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Child care centres across the province are petitioning the federal government's plan to do away with the fledgling child care program.
The petition, which began circulating in late January, is asking the feds to honour a five-year program for early learning and child care introduced in last year's Liberal budget.
Bronwien Richardson operates a centre in the H.R.M. and is part of the group that organized the petition. She said federal commitments to child care would be better put towards creating an infrastructure in the child care sector itself.
The Conservative government's plan is to provide families with a cash benefit for children under six. Organizers of the petition say it won't benefit national child care, in the long run.
Jennifer Wagner, who operates the Spring Garden Child Care Centre in Westville, said centres need to be able to support themselves.
"You need to be able to have a quality staff and they need to be able to make a good wages and benefits," she said.
But she said the other issue at hand is that if the current program is done away with, so are the years of work going into it.
"It was years and years to get to where they were going. I'm ashamed to see the direction that it's taking. They seem to have an approach that makes no sense," Wagner said.
The petitions were collected Valentine's Day and sent to at least 300 licensed centres in the province but a response also came from parents who copied and distributed the petition themselves, she said.
A response is also coming from Prince Edward Island and Manitoba centres, which took and distributed the petition as is in those provinces.
Organizers will meet Friday to count signatures and decide how best to deliver the petition to the federal government.
"The thing about this, is it's community-based. The response is coming from the community. These people aren't walking away with $10,000 - they're making a working living," Richardson said.
- reprinted from the New Glasgow Evening News