The provincial government has pledged to make the largest investment in child care in B.C.’s history.
The announcement was among the many items in Tuesday’s throne speech, but exactly how much money will be invested won’t be known until Feb. 20, the day the budget comes out.
“I can say that we’re building a system to make sure that there is affordable, quality and accessible child care to all B.C. families,” Katrina Chen, Minister of State for Child Care and the MLA for Burnaby-Lougheed, told the NOW. “It’s going to be a long-term plan, but we’re going to definitely provide some immediate affordability relief. I can tell you that thousands of families will benefit.”
Chen noted the NDP’s budget will unveil a three-year “implementation plan,” which will include a 10-year vision.
One of the party’s election promises was to bring in $10-a-day child care. However, there was no mention of that in the throne speech.
What was included was a goal to “propel the conversion of unlicensed spaces to licensed, regulated child care.”
“We want to encourage a pathway to licensing, to make sure that there’s monitoring mechanisms, they’re safe and also quality child-care services,” said Chen, pointing to the “Baby Mac” case, where a 15-month-old toddler died last year while in care at an unlicensed daycare in East Vancouver.
The province will introduce new legislation this year that will give parents information about unlawful and problematic providers, she added.
The New Democrats also plan on “dramatically” increasing training of early childhood educators, according to the throne speech.
The province’s child-care plan will be supplemented by some federal dollars. Ottawa and B.C. are negotiating the Canada – British Columbia Early Learning and Child Care Agreement, which will see the province get $51 million each year for three years.
Tuesday’s throne speech also focused on affordable housing.
“Government’s first step must be to address demand and stabilize B.C.’s out-of-control real estate and rental market,” read the speech. “Government will introduce legislation to crack down on tax fraud, tax evasion and money laundering in B.C.’s real estate market.”
It noted next week’s budget will have new measures to “address the effect of speculation on real estate prices.” (The NDP campaigned on a two-per-cent speculation tax.)
Like child care, the province plans to make the largest investment in affordable housing ever, including social housing, student housing, seniors housing, Indigenous housing and affordable rentals for middle-income families.
“We will enable local governments to plan for affordable rental housing by zoning areas of their communities for that purpose. And working with local governments, we will plan for and build housing near transit corridors,” read the speech.
The promise of an annual $400 renter’s rebate was not mentioned in the document.
