While families using one Richmond daycare won’t be paying more than $200 monthly per child thanks to a new provincial program, that daycare’s CEO says addressing the childcare labour shortage should have been a first priority.
Pamela Wallberg runs Alderwood House, a daycare in Steveston recently selected as one of 53 daycare centres in B.C. that will trial low-cost childcare with provincial support. For Wallberg, however, the announcement was troubling and pointed to the fact the childcare industry is struggling to recruit trained educators.
“My concern is if (the province) is rolling out a prototype program without addressing the labour crisis first, it isn’t going to be effective,” Wallberg said.
“I have genuine concern about being able to retain staff and if I can’t retain staff, a free space can’t be filled by a child because you don’t have teachers.”
While the province has announced a “wage enhancement” to supplement early child educators’ wages and encourage more educators to join the field, Wallberg said this doesn’t go far enough.
“The government has offered $1 an hour wage enhancement for people in the field. That’s horrific. Alberta offers over $6,” she explained.
“Without the government looking to adequately address the compensation issue through the wage enhancement or other programs that they might choose to implement, they can open thousands of $10 a day centre spaces, but there’s no teachers to teach the kids. Which means none of the kids can access those spaces.”
Beyond fair wage enhancements, Wallberg said she would like the province to offer a pension plan and additional funding for staff who have an infant toddler certificate, which requires an additional year of education.
New daycare cost ‘life-changing’
In spite of the challenges being faced by daycare operators, one parent whose child attends Alderwood House is enthusiastic about the provincial announcement, saying her childcare costs have gone from $900 per month to $200.
“My fees have gone down astronomically,” said Karina Reid, whose son attends Alderwood. “If you’re saving $700 a month as a family, that’s life-changing. That’s huge.”
Reid added that the prototype program requires some additional involvement from parents, including possible volunteering. However, that commitment hasn’t soured the low costs for her.
“I only have one child in daycare now, but all the other parents who have two or three kids in daycare, that’s massive,” Reid said. “It’s super exciting…it’s unbelievable for a family to all of a sudden save that much money a month.”
However Reid added that the issue of wages is also on parents’ minds.
“We just want to make sure that there are more increased wages for staff,” she said.
The provincial prototypes are being funded through a $60 million investment under the Early Learning and Child Care Agreement with the federal government. Prototype sites will receive government funding to cover operational and administrative costs in order to reduce their fees.
