The BC government can accelerate the province’s transition to both universal child care and a clean economy by taking an intersectional approach to child care and environmental policy change, say the Coalition of Child Care Advocates of BC (CCCABC) and Early Childhood Educators of BC (ECEBC).
A joint policy note released by the two organizations recommends to the BC government a series of measures to:
- protect children’s environmental health, for example, by creating operating guidelines for environmental health in child care settings and by providing funding and expert resources and personal to support child care centres in following these guidelines;
- improve child care facilities through a capital plan that new and expanded public and publicly-funded child care centres are built or retrofitted to new zero-carbon, climate resiliency, and environmental health standards;
- reduce transportation emissions by locating child care programs on or near school grounds or near other community, workplace, and clean transportation corridors and nodes;
- acknowledge that an equitable transition to a clean economy is not possible without child care infrastructure and early childhood educators, and explicitly position the Childcare BC Plan as an anchor for achieving the CleanBC Plan/Roadmap to 2030 and the province’s forthcoming CleanBC Jobs Readiness Plan;
- fully implement the Roadmap to $10aDay Child Care in BC developed by CCCABC and ECEBC.
“Our overall aim is to help hasten BC’s transition to $10aDay child care and a clean economy in ways that improve the health and well-being of children, families, educators, and communities,” explains Lynell Anderson, principal researcher with CCCABC and co-author of the report with Eric Swanson, Principal of Third Space Planning.