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Ella Dalling has had her nine-month-old daughter Murph on daycare waitlists since nearly the first ultrasound.
“We probably put ourselves on about 20 waitlists across Vancouver. We haven’t heard back from any of them,” Dalling said.
The Vancouver mom says parents have no choice but to wait or cold call daycares.
And because B.C. has no fee caps for daycares, prices can fluctuate between $200 and $2,000 a month.
“When you get a spot at a daycare, you’re not really asking how much it costs, you need the spot,” she said.
Dalling has launched an online platform called Little Scout where daycares can post open spots and parents can find what’s available near them.
Through that business, she’s talked to parents and child-care operators from across B.C. who say the current system needs improvement.
“When you have families deciding whether or not they can have a second child because of daycare availability, you know you have a problem,” the Vancouver mother said.
A new report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives finds that B.C. has fallen behind other provinces when it comes to universal affordable child care.
The province’s child-care system is a mix of private and non-profit operators, some with deep government subsidies and some that charge full price.
David Macdonald, one of the report’s co-authors, says parents are asking a simple question.
“How much am I going to have to pay for child care in places like British Columbia?” he asked. “The answer is very complicated.”
B.C. Child Care Minister Lisa Beare is defending her government’s progress on implementing universal $10-a-day child care, after a number of former B.C. NDP ministers wrote a letter saying the government had stalled on its progress in implementing the policy.
Out of the 35 Canadian cities studied in the report, B.C. cities are the priciest, with infant fees ranging from a median price of $28-a-day in Kelowna to $52-a-day in Richmond.
Macdonald says B.C. parents are saving money since the province reached a deal with Ottawa on child-care funding in 2021, but the savings are between $300 to $500 a month. Parents in provinces with fee caps are saving much more, he said.
6 provinces, territories cap fees
Six provinces and territories — Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Nunavut — have capped child-care fees at $10 a day.
Parents in Alberta pay a maximum of $15 a day, and $22 a day in Ontario.
While once seen as a pioneer in advancing $10-a-day universal child care, a spokesperson for the $10-a-day Child Care Campaign says the B.C. NDP government has now stalled on the issue.
“We are laggards. And that’s exactly what the report says,” Sharon Gregson said. “Why is it that the B.C. government is so unable to do what other big provinces have been able to accomplish for child care?”
BC Today24:03What happened to $10-a-day child care?
Education and Child Care Minister Lisa Beare was not available for an interview.
She said in a statement she’s concerned about structural inequities in the $10-a-day program, which is not based on a need but a lottery system.
As a result, the B.C. government has put a three-year pause on expansion of the $10-a-day child-care program.
“That’s why we’ve begun working with families, providers, Indigenous partners and the federal government to design a more inclusive, affordable and sustainable child care system for the future,” Beare said.
