If the Premier gets $10-a-day childcare, why can’t you?

Getting a $10-a-day daycare spot in BC is akin to “winning the lottery” says a leading child care advocacy organization, which also points the finger directly at BC Premier David Eby for pulling the brakes on the program he himself is using.

Coalition of Child Care Advocates of BC spokesperson Sharon Gregson said only about 10% of all childcare spots in the province are $10 a day, and in the last couple of years the provincial government put a pause on the program.

It’s not surprising the optics look really bad for the premier, whose child goes to a YMCA daycare which charges $10 a day.

“If Premier Eby’s kids were in a programme, and he was just one of 80% (of people getting $10 daycare), it wouldn’t be a story,” Gregson told iNFOnews.ca. “But because his kids are in a programme that only 10% of people can get, it’s a big story.”

The BC Conservatives were quick to criticize the Premier, whose wife is a doctor, saying the couple likely have a combined income of $500,000.

The Coalition said what’s important is that most families don’t have access, not that the Premier does have access.

So happened to $10 a day daycare?

The idea was originally pitched as a campaign promise by the late NDP leader John Horgan and brought in after the NDP won the election.

Gregson said the situation under the previous BC Liberal government was “terrible.”

“There were 50,000 fewer spaces than there are now,” she said.

Daycares are either run as private businesses or by not-for-profit organizations, and individual daycare operators were left to apply to become $10 a day. 

While plenty of daycares applied, the government slowed the intake and only approved a certain number at a time, Gregson said.

The program wasn’t rolled out very well, she said, and there were complaints about paperwork and bureaucracy.

Across the Thompson-Okanagan region there are roughly 500 licensed daycares, but only 43 of those are $10 a day. Kamloops only has three $10 a day daycares, while Kelowna has 11, Vernon has four and Penticton five.

A licenced daycare spot costs roughly $1,000 a month, and there is a fee reduction of $545 covered by the province and open to everyone regardless of their income.

On top of that, families making less than $111,000 per year can also apply for the Affordable Child Care Benefit, which is a sliding scale and reduces the fees further, bringing them close to zero for low-income earners.

Even with the fee reductions, Gregson said the BC situation is worse than in almost all other provinces.

In Alberta, fees are capped at $15 a day, and in Ontario $22, along with the Maritimes. In Manitoba and Saskatchewan, all their childcare is $10 a day.

Seven provinces and territories have implemented a wage grid for early childhood educators to introduce fair compensation and benefits to workers.

“It’s only BC and the Yukon that have done neither one of those things,” Gregson said.

Childcare programs aren’t cheap and in 2024 cost the province $865-million.

However, the government created 8,000 childcare jobs and saw a significant rise in women’s labour force participation, adding approximately 33,000 full-time workers to the provincial economy. 

That generated an additional billion dollars in provincial government revenue, offsetting the $865 million costs.

The federal government also put in about $1-billion and Gregson said long-term research shows that childcare almost or completely pays for its own investment.

“There’s no good reason not to,” she said.

And according to a recent poll from Research Co., more than two-thirds (68%) of BC residents support access to low capped child care fees, like $10 per day.

Gregson also points out that the federal government, in its prosperity agreement signed earlier this year, allocated an additional $630 million for BC Childcare over the next two years.

“We always think they could do more,” Gregson said, “But really, this is about the provincial government getting back on track.

“There has been progress made since 2017. The point is that the progress stalled over the last two or three years and… we stopped making any additional gains.”