my response to the latest NDP bulletin
I got an email about how we need to stop the Liberals plan to support big-box daycare centres (instead of small, independent, community-run facilities)
Tuesday afternoon, the Campbell government laid out their plans for the future of childcare in BC, and they aren't pretty.
After years of ignoring the need to create public, accessible childcare spaces in BC, the Liberals have suggested a system of private childcare that offers nothing to working families. This in a province where child poverty is at record levels.
The details are thin, but the throne speech promised a system of "new partnerships with the private sector and parents [enabling] the establishment of neighborhood preschools".
Put simply, the BC Liberals are creating childcare P3s: Public-Private-Parenting.
If the private sector could provide childcare it would have done so long ago. The need is acute. The system they seem to be proposing will create expensive, inaccessible childcare spaces -- denying it to those that need it the most. Providing public subsidies to big-box daycare companies is not a solution for the childcare crisis in BC.
The challenge is clear: we need to stop the BC Liberals private, for-profit, big-box childcare plan now, and elect an NDP government that can create the public childcare spaces we need.
But without your support, we can't stop the Campbell government's drive to privatize services. Please donate $20 right now to help us continue the fight.
Here is my reply:
Dear Mable,
Thank you for your attention to this important matter. I think what it is missing is a brief synopsis of what the NDP is offering as an alternative. Lets be proactive by always putting forward a better option when we point out a bad idea. "The challenge," as you put it, isn't merely to stop the Liberals plan but also to put forward our own. What can we do to support not-for-profit daycares and early childhood education centres? How do we weed out the big-box vendors from the small but profitable quality daycare centres? These are things that we need to articulate if we are going to have a message worth delivering to the majority of the province who didn't vote with us in the last election. I am waiting to make a donation until we have a message worth sharing.
In Solidarity,
Lia Koutsodimos - Nicoloyannis