Child-care cuts will hurt everyone

To the Editor,

Re: Federal child-care cuts.

Call me old-fashioned, but I believe that the role of government is to protect the public interest. Evidently, the Liberal government has a different take.

The drastic cuts to child care announced by Minister of State for Child Care Linda Reid and the Liberal government represent a slap in the face to all British Columbians.

Some $40 million will be cut from child-care programs, centres will be forced to close or reduce services, costs may become prohibitive for many working parents, standards and range of services may suffer, and Child Care Resource and Referral programming will most likely disappear.

In the same breath as the announced cuts to day care, this government announced that it is handing over 28,000 hectares from tree farm licenses on Vancouver Island to forest giant Western Forest Products.

And yet they are slashing funding to something so fundamental to the public interest as day care.

Every dollar that the province invests in child care is an investment in our children, in our economy, in our social structure, in our workforce and in our future. The Premier’s own Progress Board addresses and acknowledges the need for government investment in child care. The announced cuts are a failure socially and economically, and make no sense.

The hardship caused by the proposed cuts will be felt strongly across the province and certainly in Alberni-Qualicum. Any government that makes such a fundamentally flawed and damaging decision must be fought.

And fight we will.

Scott Fraser,

MLA,

Alberni-Clayoquot

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