Hundreds of B.C. families, including dozens in the Tri-Cities, must feel like they’ve won the lottery because their child care operation has been picked for a $10-a-day daycare pilot.
Parents currently paying well over $1,000 a month for infant and toddler care will only have to pay $200 a month for each child, or possibly less if they already receive a subsidy, saving them thousands of dollars a year.
Rolling out this pilot to 53 prototype projects around the province has its benefits because the B.C. government can see how moving to universal daycare might work in private and non-profit sites, and in a wide variety of settings.
The downside? This is just a pilot and if more money isn’t provided on top of the $60 million already committed after 2020, when the project ends, things go back to the way they were.
Politics — i.e. who takes power federally and provincially — will have a lot to do with it, and the economy has to be strong enough to cover the costs.
It remains to be seen whether universal daycare will happen. Until then, parents in participating daycares really have something to smile about.
