Campaign 2000 has highlighted more and better child care as a key part of the solution to child poverty in Ontario and across Canada.
The anti-poverty organization has released its latest national and provincial report cards on child poverty, 25 years after members of Parliament unanimously voted to eradicate child poverty by the year 2000. They have found that although Canada’s economy has doubled in size, child and family poverty is worse in 2014 than it was in 1989 at both the provincial and national level.
“Campaign 2000 has kept government’s feet to the fire for years over the promise to end child poverty. Now more than ever we need to see government action – this report card makes clear that investing in child care is an integral part of any solution to child poverty.” said Carolyn Ferns, Public Policy and Government Relations Coordinator for the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care (OCBCC).
The Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care is a long time Campaign 2000 partner organization.
The Ontario report card, “Child Poverty 25 Years Later: We Can Fix This” points to investments in child care as an important policy measure to help end child poverty, arguing that action on child care “can’t skip another generation.” The report’s authors state that “child care enables parents to access training, educational and employment opportunities that may enable them to escape poverty.”
The Ontario report card calls out to the provincial government to build on recent steps that recognize the importance of investing in child care. The report card supports the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care’s push for an over-arching provincial policy based on the principles of universal entitlement, high quality, comprehensiveness and affordability.
The report card applauds the Ontario government’s move to address safety of unlicensed settings through the Child Care Modernization Act, but pushes the Ontario government to be far bolder by coupling these enforcement measures with immediate action provide “direct funding to stabilize programs, keep fees down and pay adequate wages” – all demands that are echoed by the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care.
The Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care shares Campaign 2000’s call that “once the sector is stabilized, Ontario needs to begin actualizing the long-demanded vision for a publicly funded, fully accessible, affordable, high quality system of child care.”
OCBCC contact:
Carolyn Ferns, Public Policy and Government Relations Coordinator
Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care
Tel: 416-538-0628 ext 4
Email: [email protected]