The monthly cost of childcare for OneCity council candidate RJ Aquino’s two kids is currently higher than the amount he and his wife spend on rent for their East Vancouver apartment.

Aquino noted in a phone interview with the Straight that many Vancouver families are in the same position—which is why he thinks the issue of childcare should have equal standing on the civic election agenda as housing affordability.

OneCity wants to see the $10-a-day child-care plan proposed by the Coalition of Child Care Advocates of BC and the Early Childhood Educators of BC implemented as a pilot project in an underserviced Vancouver neighbourhood.

“With everybody talking about affordability...this is a big part of the equation, especially for young families and people who are wanting to start families,” Aquino said.

“The city can take a leadership position on this by starting this pilot program, which we’re proposing, so that we have data to present [and] evidence to share with other levels of government to provide a compelling argument for the necessity of this $10-a-day child-care program.”

The issue of childcare is also the subject of various other proposals as part of the Vancouver election campaign.

Mayoral candidate Meena Wong said COPE plans to include affordable child-care centres in new housing developments on city land as part of the housing authority they have proposed.

The party is also vowing to lower the rent for existing child-care centres in schools and community centres, pay child-care workers a living wage, and provide on-site childcare for city employees.

Wong noted that when she goes door-knocking at 6 or 7 p.m., she often hears the “little voices” of children behind the doors, telling her that no parents are home.

“It’s something that’s close to my heart, because I have a cousin who went through a very difficult time to get affordable and available [child care],” she said.

The Vancouver Greens are promising to advocate for the implementation of the $10-a-day plan, temporarily repurpose extra school space for community child-care, and provide community space that could be used for childcare as part of school seismic upgrades.

“People keep talking about how their kids just don’t have space or they can’t afford the space that does exist, and I believe the school board has an opportunity to better support this crisis in the city,” Green school board candidate Mischa Oak told the Straight by phone.

Green council candidate Cleta Brown described meeting child-care needs as an important aspect of addressing poverty.

“It’s one of those barriers, the lack of it, that can keep children in poverty, keep their parents unable to take themselves out of poverty,” she said.

The NPA is also proposing to make use of excess space in schools for childcare. School board candidate Christopher Richardson said his party would look to community child-care operators to utilize available spaces.

“We realize that there are schools that must be repurposed if we wish to keep them open, which is our policy to do whatever we can to keep [them] open,” Richardson said in a phone interview. “So childcare is one of those uses which comes very high up in the priority list.”

Meanwhile, Vision Vancouver has promised to deliver 1,000 new child-care spaces over the next four years. The party is also vowing to make every elementary school getting a seismic upgrade “child care ready,” and to compile inspection and violation data from child-care centres as part of an open source database.

“It’s such a nightmare to find a child-care spot in Vancouver and I just went through that with my little one, and there’s a lot of concerns all the time with what standard of childcare you’re able to find, and how expensive it is…so that will be part of that work,” Vision council candidate Niki Sharma told the Straight.

Aquino believes that there would be immediate community demand for the kind of pilot program OneCity is proposing.

He sees the project as particularly critical for Vancouver neighbourhoods with growing populations of children, such as South Vancouver, Hastings-Sunrise, the West End, Cedar Cottage, and his own community of Renfrew-Collingwood.

“Child-care spaces are being built where there’s new development, instead of where there’s families that need it,” he said.

“So we want to start with an area that’s underserviced…and with support from senior levels of government, expand the program throughout Vancouver.”

Aquino is proposing that the pilot program be delivered in cooperation with the Coalition of Child Care Advocates.

“We want to show other levels of government the kind of demand that this has, and not just the demand but also the impact that it will have for the families in this community—how many people are going back to work because of it, the quality of childcare that’s now being provided,” he said.

"All of that information is what we want to gather so that we can present a case and say this is why we need this $10-a-day child-care plan.”