The Issue Of Sufficient Childcare Programs And Subsidiaries To Support Parents In Canada
Canada has a wide spectrum of programs covered by our social safety net and a robust range of government transfer payments to individuals. However, our government is severely inadequate in providing sufficient childcare programs and subsidiaries to support parents who are full-time professionals.
Canadian child care costs are among the highest in the world, making it painfully expensive for parents to pursue a full-time career. Child care services provide crucial support for our fellow children and their families. The constant engagement with daycare workers builds early fundamental social and cognitive skills. A high-quality child care system is more likely to notice early signs of disabilities and address issue of neglect from full-time parent’s busy work schedule. However, due to high costs and long wait lists to get into daycare centers, many children are denied these critical developments while parents have to sacrifice employment to save on child care fees.
The problem associated with high costs and long waitlists stems from child care not being operated by the government, but rather private individuals abiding by market movement. Heavy demand for child care services and a limited supply of them drastically drives up prices. Since running a daycare is costly and tightly regulated by the government to ensure quality, not enough childcare centers are opening up to meet heavy demands. Obtaining government subsidies for private daycare center is also a complicated process with no uniform criteria for eligibility since it varies province to province.
To further exasperate the problem, waiting lists are getting progressively longer and some provinces even charge parents to wait on these lists. Even though provincial governments have doubled child care funding in the past, the matter of affordability has yet to be addressed. The continual skyrocketing prices of daycare and long waiting lists is indicative of a strong need for more sustainable solutions. The Canadian federal government needs to take charge of child care access and quality instead of leaving it to whims driven by the market. Despite social programs being under provincial jurisdiction, the federal government should provide additional funding specifically for our childcare programs. These payments can be done through the national legislation like the Canadian healthcare.
The federal government should establish a national criterion for subsidies to ensure every province and territory uniformly has reasonable access to child care. Ideally, there will be greater expansion of childcare centers to accommodate parents and children in need of care. Provinces and territories can tailor these additional funds to decrease their child care costs and improve waiting list times.
By bringing child care programs under government domain, the future of our children’s development will be at a consistent quality and standard. We will be able to deter possibilities of child poverty by enabling parents to not only enter, but also remain in the workforce to increase family income. In order to reach a sustainable solution and consistent funding, the Canadian government needs to start seeing child care as a crucial long-term investment in the future generation.
