 Thank you so much for joining us today. My name is Jennifer Whiteside. I'm BC's Minister of Education and Child Care. And to start, I would like to invite Dr. Elder Dr. Roberta Price from the Coast Salish Territory of the Snuneimu and Knowledge Keeper Les George from the Slewa Tooth Nation to come and provide a welcome. Thank you so much, Jennifer. I'll start us off in a good way. Hi, Jessica. Thank you so much, Jennifer. Hi, Jessica C.M.C.I.A. Greetings and welcome, everyone. As Coast Salish, Matriarch and Elder, I wish to give a very warm thank you to all my relatives on the Musqueam, the Squamish, and the Slewa Tooth for welcoming me to live in the unceded lands of my relatives, Musqueam and Richmond, going on 42 years now. As Coast Salish, Matriarch and Elder, I wish to give each and everyone a very warm welcome. Who live, work, and play given, received and received. Thank you so much for your service, teach and learn, and now celebrate today on our unceded, ancestral, and occupied lands of my relatives, Musqueam, Squamish, Slewa Tooth. As taught to me by my beautiful elders in the Long House, the person who travels the furthest is the first person to speak on the floor and open the floor. And this is why I'm starting you off in a good and respectful way, following the teachings of our elders. Also, I want to gift my dear relative a small gift and thank him for allowing me to speak on the unceded lands of both of our ancestors here. Osiam. Osiam. And I just want to say that I'm calling upon the Creator and the ancestors to bring many, many blessings down upon this very beautiful, beautiful event today, blessing all our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren. Haitchka, Haitchka, Osiam, thank you so much, everyone. And thank you, Jennifer. I'll pass it over to you, Les. Thank you, Jennifer. Welcome, everybody, to the unceded territories of the Musqueam, the Squamish, to Slewa Tooth. When we gather like this, it's part of our teachings that when we gather like this, that we open with a song. So I'd just like to share right now a song with you, and it's our to Slewa Tooth clan song, the Wolf, Dikaya, Osiam. And if I can call my bro, Rob up to sing with me. Osiam. Thank you so much, elder Dr. Price and knowledge keeper George, for sharing your wisdom with us today for starting us off in a good and respectful way. Osiam. I'm very thankful at the opportunity to gather on the territory of the Coast Salish Peoples today, including the Musqueam, Squamish, and Slewa Tooth nations to make this celebration possible. Thank you so much, and I'd like to start by welcoming today's speakers. B.C.'s Minister of State for Child Care, Katrina Chan. Our federal minister of families, children, and social development, Karina Gould. Welcome to B.C. Kathy Poole, Vice President, Children and Youth Services for the YMCA of Greater Vancouver. Tanya Kubels, a parent who has a mother who has a child who has a child who has a child who has a child with children at Cascade Heights School and Child Care Center. And welcome to all of the federal, provincial, First Nations dignitaries joining us today. It's so wonderful to be joining here with so many friends and neighbors and colleagues. Thank you to everyone here from the YMCA of Greater Vancouver, the Burnaby School District, the city of Burnaby who are hosting us here at Cascade Heights YMCA Child Care Center. And I want to just note that in 2020, Cascade Heights Elementary received over $1.7 million through our new spaces program in order to create childcare on school grounds. And it is so great to be here today not only to see how these spaces are benefiting parents and kids in the area, but to bring more good news for parents throughout British Columbia. And just before we get on to the announcements, I do want to say just to the students at Cascades, go Tigers go. They did a fabulous job winning the basketball championship three years in a row and that is just a real testament to the fabulous work done here for kids at Cascade Heights Elementary. And just ahead, just as we were coming into the back to school season, I wanted just to note that we, in terms of supporting parents and families in British Columbia, I announced one time funding of $16 million to school districts that will be passed through to families of K-12 students who need it most to help with the cost of back to school. And across government, this is part of an affordability plan that we have to help make life better and more affordable for British Columbians through reducing auto insurance, increasing minimum wage to the highest level in the country, eliminating medical services premiums, supporting food programs and supply programs in our K-12 system. And earlier this month, our government also announced a further support, including 600 million to British Columbians through the BC benefit and climate action tax credit, as well as a cap on rent increases of 2% much lower than projected inflation. And today, we have more really important and wonderful news on how we're helping families to save money on children's child care. You know, since the introduction of our child care BC plan, we've been working hard to make child care a core service that parents can rely on. And to make sure that high quality, accessible and affordable child care is available to all families who want it. And we are moving towards our goal of $10 a day child care for every family by reducing fees for parents and supporting providers. And to tell you more, I want to invite the representative who has led the development of this plan in British Columbia and done so much incredible work, our wonderful Minister of Education, Minister of State for child care and to say a few words. