It is expected the federal government will announce significant investment in childcare this afternoon as part of Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland’s historic first budget. A significant and sustained investment in a national early-learning and child-care system was promised last year during the throne speech.
Veronica Pacini-Ketchabaw, a Western University expert in early childhood education focused on environmental and racialization issues in child care, has been studying the effectiveness of such a program for nearly 20 years with collaborators from across the country and is available to media for comment.
“This is the chance to carefully think about what kind of child care system we need in Canada and more importantly how we do that. An early childhood system needs to focus on a public system – we cannot continue to warehouse children in for-profit child care,” says Pacini-Ketchabaw.
Commentary reflects the perspective and scholarly interest of Western faculty members and is not an articulation of official university policy on issues being addressed.
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