Denmark’s daytime sponsorship is a basic right. Can Canada offer the same thing?

When Lisa Petersen gave birth to her first child, she knew that she would return to work a long time ago. So when her daughter, NAIA, was a few months old, the former BC teacher has entered a gateway run by the city of Copenhagen and chose her ideal day care.

Soon after, the NAIA-full-time spot was guaranteed, backed by a facility run by qualified teachers.

She told CBC News: “It was easy to do.” “I feel panic to talk to people in Canada on this topic, because it was very incredible.”

Petersen’s experience with Denmark’s famous daytime sponsorship system is very different from the experience of many parents in Canada, who are still facing Long waiting lists and High feesDespite 2021 liberalism The goal of reducing day care fees to $ 10 a day, by an average, by 2026.

As of July, five provinces – Alberta, Ontario, British Columbia, Nova Scotia and New Bronzwek – have not reached this goal.

“We are anywhere near a global system,” said Murna Baltinin, Executive Director of Child Welfare now.

But as Governments weigh the extensions As for the liberal support program, there is evidence from other countries that the market-based approach in Canada risks wasting public dollars-and exacerbating the quality of care.

Australia warning story

Fourteen years ago, Georgy Dent, like Petersen, was looking for the child’s care for her children.

She returned to her hometown in Sydney from abroad, found herself in a battle for spaces, facing a long transition and high fees from the sky.

“We were spending more to care for children than on the rent,” Dent said. “We had two centers going, two of the contestants every day. It was crazy.”

Today, Dent is running a group called paternity, representing parents and sponsorship providers. She says Australia’s efforts to support Canada, which has proven to be “sadly insufficient.”

Australia has Provide subsidies Since the 1990s, part of the drawings imposed on the parents have pushed the activity of their work and their income.

But, like Canada-unlike Denmark-Australia has greatly left the development of children’s care centers to the private sector.

More than 70 percent of the Australian Australian Australians work on a profitable basis; International blocs, Including the pension fund for the Ontario teacherI heavily invested in the sector, and searching for high returns.

“Australia expert Australia, an expert in Australia, an expert of Australia, an expert in Australia, an expert in Australia, an expert in Australia, an expert in Australia, an expert in Australia, an expert in Australia, a center of thinking:” childcare in the field of child care has become the major business in Australia. “There was a lot of skiing on clear prices.”

Meanwhile, the support was unable to make Dent, Fees that rise alongside increases in public spendingAccording to the Australia Policy Development Center.

Deserts child care

The support has not done much to treat the “childcare desert”, the areas where there is a lack of care. Experts say that expert sponsors tend to put facilities where they can extend the parents’ budgets to the farthest: the wealthy urban areas where the care is already in providing abundant supplies.

Worse, these experts say, funding is not conditional on regular quality assessments. This gave the operators to win a little incentive not to increase profits by reducing the operating costs-and in order to offer safety.

“We have a sector dominated by an unofficial and high -wage working force,” said Lisa Bryant, an advocate of child care in Australia. In remote areas, As much as the employees Leave their sites after 12 months, which attributes their decision to long working hours and poor wages.

In the past few years, the Australian government has tried to address this deficiency with Raise for childcare workers And bonuses to increase the retention of the worker. But it was not enough.

At the same time, the Australian government is considering alleviating children’s aid- Restore the system on public or non -profitable care.

Only in the past few months, the country has been shaken Scandals On neglect and abuse in care. One city He asked more than 2000 children To obtain a test of sexually transmitted infections after he worked an alleged offensive in dozens of centers; Since then, he has been accused of more than 70 crimes, which included at least eight children.

“We are in a period … where there is very few confidence in our children’s care centers,” said Brynet. “All of this is due to how to finance them.”

Denmark’s success story

Unlike Australia – Canada – Denmark has long dealt with access to daytime care as a basic right.

“Under the law, they must find a place for you,” said Erika Nod, a Canadian company living in Denmark with two children under the fourth law.

The role of custody is like a person attended by her children, where a few dozen children are sponsored by a team of teachers, running through the municipality as an extension of the general education system.

If the sites in these are not available, Denmark also provides supported home care and modest payments for mothers who reside at home with their children.

These benefits depend on family income, but parental fees never represent more than 25 percent of the operating costs of the facility.

This system has achieved results. Today, more than 92 percent of Danish children between the ages of one to two years are in a form of child care, with most children starting daytime care between nine and 11 months.

Research indicates that access to high -quality early childhood education can be Huge benefits for social and emotional development for childrenEspecially for children from marginalized backgrounds.

“We have strong research in Denmark that when children reaches the second grade in school, the matter has ended-their course was done,” said Bergit Stemman, a FOA adviser, the Danish Federation, who represents children’s care professionals. “Early childhood … has such an effect.”

Can Danish Canada go?

A general system like Denmark is not cheap. Meret Felsen, director of the care department for early children in Alburg, a city of about 220,000 people, said the municipality spends more than $ 170 million of funds every year on daytime operations.

Catherine Oporn, a childcare expert at the Policy Development Center in Australia, warns that once private service providers create foothold in a sector, it is difficult to get out of it. “It will be very difficult to cancel this egg,” she said.

Oborn says, in countries such as Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom, there is also a “social license” less for the treatment of daytime tools such as the extension of the public school system, as they do in Denmark.

She says this is one of the reasons why the Australian government tends to the non -profit sector to expand the scope of availability, rather than operating it through public schools.

The Canada regime is not just like Australia. For one of them, it differs greatly from the province to the province, and in many provinces, subsidies are paid directly to service providers as a percentage of their operating costs, which are not issued as affiliates that follow parents, as in Australia.

But defenders are still concerned that, as in Australia, the profitable sector takes a large segment of the basic public service.

“The percentage of children’s care is increasing dramatically,” said Baltin. Since 2013, creation The profitable centers have surpassed non -profit organizations Almost two to one. She said that the governments, “at the same time,” continued to treat (Adcares) completely differently from general education. “

You see some hope in Recent plans to reconsider the funding formulas To ensure that the benefits actually reduce the costs of parents and maintain the quality of daytime care standing on his feet.

But she warns that some provinces, such as Ontario, actually cut off their contributions as the federal government increases its party.

“This must be a project to build the nation … (and) an economic initiative,” she said. “I am optimistic, but I know it will be a much more hard work.”