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Minister Weissai, and just really honored to be here with you and just want to thank the elders again and for your warm welcome and thanks to all of you who are here, gathered on the unceded territories of the Hankemenem and Squamish speaking peoples. And it was interesting this morning when I woke up, the first word that came into my head, other than my son's foot kicking around, yeah, we still sleep together, other than him moving around in a bed, the first thing that came into my head was the word connection. And just as a newcomer, myself, an uninvited guest that I personally made throughout the years through my work and so honored to be able to do this work, the connections we've made across government, it's so amazing to welcome Minister Go back here again and she, of course, is also a mother who understands the importance of child care, the connections I have with Minister Weissai on the education and child care piece, the connections we have with parents, with child care provider like YMCA, thank you so much for hosting us and thanks to your support, and thank you for being with us today. I'm very proud of the school district here, I cannot be more than proud of the school district from Burma here who is hosting us here today with the child care on school ground and the partnership we have with the school district, I see the school board chair, Jamezzi, trustee Larry Hayes, Gary Juan, I think I saw Bill Bresington as well, I hope I didn't miss anyone and also thanks to the principal and other professionals for really have brought a lot of support and services that families need and families need to count on. And when we talk about the connections, I cannot thank enough the early childhood educators and childcare providers who have been connecting and working and partnering with government to deliver services that families desperately need. And for example, our few reduction program that we introduced in 2018 through our childcare BC plan and our big 2018 budget that focused on childcare that the fee reduction program currently have over 96% of spaces across BC joining this program. And that is a huge, huge achievement. Thank you. Thanks to all the childcare providers who are willing to partner with us, 96%. And that is why today we're so happy that after years of work on childcare, accelerating the creation of spaces, bringing down the cost of childcare, and also supporting early childhood educators. Today, we're going to take a step further thanks to the federal partnership to deliver more savings to parents. So for providers that are part of our fee reduction program and parents who are attending the 96% of spaces across BC, we're happy to share today that we're going to cut fees again by another $500, $550 more per month per child on their childcare savings. And that's on top of the $350 per month per child that we are already delivering the reduction to families, which brings the total up to $900 per month per child savings to families. I know when you think about $900 per month per child, that is huge. And imagine if you have two kids attending childcare, and that's a huge saving for families that because of the connections and the partnerships that we have were able to deliver to families by December 1st. So every day as we're doing this work to continue to save childcare fees for parents to deliver the spaces to support early childhood educators, I want to tell you that there was a mother that I met in 2018 and her story always, always stayed with me. She was a single mother with two kids and she told me because of childcare costs that was so high for years and because of childcare chaos, she went through a really challenging time not being able to return to work because of lack of affordable childcare. She had to put her job on hold for a few years, having to come on income assistance. And finally she was able to go back to the workforce after her children go to school, public education. And every time I think about her story and think about, for example, $900 she could have saved and probably more because she has two kids. If that savings were there years ago, this could have saved her career. She would not have to be forced to be left the workforce and she could have been supported and I remember she telling me that it was not just a financial struggle for her. It was such an emotional and social struggle for her that she had to went through because of lack of affordable childcare. But we are changing that. We have been changing that since 2018 with our childcare BC plan. We will continue to accelerate the creation of spaces we have currently for the past four or five years we have already funded and supported the creation of 30,500 spaces including this one here on the beautiful school ground. And we will continue to support early childhood educators because without early childhood educators we are unable we will continue to build a wage grid on top of our wage enhancement that's $4 an hour supporting early childhood educators. We're looking at bursary programs, dual credit programs and all the other workforce initiatives that we can pull together to make sure we are going to make childcare for a core service that family can count on under our 10-year childcare BC plan. And to all the parents I want to tell you as a mother myself we feel you and as you know ministers and as all the colleagues in here a lot of parents who have been struggling with childcare we feel you we understand that childcare is critical for our economy for our young children and for our families well-being. And just this morning when I was dropping off my son my son noticing me practicing for this event and everything and he said mom you're going to another childcare again because we actually just went to one last last night. I have the best job in the world that I go to so many childcare centers. It reminded me how when he was young he used to see me being in childcare centers and playing with other kids and he used to be so jealous he was like mommy you're playing with other kids again but this morning he was different he said mommy have all the fun with all the kids and I cannot tell you just that transformation that I see from my son it reminds me and you know as our elders have shared we need to continue to learn and we need to learn from our young children and with challenges it comes with opportunities and I think with the connections we have with our community across government we can bring the services and make childcare affordable, high quality inclusive and