David Eby admits to benefiting from $10 a day child care

The question is, has your family ever benefited from a $10 a day child care program? And if so, can you clarify when and how?

Yes, and my family has, yes.

I'm Rob Fain for Jazz. That is Premier David Eby confirming that his family has used $10 a day child care at a time when only 10% of BC's licensed child care spaces are priced at that level. I was going to come on this radio station today and just have an enjoyable Thanksgiving. It was going to be smooth sailing on a Monday, but all of a sudden this little nugget falls at the foot and you got to talk about it, don't you? Let's bring in Sharon Gregson, spokesperson for the Coalition of Child Care Advocates here in BC, on what they says about access, what they says about fairness, and the promise of universal child care. Sharon, welcome to the program.

Thank you, Rob. Happy Thanksgiving.

Well, to you as well. OK, so I sat here for about half an hour before the show thinking I'm going to try to put my foot on both sides of this and I'm going to try to defend the premier in this moment. It's getting harder and harder to do as more information comes out. How does this change the political conversation in your estimation that he personally uses the $10 a day child care system?

Well, I think we should be clear. It would be a great thing that the premier was using $10 a day child care. if he was simultaneously advocating and working for all families to have that same kind of access, because universality is the goal. We want his family to have 10 at 8, as much as we want your family and my family and all your listeners to have access if they choose licensed childcare. But to have only 10% of spaces in the province be 10 at 8, and to be talking about not expanding it any further, which is what they did in the last budget, it really seems... less than great, not a lot of good luck.

Sharon, shortly after this became public and Jordan Armstrong tweeted this out, EB's office sent a statement to Global News saying that, hey, listen, we are working with Ottawa right now on what they're hoping will be a newly negotiated child care funding agreement. And they've set the deadline of December the 1st. Are they snuffing out a fire here? Or do you think that they're on the verge of something that's going to help a lot of British Columbia residents?

Well, of course, they should be advocating to the federal government to help with building a childcare system. And in fact, since 2021, that's exactly what the federal government has been doing. In fact, the federal government contributes more to BC childcare now than our own provincial government does. And just recently, Prime Minister Carney announced an additional 630 million of federal dollars in the prosperity agreement to help BC with their cost pressures around childcare. And so it's no excuse at all to put it all on the backs of the federal government. Of course, we want them to do their share. But we also need the provincial government to be stepping up and following through on their own commitment.

Sharon, I'm going to play the devil's advocate here. Should a premier's family be criticized for using a program that is technically legally open to them, just like it