Ottawa's stimulus package ignores daycare and leaves many working women vulnerable to the recession
Ariel Teeuwen went back to work six weeks before the end of her maternity leave.
At nearly $10,000 a year, child care is a significant expense in her young family’s budget. But Teeuwen and her husband, Matthew, need two incomes to pay their mortgage and student loans. There just wasn’t enough money to remain on maternity leave, she says.
In Canada today, working parents are the norm, as families struggle to maintain a middle class standard of living in an increasingly difficult economy. Ottawa’s $40 billion economic stimulus package announced in January 2009 proposes to help families like the Teeuwens. The budget will spend on infrastructure, Employment Insurance (EI) benefits, retraining and tax cuts. But the Teeuwens would benefit more from spending on child care.
Andrea Calver, from the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care, doesn’t understand why the budget ignores many working parents, particularly women. Accessible and quality child care is crucial to rebuilding an economy and safeguarding middle to working class Canadian families from the economic downturn, she says.
Shea Keeshig, daycare worker at a Toronto non-profit daycare centre, also doesn’t know why the sector is ignored. She believes, that like teachers, her work is important and her sector should be valued.
Stimulous for some, stingy for others
As the primary caregivers, most women with children don’t benefit from a stimulus package that ignores daycare. Work and daycare are intricately connected in the lives of many women.
“If we couldn’t afford daycare, I wouldn’t be able to work,” says Teeuwen. “And if I couldn’t work, we wouldn’t have a house or a chance to build a future.”
For lower income women, that chance is often missing. Lack of accessible child care is the greatest barrier to getting a job in Toronto for low income women, says a report by ACTEW, an Ontario umbrella organization committed to training and employment for women.
Calver believes lack of accessible child care will be an even greater barrier for more women during the recession. “Many women look at the cost of child care and at their reduced hours and say, ‘It’s not worth it to have a job.”
When you work, you generally earn more and have a better standard of living. “Once people aren’t working, they are living lives that are often in poverty, especially single moms,” says Calver.
If they lose their job, lack of accessible daycare is also why many working women won't benefit from the stimulus' spending on retraining programs and the five-week extension to EI benefits. If you work less than 35 hours per week during qualifying periods in the EI system, you're denied benefits, wrote Kathleen Lahey, a Law professor at Queen’s University. She goes on to say that women often work part-time hours because of daycare issues and qualify for EI three times less than men.
Spending on daycare also means more jobs for women, says Ann Decter, the YWCA Director of Advocacy and Public Policy. As of 2004, 98 per cent of child care centre workers in Canada were women, says the ACTEW report.
Ottawa’s 2009 budget will inject close to $20 billion in construction and infrastructure spending to stimulate job creation. Buy only seven per cent of women swing a hammer for a living and won't directly benefit from increased construction jobs. Also, though running a childcare facility is considered 'infrastructure' spending, daycare is not getting any new money.
Canada's failing grade
In a 2004 report by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Canada ranked last in public investment in child care. The report found many child care centres were shabby, underfunded and had a high staff turnover rate. Working conditions and wages are an issue for many daycare workers.
“It’s a very tiring job. It is,” says Shea Keeshig, who has her early childhood education certification and teaching degree. "When you get home, you’re completely drained, in a good way for me, at least right now.”
Keeshig worked in different daycares with different pay levels. Wages range from $10-12 an hour to $25-30, depending on the daycare and whether it is city-run or for-profit.
Shovel-less but shovel-ready
In Canada, child care is a provincial responsibility. While the federal government can't directly regulate child care programs, it can use its spending powers to influence provincial policies. This is what happened in 2005 when the Liberals signed agreements with the provinces for a national daycare program before their government toppled.
This is what daycare advocates want the federal government to do again. They use Quebec, the only province with a daycare system, as a model. Teeuwen also thinks this is a good idea, as long as quality is a factor.
Decter says it's an opportune moment to inject money into something we need and already have the blueprints for.
“This is what the government is talking about when they say we want shovel-ready projects that will stimulate the economy. Daycare is shovel-ready,” she says.
