Today on CICK News I'm speaking to Genevieve Paterson, Sharon Gregson (the $10/day childcare fee advocate for the Coalition of Child Care Advocates of BC), and ECE and Smart Start programmer, Sherlana Schrader.

Today's news is all about child care in the north. Councillor Paterson raised concern about the Child Care Affordability Benchmarks in a council meeting in March 2026, which are provincially-set fees that are stardards for licenced child-care providers to offer reduced fees for their service. But the service isn't deemed essential or funded to provide accessible, affordable child care to families as well as providers. As the costs of wages, construction, infrastructure, and housing rise, wages for ECEs are just now meeting a living wage in the province, providers who want to offer lower fees essentially can't afford to.