This is not the time to close local child-care centres

This could not be a worse time for Waterloo regional council to consider closing the five child-care centres it has operated for decades.

But it appears that councillors are on a fast track to do this. Parents whose children attend the centres were given only one week’s notice to prepare for a public meeting Nov. 18.

A few days from now, on Dec. 2, the final decision will be made at a special council meeting.

If council agrees to this proposal, it will be devastating for the 62 child-care workers, primarily female, who will be laid off in the middle of a harsh recession — one that has already hurt women in the labour force so disproportionately, it has been widely nicknamed the “shecession.”

It will also be a major disruption to families who are using the 258 spaces. It’s not just a matter of finding another spot. There are long waiting lists. And many parents, in last week’s meeting with councillors, spoke of their concern that they could not find quality care, care for infants, or for children with disabilities, elsewhere.

There are also broader concerns that closing these centres will insidiously lower the quality of child care in privately owned and non-profit centres across the region.

Difficult decisions have to be made all the time, of course. But this particular decision is being made in a way that should raise alarm bells, far beyond the few hundred individuals who will lose their jobs or their child care.

First, it’s unclear what will be done with the money that would be saved by closing the centres, three in Cambridge, one in Kitchener and one in Elmira. The public has been told, in very vague terms, that the savings of $6.8 million could be used to provide additional subsidies for parents needing help with the high cost of child care, or enrich the broader child-care system with its 14,000 licensed spaces. But we’ve also been told that the Region of Waterloo is facing a deficit of $25 million and the savings are needed for that. Which is it?

Second, if the Region of Waterloo is in such desperate financial straits that this dramatic action is necessary, then why did councillors agree to spend $500,000 on the widely criticized temporary cycling lanes in the summer? And why did they also approve, earlier this month, another $500,000 on a design for expansion of the Region of Waterloo airport terminal, when air travel has dramatically decreased?

Part of the reason that the child-care centres are under threat is they are more expensive to operate.

Areportby KPMG, the accounting and audit firm, shows that the salaries of the unionized workers in the regionally owned centres are higher than in other centres.

The average hourly wage in the Region-owned sites is $36.64, compared to $21.19 for a worker in a non-profit centre and $15.87 for a worker in a for-profit centre, which is the fastest growing type of care offered in the region.

A financially focused company like KPMG will often make higher costs seem like a bad thing. But in child care — where workers are historically underpaid, and where high staff turnover due to low wages is harmful to children — it’s not so simple.

“The higher cost of the regional centres is because they provide a decent living wage for early childhood educators,” said Carolyn Ferns, public policy co-ordinator for the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care, at the online public meeting last week.

“So when I hear people say, ‘You can create more spaces for less money,’ what I hear is: ‘It’s OK to pay early childhood educators less.’ And it’s not.

“Others in the child care community, including ECEs (early childhood educators) in the private sector, want those decent wages there as a benchmark and as something we should all strive for.” This touches the heart of the issue. The Region of Waterloo has historically had a big heart and a broad vision of the social good. We use local taxes to spend money on all kinds of things we don’t have to: Museums, child-care centres, help for newly arrived immigrants, and things like dental care and prescription eyeglasses for the poorest of the poor.

The idea is that these public services improve the quality of life for all, and set a high standard for other organizations. It’s part of what distinguishes the people of this region.

But now, the continuation of all these “discretionary” services, not only child care, is in question in another report released late last year by KPMG.

More discussions like this one are coming in the future. Fundamental changes may be on the way. But what a sad commentary on our priorities it is that child care, so badly needed as we try to rebuild from the wreckage caused by the pandemic, is the first.