Despite the fact that UBC is already the largest childcare provider of any university in North America, many UBC parents and childcare workers argue that the program leaves much to be desired.

Grad student and mother of two Dafna Zur said that she is unsatisfied with the status quo.

“The waiting list is still horrendously long,” she said. “Women in general and students in particular must be given the opportunity to go back to work; the government seems to want to prevent that through limited care providers and unaffordable prices.”

Zur got on the list as soon as her child was born, yet she still had to wait two years for daycare. Because Zur and her husband were new to Canada and didn’t have any family in Vancouver, they had to scramble for babysitters in the meantime.

UBC Asian Studies professor Stefania Burk found herself in the same situation.

“I got on the waiting list when I was three months pregnant, [but] it took two years to get a spot,” she said.

“[With] one year maternity leave, that’s still one year we had to provide outside care. I had to move my mother here when I had to come back to work because it was the only way that we could afford to have full time care that we thought was reliable.”

“When we opened a number of programs last year, the waiting list still stayed at 24 months,” said UBC Director of Child Care Darcelle Cottons. “What happened is we opened up 108 spots last year and we thought we would take on our waiting list. [It] went down from 1600 to 1400 and by Christmas it was back up to 1600.”

Despite heavy subsidization, cost remains a crucial consideration for many parents.

“From a student perspective, infant care is $1055 a month, but if we were charging full cost recovery it would be more than double that,” said Cottons. “Parent fees just pay the teachers’ salaries, teachers’ benefits, and [for] the toys and equipment. Staff are not overly paid, the average is about $18-18.50 per hour.”

According to Cottons, the university is implementing a number of measures to ease the burden on parents. She said that recent renovations have helped reduce the wait time.

“We are constructing two daycares. The university just approved the final bit of money at the last board meeting. The capital cost outlaid by the time we hit next September is nearly seven million dollars, between the AMS’s contribution to the 2009 construction, [as well as] the University Neighbourhood Association and the university [itself],” said Cottons.

According to AMS VP External Jeremy McElroy, UBC currently subsidizes about 8 per cent of the cost, while 12 per cent is through community and private grants that the university applies for and 80 per cent of the cost is borne by the parent. This is up from 67 per cent in 2006.

To help combat these rising costs, in 2008 the AMS set aside a million dollars out of the Capital Projects Aquisition and Construction Fund (CPAC) to be given over ten years, or $100,000 per year, he said.

McElroy claimed that the real financial issue is a lack of governmental support.

“Adjusting the overall cost for the parent is another huge thing, and the only way that will ever happen is if we can get provincial commitment on operating grant funding for childcare facilities.”

Graduate Student Society (GSS) President Arvind Saraswat said that the GSS is also working hard to make sure the government understands UBC’s childcare needs.

“We are lobbying the provincial government to provide greater support towards acces¬sible childcare on UBC campus. We discussed our concerns regarding the lack of accessible childcare at UBC with the Minister of Advanced Education & Labour Market Development, in our meeting last year,” he said. “We co-hosted a childcare con¬ference in May 2010 to highlight the current situation, build partnerships and inform the community.”

Cottons argued that the high land value at UBC makes it impractical to build child care facilities on campus. The university’s location on a peninsula with a park separating it from the city is also an issue that makes UBC’s childcare situation unique in Canada.

“It’s just that it really is the job of the government to be doing it. It should be considered part of the public education system.”

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