Day care workers stage protest in legislature

MICHAELA RODRIGUE

IQALUIT — Pre-schoolers grasping the hands of day-care workers and wearing child-sized placards marched into the Nunavut legislature last Friday to stage a protest over cuts to day care funding in last month’s territorial budget.

About 30 pre-schoolers and day-care workers quietly sat through about 30 minutes of question period on March 31. They wore signs reading “Our children are our future.”

The presence of the young children in the house seemed to take many members by surprise, but Iqaluit Centre MLA Hunter Tootoo quickly rose to talk about the plight of Nunavut’s day-care centres and to question the government’s cut to daycare funding.

“I note the funding levels have decreased. Granted it is not a huge decrease, but I would like to ask the minister, since this amount has gone down, has the demand or need decreased?” Tootoo asked Education Minister James Arvaluk.

Last year the government spent $1.366 million on early childhood programs. The 2000-2001 projects spending of $1.335 million

“This reduction is approximately $30,000, which is fairly insignificant in consideration that the member is talking about $1.335 million for early child education, and $1.540 for the early intervention programs,” Arvaluk replied.

“I agree that there is a very slight drop, but I’m fairly happy that it is closer to last year, considering that there are a lot of capital dollars needed for building new schools.”

But Tootoo scoffed at Arvaluk’s assertion that $31,000 is insignificant.

“That could mean a day care remaining open or closing,” he said.

Debra Mason, who runs a licensed daycare centre in Iqaluit, said the cut, as small as it is, will likely have an impact.

Can’t attract staff

She said the money could go towards a daycare worker’s salary and in turn keep more spaces open.

Day cares across Nunavut have been struggling to attract and retain staff with poor salary and benefit packages. Daycare facilities have been lobbying the government for extra money to pay competitive wages to staff and run their centres.

“We have dayscare that want to fill their centres. They can’t find a staff person so they can’t bring the children in who are on the waiting list,” she said.

Mason became frustrated by a recent CBC report where Arvaluk suggested that day care centres are not a government responsibility.

Arvaluk tried to explain the comment in the legislature later.

“We don’t manage all the daycare centres,” he said. And Arvaluk repeated that the government is not directly responsible for daycare centres.

“We do not have direct responsibility for the adequacy of the daycare centres. We have a responsibility to contribute budgets and help as much as we can in terms of financial assistance subsidy programs for daycare centres.”

This week, Arvaluk revealed in the legislature’s committee of the whole that day-care spending was cut because not all of the government’s 1999-2000 day care money was spent.

Arvaluk has since sent a letter to Nunavut’s day-care facilities offering one-time lump sums of $5,000 to $10,000.

But Mason said a one-time injection of cash into Nunavut’s daycares won’t solve the staffing shortages.

Arvaluk launches “review”

Arvaluk has also launched a review of Nunavut’s daycare system.

The review, which may be completed at the end of this month, is supposed to examine staff salaries and benefits, training programs and overall funding.

Tootoo said he’s looking forward to the report and wants to determine which areas of day-care funding are the government’s responsibility.

He said last week’s toddler-sized protest shows how desperate the daycares really are.

Mason says she hopes she can have input into the review and that it results in some long-term solutions such as long-term training programs and funding changes.

“It will be interesting to see what results we see. There’s already been day-care reviews across Canada, it said it was underfunded, there should be criteria for staff. We’ll see what the review ends up telling us. Hopefully that review will strongly make recommendations for better funding or it may be a different way to do day care,” she said.