Child-care workers rally at P.E.I. legislature

Dozens of child-care workers gathered outside the P.E.I. legislatureThursday to address concerns about the loss of funding when kindergarten moves into the public school system next fall.

The provincial government currently contributes nearly $3 million to help child-care centres run kindergarten programs.

Sonya Corrigan, executive director of the Early Childhood Development Association of P.E.I., said the centres are looking for a commitment from the province to continue to fund daycares once kindergarten students leave.

"What we're looking for right now as an immediate investment, as an investment of hope, as a beginning to have the government commit to keeping the $2.9 million that has gone into kindergarten, promising to keep that in the early childhood community," she said.

Many of the child-care workers dressed in blackThursday and pinned black ribbons on the children in their care to symbolize what they said was the imminent loss of funding.

Barb Campbell, owner of Little Angels Daycare in Charlottetown, said she is worried about the future of her centre.

"It'll cost me more and if I don't have the government's backing, there's a possibility it could close, down the road," she said. "Not right now but in the future, maybe, if we don't get help."

Report due soon

The minister of education and early-childhood development said his department isstudying the financial impact of kindergarten leaving child-care centres and is expecting a rerport from MRSB Chartered Accountantsin afew weeks.

As children were leaving the rally, Gerard Greenan told them, "You are my responsibility, and a responsibility that I take to heart."

He stopped short of making a financial commitment.

"I'm not going to suggest any particular amount," he said. "I know that we as a department are certainly behind the early-childhood sector and will be there to support them."

Jessie MacFadyen of the Garderie Educative Cornwall Child Education Centre said the children would suffer without a commitment from the province.

"We know how important those early years are we really need to recognize that more, how important the early-childhood field is, to children and to the parents who have to work," she said.