The BC Liberals are promising cheaper childcare if elected.
Leader Andrew Wilkinson was at a North Vancouver daycare Friday morning, where kiddos were gluing feathers onto construction paper turkeys, to announce the plan for subsidized childcare starting at $10 per day.
It’s similar to the BC NDP’s childcare platform from 2017, which was enacted only on a small, trial basis. Wilkinson attacked the NDP for “promptly breaking” their promise and pledged the Liberals would come through where their opponents failed.
“This is real. This is not a slogan. This is an opportunity,” Wilkinson said. “We will deliver affordable daycare for British Columbians.”
If elected, the BC Liberals would subsidize childcare rates so families earning $65,000 per year or less would pay only $10 per day. Households with an income of up to $90,000 would get childcare at $20 per day. And families earning up to $125,000 per year would be eligible for childcare at $30 per day. The plan would also include running all subsidized daycare applications through one website.
According to a 2019 report by the left-leaning Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, the median price for childcare in Vancouver is $1,400 a month for an infant, $1,407 for a toddler, and $1,000 for a preschooler.
The party estimates the plan will cost $1 billion in its first year, but Wilkinson said he is confident there will be returns in the wider economy as more people – particularly women – are able to rejoin the workforce, as Quebec’s universal childcare program has shown.
“We know unemployment is high right now with hotels, theatres, restaurants, airlines all shut down. What we've got to do is, when the opportunity arises, get people back to work. They've got to have affordable daycare to be able to go to work. It doesn't work if there's a job but you can't afford to take care of your children,” he said. “It's not going to be cheap, but it's an investment in our future.”
Before the promise was announced, the NDP put out a release attacking the Liberals for voting against the childcare subsidies brought in over the last three years, and for publicly criticizing NDP’s childcare policies as being expensive.
NDP leader John Horgan, who was also in North Vancouver for a campaign stop at Seaspan shipyards Friday morning, said the NDP will spend another $1.5 billion on creating new childcare spaces if they are given another term in office.
“We're recommitting to $10-a-day childcare. I know there are people in here right now who are thinking ‘I could sure use a break on my childcare.’ We've been reducing costs over the past three and a half years, but we have much more work to do,” he said.
Questioned whether his party would push for a public childcare system, Horgan said his plan is to work with existing childcare businesses.
“I believe that we need to build more spaces and I don't want to push operators out of the system. We need every space we can find, but I believe the system that we have in place can be enhanced,” he said.
