National child-care group plans awareness week, rolling closures

Krystal Churcher, chair of the Alberta Association of Childcare Entrepreneurs, speaks with Alberta Primetime host Michael Higgins about the group's new national campaign.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Michael Higgins: You're leading a national group on child-care reform that’s pushing for a shift in control of the national program away from the federal government. How would provincial autonomy make a difference at this juncture?

Krystal Churcher: We currently have this $10-a-day program that's rolling out federally, designed by Ottawa, by a government that has never regulated child care, never had jurisdiction over child care, and doesn't build or operate child care.

So I think that removing our federal government from this and giving it back to the provinces where they have jurisdiction would allow our provinces to really work with families and operators to create a system in the provinces that works, that isn't based on a federal ideology, that it should only be one way.

MH: In reading some of the material from your group, you indicate the federal government is dictating provincial programs. What do you mean by that?

KC: Our $10-a-day program is being dictated by the federal government. It's dictating everything from who can access it, which is non-profit public child care, so that means that families who want to have a choice in child care don't have that anymore under this program. You can't just walk into a daycare, preschool, a day home, or any kind of care that you would like as a parent and choose that for your family. You need to go to one of the programs that's allowed to participate under the guidelines of this program and hope they have a space for you, because likely they won't.

This program is really not very accessible for families. Not only that, if you are part of this program, the government is putting cost-control framework on our provinces and on our operators who are participating in this, meaning that even if you need a new fridge for your program because it broke, you'll be needing to go to the government and ask permission to use revenue to purchase something like that.

So it's taken away not only choices from parents, but full autonomy from our child-care centres.

MH: If the federal government is hands off, where are the guardrails at the provincial level? How would you see this working in Alberta?

KC: I think Federally, I’d love to see this money go to parents. This is money that has been promised to parents that is supposed to be to supporting?? families and children. Let's give it back to the families and allow them to have a choice of where they're going to use it, how they're going to use it.

I think In Alberta, we could look at a directed subsidy approach, a voucher system, something that flows through to parents so that they are in control of where their child is going for child care.

MH: If the province is steering the ship, to what degree is the provincial government contributing financially? Is there a heightened provincial financial contribution?

KC: Right now there's a heightened provincial contribution. $30 billion sounds like a substantial amount of money. It's over five years, and just even our reports and research we've done as Alberta childcare operators, we're finding that this program is significantly underfunded to the amounts of like, $70 billion. 

So where is that money going to come from long term? The federal government is not promising to continue to fund this program past 2026, in the capacity that it has, to get us to that point. So it's already on the backs of provinces to fund this long-term. I would expect that provinces are probably nervous, when they're starting to see three years into this, how much money this is actually costing and all of the shortfalls that we're seeing financially with the program already.

MH: You're planning a week of awareness starting Oct. 21, which we’re to understand will include rolling closures. Will that be here in Alberta as well and why take it to the extent of closures?

KC: The closures are always a last resort. We have tried everything and we will continue to try everything. I met with Minister (Jenna) Sudds' office last week and I have to say that the feeling is that they don't care to listen to operators. It doesn't matter if it's private operators, non-profit operators, if you're actually bringing forward concerns around this program that don't meet the federal ideology and marketing behind it, they don't want to listen.

This isn't a new concern. These are concerns we've been saying for three years, three years in Alberta, three years across Canada, and if you don't want to listen to private operators because you don't believe in our market and how we structure our businesses, listen to parents because parents are bringing these issues forward.

Operators are bringing these issues forward out of concern for parents and children and I always hope we don't have to close child care centres. That's the last thing that we want to do as operators. But again, if we don't put a pause on this program, we're just selling out our childcare system and that's going to impact our children long term.

MH: At a level, you're putting parents in the middle, though.

KC: We are not putting parents in the middle; the federal government is putting parents in the middle. I really hope that the public and parents don't blame the operators for this.

I hope that they take the time to engage with our child-care sector and try to understand why we're doing this. It's not about funding, it's not about more money in our pockets or profit or anything like that. It's about making sure that the child-care system that our taxpayers are funding actually ensures access, quality, and choice, and this program is not doing that.

If we don't stop it now and say something, we're going to continue to roll this through and we're going to get to a point that we're seeing the reduction in quality of our care. We're putting our children at risk and our parents have lost all the choice in in child care.

MH: If this does eventually go your way, where will it leave Alberta parents?

KC: I hope it leaves Alberta parents in partnership with the government in creating a child-care system.

Federally, provincially, parents have not been engaged in making this system come together in a reality across the country so I hope that it gives a voice to parents. I hope that we all are working together to create a system, provincially, that works and it really supports our children.

MH: Does it give the financial flexibility that parents need?

KC: Absolutely. There is no financial flexibility under this $10-a-day model as it is. If you want anything other than full-time daycare, you can't access $10/day programs. So I think it gives the control back to the parents, the funding back to the parents, and the choice back to parents.