Surrey - The Editor, Re: "Child care too costly for Surrey families," the Now letters, Nov. 25.
Jinny Sims, MP Newton-North Delta, was way off base suggesting that Surrey families are paying the most for child care in the province.
Families in trendy areas like Kitsalano and West Vancouver pay far more than residents of Surrey, at least $300 more per child.
My wife is an early childhood educator. She has 20 years in the business, the past 15 running her own small multi-aged facility (Kids Kove) in Surrey.
She was a teacher in Peru and clients pay about $40 a day, which, in many cases, works out to less than $5 an hour. You would pay your babysitter (who took a twohour course) more than this, yet people complain about the cost.
For $40 a day, my wife has to not only care for the child but also create programs, shop for toys and books, fill out government subsidy forms and other paperwork to run her business, deal with the parents and their different schedules, take courses to stay current, study and renew her first aid every few years, look for new clients, make policies and procedures, newsletters, supervise her assistant, and much more behind the scenes work.
Why should the federal government subsidize child care and give it to people for $15 a day? Sims talks about the jobs that would be created. If that were to happen, they would be low-paying jobs for the working poor - no unions, no benefits. They are at the bottom of the barrel with restaurant and low-end customer service jobs. This would be OK if you are in college or university but not much good for looking after a family.
Bruce Loeppky
Surrey