Public forum to address child care crisis

VANCOUVER – Child care activists and experts will share information and plan for action at the B.C. stop on a cross-country tour promoting public delivery of child care through school boards or local governments.

Across Canada, parents struggle to find good child care in a patchwork of services that is privatized, fragmented and expensive. And the tour comes to B.C. just as staff, faculty and student groups at the University of Victoria have come together to stop the University from contracting with private multinational child care provider Kids n’ Company.

Speakers at the Vancouver meeting will discuss the benefits to children, parents and the economy of moving to publicly-delivered early childhood care and education system.

WHAT: Free public forum on building a public child care system

WHO: CUPE BC president Barry O’Neill, Susan Prentice, co-author of a new book, About Canada: Childcare, Susan Harney from the Coalition of Child Care Advocates of BC and the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada, and Adrienne Montani, provincial coordinator for First Call Children and Youth Advocacy Coalition.

The event is open to all and will be of interest to parents, community youth and child care workers and activists, policy makers and others.

WHEN: Tuesday, November 24, 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.

WHERE: Alice MacKay room, Vancouver Public Library, Lower Level, 350 West Georgia St., Vancouver

On-site child care provided

The Canadian Union of Public Employees is organizing the tour, which brings together community activists, parents, academics, child care workers and union members, as part of its national anti-privatization work. Visit cupe.ca/child-care for a backgrounder on public child care, provincial child care profiles and more.

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