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MOTION ON NOTICE
Submitted by Councillor Roberts for consideration at the Regular Council meeting on November 30, 2004.
2. National Child Care Program
MOVER: Councillor Anne Roberts
SECONDER: Councillor Ellen Woodsworth
WHEREAS Vancouver City Council unanimously voted to urge Prime Minister Paul Martin to keep his election promise to establish a national child care program that is commited to standards of quality, universality, accessibility and developmental programming;
AND WHEREAS the City of Vancouver called on Mr. Martin's government to begin the allocation of the promised funding of $5 billion over five years in the 2004-2005 budget years;
AND WHEREAS Vancouver City Council has highlighted the problems for the city that are the result of the B.C. government using federal child care dollars to replace provincial funding, reducing child care subsidies to low income families, and allocating early childhood education and child care dollars to the education component, such as pre-schools and parent drop-in centres, to the detriment of the child care system;
AND WHEREAS a recent OECD concluded that Canada's child care system is a failure, calling it fragmented, expensive and often providing little more than babysitting services though costing parents 20 per cent or more of their income;
AND WHEREAS a recent student showed that child care workers are paid only half the average wage in Canada;
AND WHEREAS nine out of 10 Canadians believe a national child care system is essential to the nation's prosperity;
AND WHEREAS government-operated and funded child care system that is affordable and accessible to all children similar to the $7/day child care system now operating in Quebec promotes women's equality in the workforce, in school or in job training;
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AND WHEREAS the federal Minister of Social Development Ken Dryden, after meeting with his provincial counterparts in November to negotiate the terms of a federal-provincial agreement on child care, refused to commit to a universal system, government support for primarily non-profit and licensed care, or accountability mechanisms enshrined in legislation;
AND WHEREAS Mr. Hagen issued a news release after the meeting that said that "the agreed upon principles respond to B.C.'s commitment to choice for families, and to targeting families most in need...";
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, THAT the City of Vancouver, out of concern that an agreement reached at the next meeting in January could fail to include principles fundamental to a good child care system, urges Mr. Dryden and provincial Minister of Children and Family Development, Stan Hagen, to ensure that a national child care system is based on:
1) Universality: Like Medicare and the Kindergarten to Grade 12 education system, child care should be a universal system, not only targeted to particular groups. All children and all families would benefit from a quality child care system;
2) Accountability: The federal government must ensure that federal money is spent on quality, licensed child care and must require provinces to expand and improve child care - not used to replace provincial funding. Opening the books to public inspection is not good enough. Accountability mechanisms must be included in a legislative framework;
3) Public funding and operation: Federal money should be spent on expanding non-profit child care, not expanding commercial child care centres where profits are made at the expense of the quality of care for children and to the detriment of child care workers' salaries. Quality care depends on a well-trained and well-paid work force;
4) Legislation: The terms of a national child care program should be debated and voted on in public. Legislation offers protection against dismantling by successive governments. Any legislation should also respect Quebec's autonomy and already demonstrated leadership in providing a model child care system.THEREFORE, BE IT ALSO RESOLVED, THAT this resolution also be distributed to the FCM and the UBCM.
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