the core services all families can count on. Thank you so much Minister Chen thank you so much for for the fabulous announcement but also for that beautiful story about the transformation you're seeing in your own life and the theme of connections and relationships which I think is so important and just underpins everything that we're doing here. You see this beautiful childcare center you see what we can achieve for children and families when we're all working together and it's so I'm so grateful to see so many partners from our K-12 system here as well today from the school trustees from the principals and vice principals from our labour partners who support the work that workers do all of our K-12 partners are so excited about the opportunities that we have now as we are working in a much closer and much more integrated way on childcare so thank you so much for those reflections I want to say too that in terms of important connections and relationships the federal government has been a huge partner in this program and it is thanks to their commitment that we are able to deliver these additional savings to families so with that I would like to give a warm welcome to the honourable Katrina Gould the federal minister of families children and social development to say a few words. Thank you so much Minister Whiteside and Minister Chen for having me here today and a big thank you to our elder and knowledge keeper for starting us off in a good way and I think you did a great job because I think there's lots of good to be shared today and of course thank you to the YMCA as well as the school here at Cascade Heights for inviting us to make this important announcement this is my third time in Vancouver this summer I'm so happy to be back in beautiful British Columbia there is an incredible partnership going on I think Minister Chen spoke so perfectly about that connection and what we can achieve when we work together and what's happening here in BC is that working together from ECEs to childcare providers, municipal governments, school boards, the department of education, the provincial government all the way up to the federal government really working together to deliver for families and today's announcement is so exciting BC as was mentioned started on this path back in 2018 a bold investment and a bold vision and at the federal level when we decided in budget 2020 budget 2021 that we were going to make a historic transformative investment of 30 billion dollars in early learning and childcare BC was the first province to see that vision to understand what those opportunities could mean for families across this province and was the first province to sign on so through this 3.2 billion dollar federal investment and initiative over the next five years including the work that the province of BC already had underway we're able to make this really exciting announcement for BC families today and I like to talk about childcare as a home run because it's good for our kids it's good for our families and it's really good for our economy you know back in 1998 when Quebec went from you know being the first province to bring in affordable childcare they went from having the lowest female workforce participation in the country to now having the highest they actually have the highest proportion of women with children under the age of 4 that are working full time in this country that is a huge achievement so when we're thinking about what these affordability savings mean for parents it's also important at a time when Canada has the lowest unemployment rate in our history to make sure that we're providing opportunities for work and Minister Chen's story about that mother who had to step out of the workforce because of the high costs of childcare is not unique to her we hear about that all the time childcare costs are often the costs of another mortgage they're often more what you're paying out of pocket than what your take home is so for a lot of women and let's be honest it disproportionately impacts women it impacts them economically not just in that moment not just for their families but over the course of their lifetimes as well and so I'm really excited about today's announcement in BC because not only is BC doubling the number of $10 a day spaces available for families but they're also providing additional savings $900 a month when we talk about the high costs of living when we talk about inflationary pressures that's $900 a month that is going to go so far to helping families economist Ricardo Trajon said the other day that this is an inflationary fighting mechanism because it's going to those who need it most it's going to families who are going to be paying for the high costs of food who are going to be buying those winter coats and those winter boots it's not something that is going to increase it's actually going to help so when we think about child care and the initiative $30 billion from the federal government plus what BC is doing this is the most transformative social and economic policy our country has taken since the bringing in of Medicare this is huge it deserves a clap and it's thanks to those partnerships it's thanks to that vision and that working together with the BCE right up to the prime minister that we are truly stepping on to I think what is a nation building endeavor and so we're going to continue to work with the province of BC and the work that they're doing to support ECEs and the high quality endeavors that they're doing to make sure that spaces are accessible and inclusion but today is a day of celebration I'm really happy to be here to celebrate all that it means for the BCE families of the British Columbia and the federal government will continue to be here day after day just to realize this dream that as I said in English it's a transformative path in our society in our economy for the British Columbia families and I want to congratulate everyone here for this initiative thank you to Premier Horgan thank you to Ministers Whiteside and Ministers Chen thank you for having me here and I can't wait to see the outcomes of this great investment thank you so much oh thank you