Despite $300 million in the new child care deal for early childhood educators, the UCP is not using any of it to increase their pay. Alberta educators have the 3rd lowest wages in the country.🧵 #ableg
1) ECEs deserve to be paid a decent wage. They do critically impt work & should be paid properly.
2) Alberta has lost 1 in 5 educators over the past year. We need to attract & retain more educators now. Better pay & professional opportunities are key.
3) Child care operators are reporting significant challenges in attracting educators especially in areas like Fort McMurray.
4) The 40,000+ child care spaces that will be created under the new deal are meaningless without educators to fill those spaces.
5) Early childhood educators are the MOST important determinant of quality early learning and child care. These are critical learning years for children and they need & deserve properly compensated, supported & professional educators.
6) Women, particularly racialized women, were the hardest hit during the pandemic in terms of employment. An economic recovery plan must focus on getting these women back to work so they can support their own families.
Alberta, you fought hard for a universal affordable child care program.
Time to use those voices again to advocate for the women who do this important work.
Contact Minister @rebeccakschulz and demand proper compensation for early childhood educators. #ableg
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The UCP are going to sign a deal with the feds for child care. They have to. They desperately need a good news story.
But they'll do it in spite of every ideological & political instinct they have. Because they've never believed in universal affordable child care. 🧵#ableg
From the moment they were elected, the UCP focused on ending the $25/day pilot program we introduced. They didn't once consider expanding it to all licensed programs as we'd planned. This would have addressed their main critique that not enough families had access to it.
But the UCP went further and also completely hid and misrepresented the results of the review of the $25/day pilot program, which was *overwhelmingly* positive. open.alberta.ca/dataset/fab44a…
The UCP’s failure to get a federal agrmt for $10/day child care signed before the election - something 8 other jurisdictions managed to do - is an epic failure of leadership by @jkenney.
And let’s be clear - this was the intent all along. 🧵#ableg
From the beginning, @jkenney deliberately mischaracterized the federal funding, falsely claiming it was only for “9-5, urban, institutionalized, union-run” child care & excluded for-profit providers. None of that was true. And they knew that. #ableg
When Albertans overwhelmingly expressed they desperately wanted & needed $10/day child care, they backed down a little and had @rebeccakschulz peddle out some word-salad stmts about being willing to negotiate. But that wasn’t true either. #ableg
As signs point to a fed election being called very shortly, I’m honestly a little shocked the UCP actually played the kind of craven political games I suspected they would with the fed child care deal (worth $3.8 billion to Alberta). #ableg
I know this sounds naive as an Opposition MLA, but there’s still a part of me that thinks “come on…they may surprise me.” Honestly. Even after the last 2 years.
Because even if I never expected them to do it because it’s the right thing to do (that ship sailed long ago)…
I keep thinking about how so many people kept saying (back in 2019, when I was a newbie to politics) that Kenney was some kind of political genius. That he was incredible at strategy.
Back in the early days of the pandemic, @ArmineYalnizyan talked about the "she-cession" effect and that child care was key for economic recovery. Many other noted Cdn economists shared this call for child care to be at the forefront of recovery.
The UCP has won its legal battle against a former foster child, now single mother, to go ahead with cutting 500+ young people who grew up in govt care from supports to transition them to adulthood.
These are young people who experienced significant trauma & by the very fact of growing up in care, don't have the natural family or financial supports needed to transition successfully. Supports were available until the age of 24 before the UCP cut it to age 22. #ableg
Let's take a moment to let it sink in that not only does the UCP wants to save $ on the backs of vulnerable young people, but they fought hard & spent significant resources to do it. At no point did they pause to reconsider whether this was the moral thing to do. #ableg
Today, Minister @rebeccakschulz announced an additional $11.4 million of *federal dollars* for Alberta’s child care sector. Additional funding to support the sector is critical as many are struggling.
But let’s be clear about what this funding announcement means. #ableg
1) It's not provincial $$. It’s federal $$ taken from the remaining $25/day programs. They were only told they would lose this funding 3 weeks ago after having been refused approval to use it for its intended purpose - to improve quality of programming for their families. #ableg
2) Children’s Services continues to sit on ~$100-150 million of unspent dollars in their current childcare budget. The Minister has acknowledged she has unspent $$ in her budget but won’t say what or if she plans to invest it in Alberta’s child care sector.