All-candidates’ meetings – questions on child care
One of the best ways to make sure child care is addressed at an all-candidate’s meeting is to ask candidates a question. Here’s an example.
Preamble (if there is time for one, make these points):
Numerous studies have established that making affordable, high-quality early learning and child care available to all families will grow the economy, promote gender equality, increase women’s labour force participation and enhance children’s well-being.
Although all levels of government have increased public spending on early learning and child care since the 2015 federal election, there is still a child care crisis in Canada. There are too few licensed spaces to meet the need and long waiting lists. Child care is unaffordable for most, often more than a mortgage. Expanding the availability of child care is going to be impossible without more early childhood educators and other staff—but wages and working conditions are so poor that attracting and retaining qualified staff is proving difficult and too often impossible.
The child care crisis can only be resolved if the federal government steps up.
Question (ask one or more if you can)
What is your party’s plan to make high-quality, licensed child care affordable and accessible to all?
What specifically will you and your party do to:
- make child care affordable,
- make it available and inclusive of all children,
- improve the working conditions of early childhood educators?
Will you commit to endorsing the Affordable Child Care for All Plan that has been developed by child care advocates and the child care sector and that has the support of more than 100 broad-based organizations, including the YWCA, Girl Guides of Canada, Oxfam Canada, and Child Care Now, among others?