thank you so much Minister Gould and thank you for sort of placing this development in the transformative context that indeed it is because this announcement and the work that we've been doing in British Columbia that is supported in partnership with the federal government is about the economy it is about equity it is about labour force participation it is about building better stronger communities better stronger economies for for all of our communities and it is indeed a day of celebration so with I wanted to note as well that from the big transformative system it is a great approach to this right down to what we see happening here and it is so wonderful to hear the kids I don't know if people are picking this up but it is so wonderful to be here and hear the voices and the laughter of the children who are benefitting from this child care centre and so I want to just you know turn it over to one of our really important partners in making all of this possible to introduce Kathy Poole Vice President of Children and Youth Services of the YMCA of Greater Vancouver who is not only hosting us here today at this beautiful child care centre but who is also leading such important work caring for and educating our youngest citizens so Kathy please come and say a few words Good morning everyone on behalf of our child care team and the entire YMCA community I would like to express how thrilled we are to participate in today's special announcement thank you to the Elders for the very meaningful and special welcome I'd also like to recognize Minister Gold Minister Whiteside and Minister Chen as well as all the other dignitaries here today your ongoing work and commitment to providing quality and affordable child care to more families is inspiring and truly appreciated the YMCA couldn't be more excited to come together with both levels of government to help even more children and families thrive I'd like to thank Tanya for spending her morning with us as one of our Cascade Heights child care parents I look forward to hearing you share what today's announcement means to your family I've been working in the child care sector for over two decades and I know how important quality child care is to families I've had the opportunity to speak with many parents to hear about how grateful they are to have access to quality child care knowing their children are learning and growing in a safe, nurturing environment what is also true for a lot of these parents is that it continues to be a struggle for them to afford the child care services they so desperately rely on each and every day that's what makes today's announcement so significant it is exciting to know that beginning December government will be providing direct funding to child care centers participating in the fee reduction initiatives further lowering fees for families of children up to the age of five the YMCA is proud to continue our partnership with the government of BC and join other providers to deliver these savings to such deserving families as access for affordable child care grows we know the need for more professional early childhood educators will become even greater the YMCA celebrates the government of BC's ECE education support fund which has greatly supported individuals who are entering the field of early childhood education and for those who are looking to upgrade their credentials I know some of our own educators have benefited from this as well as the wage enhancement initiatives we are grateful to the government of BC for these critical investments in support of the recruitment and retention of our early childhood educators the YMCA also applauds the government of Canada for its announcement of the 625 million early learning in child care whoops thank you infrastructure fund in budget 2022 the YMCA has seen that by working together the government of BC and the government of Canada have been able to reach agreements that have led to record investments and today's announcement is a shining example of what can be done when the well-being of children and families is at the heart of that work we know there is more work to be done and more to accomplish as the largest provider of licensed child care in BC and in Canada the YMCA looks forward to furthering our work with all levels of government to create a long-term sustainable child care system and together help the generations of children and families reach their full potential thank you that's great thank you so much Kathy and I think we can indeed say that the winds are fully in the sails of this transformation of child care thanks so much for Kathy and for all of the work that you and your team do and of course in terms of connections and relationships it's parents at the end of the day really it's all about parents and kids and so it's so wonderful to have Tanya Kubels here with us today a parent here at Cascade Heights here with her family to tell us a bit about what this means for you and your family come on up Tanya good morning to everyone my name is Tanya Kubels I have three kids one is attending this day care and I have other two kids in the elementary school so these news are amazing I just I'm chocked right now with the amount of money that we are going to save and right now we are experiencing inflation high prices on food, gas and other things that it really is making us to lower our costs in our expenses on our monthly expenses so that is making us a little bit of financial stress so I'm really happy to hear this news and I'm very thank you with the government because it's working with all BC with the day cares to make possible this affordable affordable childcare for all families and as the minister mentioned before I remember when I was younger and I had my two other children and we couldn't afford for the baker it was a hard time and I stayed home with my kids and I need to stop studying or working and everything it was amazing time with me with my kids but now with this new new fees reduction of new fees make possible to other parents to pursue their careers to continue studying or working on whatever they are doing and for my family this subsidy will have a huge