Commentary
By Matthew Lau

Here’s a startling new claim. According to the Eby government’s Ministry of Education and Child Care, the government should backtrack on its child-care program to save children from racism.

 Of course, the ministry doesn’t use those words exactly, but consider this.

According to the ministry’s new service plan (for 2025/26 to 2027/28), it’s “committed to equity and addressing racism and discrimination in the education system through implementation of the K-12 Anti-Racism Action Plan” and “making equitable access to inclusive child care a reality by launching the Inclusive Child Care Strategy.”

So there’s the first admission of guilt—the British Columbia government says its school system is racist and discriminatory.

Next, what does the K-12 Anti-Racism Action Plan say? On page four, NDP MLA Mable Elmore writes of developing an anti-racism initiative to address “systemic racism within government,” which suggests that not only is the school system racist, but the whole provincial government is systemically racist. And in the document’s conclusion, the government emphasizes the need for “system level change” to dismantle “racism in schools”—another admission of guilt.

Of course, no parent wants to send their child to schools or child-care centres (often contained within schools) where they will be victims of vicious racism or harmful discrimination.

So if the provincial government and its schools are rife with racism, then the government should give parents more access to non-racist private-sector alternatives.

Unfortunately, for child care in the province, the NDP government has done the opposite. Through increased government spending and control since 2017 (and with the collaboration of the federal Liberal government since 2021), the NDP has systemically pushed the private sector out and reduced the ability of parents to access alternatives to government-run or government-controlled child-care programs.

Specifically, back in 2020, the NDP government decided “only public organizations, Indigenous governments and non-profits would be eligible for provincial child care space creation funding” by 2027, because it wanted a universal government-coordinated taxpayer-funded system.

And it has shifted funding away from private for-profit centres, even though many parents prefer such facilities.

And even though currently most child-care spaces in B.C. are still offered by private operators and wait lists for spots are very long, private providers say they’re “being discriminated against even though they’re offering a much-needed service.” In other words, private daycares are being “squeezed out” by the provincial government’s programs.

Which brings us back to racism. Because parents are increasingly denied access to private-sector child-care programs, they’re stuck with government programs, which are, according to the government itself, systemically racist. The bad news for B.C. families.

Incidentally, according to 2024 poll (funded by the federal government), 84 per cent of B.C. families with young children agreed that “long waiting lists are still a problem for families who need child care” and two-thirds of parents who used child care said a parent had to miss work after parental leave ended because child care was unavailable when they needed it.

Racist or not, government-run child care in B.C. is clearly a mess. Policies that give parents more options, such as direct funding for parents instead of preferential financial treatment for government and non-profit centres, would help. More of the same government control will not.

Matthew Lau is an adjunct scholar at the Fraser Institute.