B.C. Liberal Critic for Children and Family Development Joan Isaacs is calling out Premier John Horgan and the NDP for their misleading announcement on the creation of new child care spaces.
“Yesterday the NDP announced the funding of 20,000 child care spaces but failed to specify which are fully or only partially-funded,” said Isaacs on Saturday. “The reality of the situation is much different than what they are portraying to B.C. families as less than one-fifth of the spaces are actually operational today.”
Minister of State for Child Care Katrina Chen announced the spaces amidst a backlog of waitlist times for available child care spaces, largely attributed to the fact that the NDP have delivered less than 3,500 of their promised 24,000 spaces three years into their four-year mandate, according to the B.C. Liberals.
“Tragically, it’s working mothers that have been harmed the most by the NDP’s inaction on creating new child care spaces,” added Isaacs. “With the ongoing struggle for thousands of families to find available child care spaces, statistics are showing that the gender gap between working parents has widened as more mothers are staying home to care for their children. A woman should never have to pick between her family or her career. John Horgan and the NDP have dropped the ball in a big way.”
The NDP government’s own figures demonstrate that BC Liberals created 39,959 funded spaces between 2005 and 2017, an average of 3,330 net new spaces per year.