impact we can continue sorry I'm just a little bit nervous we can continue supporting our kids with their extracurricular activities we can also be able to make higher contributions to the post-secondary school allowing our kids to be graduate debt free and that's very important for my family and also they can begin their college without the pressure of costly debt loans I hope this initiative of more affordable day care continues to spread all over the province as it will provide many families relief on high fees thank you so much thank you so much Tanya for sharing your story very well spoken all of the contribution and advocacy that you are also engaged in elementary school and child care I love well for kids and families so that as they go all the way through their life journey and their educational journey they have that really solid foundation and that's what centers like this really help parents establish for their kids thank you so much for your reflections and I know that everyone who works in child care whether at the government level or at the provider level is going to start to soon hear more good stories good news stories like this about the impact on families because really at the end of the day this is all about the children, the families strengthening our communities making life better ensuring that we have a prosperous quality environment for kids and families so thank you very much everybody and we are available to take questions thank you minister we will now take questions from the location first and then go to the phones can you come up to the podium for the questions media on the phone please do press star one to line up for questions there will be one question and one follow up also media on the phone please do not mute your phone you will not be audible until we call your name the first question today comes from so this benefit does benefit families that have younger children what about families with children older than kindergarten and can you also give us a status update on the $10 day program of course we started the work with where the fees are the highest which is under five especially infant tolerance quite expensive across BC communities so that's the work that's being focused on with under five care especially with the federal investment but September 1st next year we are going to expand our fee reduction to all the school age kids as a parent who has a son before and after school care I'm so excited about that and I look forward to continue to expand more initiatives and it is really important to note that the fee reduction program is one of our three major programs so we have a fee reduction that's partnering with providers across the province not income tested parents don't have to apply it's automatic reduction on parent fees and again it's going to be up to $900 savings for families depending on the age and the type of care and then we also have the affordable child care benefit program that is income tested up to the income of 111,000 so a lot of middle income families can also benefit from that and a lot of families are already paying $10 a day or no cost at all under that program as well and then we also have the $10 a day dedicated sites that's really popular across the province we're going to more than double the spaces by December as well so at the end of this year we're going to expect more than 20,000 families benefitting from $10 a day with thousands and tens of thousands of families finding savings in child care fees do you have a follow up Reagan? I do so what is this particular program going to be costing where is the money coming from and why did you decide against non-income based so with the three different affordability measures we've learned a lot we need to work with providers to continue to have this partnership so we can lower parent fees as we provide support to providers actually as part of this announcement providers already know that they're also going to get significantly enhanced funding to support their operation as well that we need to recognize providers does put in a lot of time and a lot of efforts and the cost has been going up to provide quality care as well so we need to support providers and then we know non-income tested and a child care model that makes child care a core service is really critical for families well being because all families will be benefiting from returning to the workforce being able to have more options for their housing and other cost pressures and then we also know from our $10 a day site that we've learned from the past four years that every dollar we invest for example right here in BC already have $2.6 economic return so investing in child care is really good for the economy and the budget that we have through our provincial budget we've already spent I think our current budget is over $1.6 billion and then with the federal funding that's over I think $3.2 over five years it is really significant provincially we're still taking the lead on the plan but we want to continue to make sure the investment will benefit families and our economy. Thank you, we're going to the phones now the first question over the phone to our Canadian President go ahead please Hi Minister are you able to say how many children are in non-licensed day care in British Columbia? We can definitely provide that statistics but we do have start-up funding that's supporting licensed not required child care to become licensed care we do want to make sure we enhance the minimum standards for quality care and that is really important so we do encourage all child care providers who are not yet licensed to utilize our start-up funding take advantage of government funding to make sure they get operating support as well and also fee reduction and by the way just a correction I think our provincial funding is $2.6 billion over three years thank you Thank you Doug do you have a follow-up? Sure I didn't hear a number there We can follow up on the detailed question in terms of the number of unlicensed spaces I don't have that from the top of my head sorry. There are no other questions at this time thank you all for joining us Thank you