Many Metro Vancouver pre-schoolers are in ‘child care deserts,’ says study

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – It’s just another indication of how difficult it is to be a parent in Metro Vancouver.

A study from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives suggests finding child care in some parts of the region is nearly impossible.

The study, called “Child Care Deserts in Canada,” compared the number of licensed child care spaces to the number of children in the area. The results were ugly in many parts of our region.

The research shows there are 116,000 pre-schoolers in Metro Vancouver. Half of them are in areas where there are three or more children per licenced daycare space.

“Child care deserts, in particular, are very bad in Surrey and Burnaby… most of the kids in those areas are living in child care deserts,” says economist David Macdonald, who authored the report.

In Surrey, about 29,000 kids have access to only 7,300 licensed child care spaces. The report says 94 per cent of the kids in Surrey are in child care deserts.

The only part of the city where it’s at the national average is near White Rock.

The numbers are lower — but still high — in places like Metrotown in Burnaby and some parts of Vancouver, like Kitsilano and Riley Park.

Macdonald points out there’s often a focus on the high cost of child care in Vancouver, Surrey or Burnaby. But to get to that point, you need to first cross the first hurdle of getting a spot.

 

Macdonald says many parents end up doing a “double commute.”

“They commute to child care because the spaces aren’t near home… and then they commute to work. And that’s certainly the case for a lot of families, I suspect, in Metro Vancouver.”

“It doesn’t matter what the cost is, it’s just whether you can find a space at any cost. And certainly, for Vancouver, it turns out that for particularly the suburban areas, it’s pretty difficult to find a space.”

Macdonald is urging on the province to pay attention to the findings of his study and take action.

“With particularly low coverage rates in Metro Vancouver, my hope is that the provincial government will put as much a focus on building new spaces… as they are in reducing fees.”

The study says 44 per cent of all school-aged children in Canada live in “child care deserts,” where the number of children outstrips available spaces in licensed homes and centres.

The study didn’t take into account unlicensed daycare because there is no exhaustive list of the spaces Canada-wide.

“I think it would be fascinating to see how big the unlicensed sector is,” says Macdonald. “The problem is they’re not registered. They’re not listed anywhere. So, we really have no idea how big that sector is or how important it is, in terms of some of the short-comings in the suburban areas on the licensed care side.”

Researchers found cities in provinces that take a more active role in regulating child care were more likely to have broader coverage, compared with provinces which let the market dictate prices and locations of spaces.

As a result, the report concludes, fewer than five per cent of children in Charlottetown and Quebec cities were under-served, compared with Saskatoon, where every child lived in a child care desert.