Ottawa could take advice from this church

Having to wait for the negotiation of a national child-care plan makes little sense

Increasing the supply of quality daycare spaces makes so much sense to Paul Echlin that he is baffled as to why he is having such a hard time getting government support.

Echlin’s church in Aldershot saw a community need for good, affordable child care and wanted to turn its church-basement half-day daycare into a full-fledged childhood education centre. It wanted to help moms get into the workforce more easily.

The idea was so logical that it has now funded the project itself, mortgaging here, borrowing there, signing leases and scraping together $1.8 million to finance a 6,000square-foot space for 79 child-care spots.

But imagine what could happen if federal, provincial and local governments actually made that kind of project easy?

“I think it can be done better,” Echlin said during a break from his day job as a doctor.

The federal government has said repeatedly in the past few months that child care is a top priority, especially because the pandemic shoved so many parents, especially moms, to the sidelines of the labour force.

With the private sector cheering them on, Ottawa is deep in talks with the provinces about how to bolster early childhood education in the long run, and this month’s budget is widely expected to contain substantial funding and direction. The goal is to establish a national child-care system that sets standards and establishes financing for affordable, accessible and high-quality spots for all who need them.

For something that makes so much sense — from a community point of view, a workforce and economic growth point of view, and an equity point of view — waiting for the negotiation of a grand, federally led bargain on child care makes little sense.

The pandemic has increased the urgency for near-term solutions. Not only have mothers been dropping out of the workforce, but precious daycare spaces have been disappearing, falling victim to closures brought on by financial woes and pandemic restrictions.

“The supply of early learning and child care in Canada, which has never been generous, now looks like it may be permanently hampered unless provincial and federal governments take action,” write Jennifer Robson and Ken Boessenkool, two public policy researchers who have collaborated on how to fix the problem.

While many early childhood education advocates are pushing for a “big bang” fix to the system, which would involve federal standards and long-term funding for the provinces, Robson — an associate professor of political management at Carleton University — is calling for “aggressive incrementalism” to get things started.

Canadian communities aren’t new to needing quality child-care spaces, she points out, and so they don’t start from nothing.

“We do not have the luxury of time to reinvent early learning and care from the ground up or to waste months, if not years, renegotiating the division of responsibilities in Canadian federalism. We need immediate attention and incremental but aggressive reforms to get this right, for women, for families and for Canada as we emerge from the pandemic,” the authors write in a paper published recently by the C.D. Howe Institute.

Echlin knows the frustration. He has been in touch with politicians and charities at every level, and dug around in the funding system to see what he could pull together. But in the end, the congregation decided to go it alone, with one member mortgaging a personal property to finance the capital costs, and the church setting up a leasing system with the board of the child-care centre.

It will open on a not-for-profit basis next month, at first for 29 kids because of COVID-19. Eventually, it will take almost 80, and some of those children will be on scholarship if they can’t afford the fees. There will be before-school care, a breakfast program, after-school care and extended, flexible hours.

Traditionally, the federal government has helped on the demand side of the child-care equation while provinces have helped on the supply side, creating spaces. But at this point, federal help is needed on both sides, Robson argues. She wants to see a reform of the childcare expense tax deduction so it is more progressive. But she also wants to see a simplified transfer to the provinces tied to the creation of spaces.

Creativity will be key to making it work for families in the near term, though, because the old, slow approach of federal-provincial talks is a mismatch for the demands of the post-pandemic workforce.

As Echlin said: “It’s not about finger-pointing. It’s about, ‘What can we do now?’ ”