PV staff
Canada-wide childcare advocacy group Child Care for All launched its Ten Days of Action campaign today, to build public support for the implementation of $10-per-day childcare across the country.
The initiative comes at a key moment in the struggle for affordable, quality childcare, as for-profit providers and conservative political forces seek to undermine the federal government’s $10-per-day plan. In Ontario, for example, a group of for-profit childcare providers have held rolling closures of centres across the province, to protest the affordable plan.
Child Care Now notes that the $10-per-day plan has helped make licensed childcare more affordable for one million families and says, “that number will increase if all governments and child care operators continue to participate.”
The Ten Days of Action campaign is driven by the understanding that children have the right to regulated, high quality early learning and childcare programs; that early child educators are the key to high quality programs and must be well-compensated and supported in their work; and that early learning and childcare is a public good which must be valued in the same way as public education, and funded directly by governments rather than through parent vouchers.
More public funding will ensure the expansion of the affordable childcare system, including by providing adequate wages and benefits to recruit and retain sufficient numbers of qualified educators and other workers. However, that expansion cannot happen if the federal $10-per-day plan is continuously weakened through provincial “opt-outs” or disruptions from profiteering private providers.
Ultimately, what is needed is a publicly owned and provided system of quality childcare, provided free of charge in all communities on the basis of need, and including options for weekend and overnight care. Fully implementing the current $10-per-day plan is a key step toward this.
Through the Ten Days for Action campaign, Child Care Now and its provincial chapters and affiliates are calling for all governments and political parties to commit to implementing and strengthening the $10-per-day plan. The campaign is also pushing for increased public to significantly improve the working conditions and compensation of childcare workers, and public planning and capital funding to increase the supply of not-for-profit and public early learning and child care programs.
More information on the campaign, including resources and actions, is available here.
[Photo: CUPE]
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