response to a motion, passed more than a year ago, by Weledeh MLA Bob Bromley. The motion called for the department to look into the possibility of bringing a subsidized daycare program to the NWT, using Quebec as a model.
In 1997, then Quebec cabinet minister Pauline Marois launched a $2.2 billion childcare initiative that included universal daycare for $7 per day. A 2012 Universite de Sherbrooke study found the initiative brought 70,000 women into the workforce by 2008, resulting in a $5.1 billion increase to the province's GDP.
Here in the Northwest Territories, public consultation into this initiative has begun.
Michelle Zieba, daycare co-ordinator with the Centre for Northern Families, said the department contacted her organization directly earlier this month to ask what the government could do to make daycare more affordable.
"I told them I thought they could make changes to their child daycare user subsidy program," she said.
The department offers a daycare subsidy, but it's been criticized as not accessible by several MLAs, who estimate around only 50 families across the entire territory benefit from it.
"And I told them they need to implement their top up for early childhood educators as soon as possible. We were promised this on April 1, 2014 and we haven't received it yet," she added. Zieba says the education department committed to top up early childhood educators' salaries by one dollar for every year of post-secondary childhood education they have but the department hasn't followed through on that promise yet.
Bromley says his constituents are interested in the idea of universal daycare, but he's concerned the department hasn't advertised it's public consultation well enough.
"I hear (consultation) was advertised over Facebook and the department printed 3,500 flyers," he said.
"I don't know where those flyers went, I know I didn't get one," he said.
Frame Lake MLA Wendy Bisaro said she sees a clear need for more accessible early childhood programs and she hopes the people studying daycare feasibility consult with the the people who have been tasked with reviewing junior kindergarten. Last month, Premier Bob McLeod announced the department would review the implementation of junior kindergarten after several MLAs, early childcare providers and representatives for Yellowknife's school boards, Yellowknife Education District No. 1 and Yellowknife Catholic Schools, decried a lack of public consultation.
"I hope these two reviews aren't done in isolation," she said.
"I hope they're taking into consideration that maybe we don't need to have just junior kindergarten or just daycare, but perhaps a hybrid."
She said smaller objectives, like expanding family resource centres across the territory or making daycare subsidies more accessible could also make a difference. Range Lake MLA Daryl Dolynny agrees improving on existing programs make sense in the territory.
"Although we have some MLAs who spend spotlight time on grand ideas, the NWT does not have economies of scale to deal with universal daycare at affordable levels," he said.
"Instead, focus should be in those communities who suffer from not enough infrastructure to support daycare in general. This has been supported with research in expanding our family resource centres in those communities and I am a firm supporter of this."
The department hopes to conclude its feasibility study by the end of this fiscal year.
