[LabComm] How did 500 Nelson families spend their summer vacation? Trying to find decent child care for their kids.

[Adams, Carol]

Friday, June 27, 2003

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

How did 500 Nelson families spend their summer vacation?
Trying to find decent child care for their kids.

While the Campbell Liberals are preparing for their summer holidays, 500
Nelson families are scrambling to find alternate child care because
government funding cuts have forced the closure of several local child
care centres.

Care 2 Learn, Childcare Connections Daycare, The Gordon Sargent School
Age Program, South Nelson School Age Program, and Brent Kennedy
Children's Centre in Slocan close their doors for good today.  Chestnut
Hollow child care in Nelson closed in March.

"Nelson parents now have very few options.  If they're lucky, they can
leave their kids with family members or neighbours.  They can take a
gamble on an unlicensed caregiver - one who doesn't necessarily have the
qualifications of an early childhood educator or has undergone a
criminal record check.  Or, if they can afford it - and most working
families can't - they can quit work," said George Heyman, president of
the B.C. Government and Service Employees' Union (BCGEU).  

"It's the children who will miss out the most.  They won't get the
learning skills taught by early childhood educators.  They won't have
the social interaction with other children, which studies have shown are
so important to their development into adulthood," Heyman said.

"Clearly, the Campbell Liberals don't care one bit about working
families.  They are determined to meet their self-imposed budget targets
and the hell with the disruption and turmoil they're leaving behind."

Heyman reacted angrily to recent comments by Nelson-Creston MLA Blair
Suffredine in the local paper blaming child care workers for the
closures. 

"Blair Suffredine is arrogant and out of touch with his constituents,"
Heyman said.  "He's making child care workers the scapegoats for his
government's deliberate attempt to turn back the clock on child care in
our communities.  The Campbell Liberals have cut funding by 40 percent,
eliminated before and after school care, cut subsidies to lower income
families, and forced centres to raise fees, lay off staff, or close
their doors altogether.  And to add insult to injury, Suffredine and his
Liberals are refusing to pay workers their negotiated wage rates.

"Suffredine should do the right thing and speak out for the 500 families
in Nelson who are losing their child care and for the dedicated workers
who take care of the kids.  They're his constituents, and they deserve
to have an MLA who will fight to protect their interests.  Not someone
who simply stands by while his own community suffers."

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Contact: 	Carol Adams, Burnaby, (604) 291-9611

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