History & Successes

Childcare and early childhood education were some of the first public interest issues addressed by Public Interest Alberta. In the spring of 2005, Public Interest Alberta and its members mounted a successful advocacy effort to get the provincial government to sign on to a National Childcare deal with the federal government. Although the Harper government went on to dismantle those agreements, PIA used its large network to pressure the Alberta Minister of Children’s Services to publicly defend national childcare, and the Task Force's work continues.

Past Successes

Advocacy Conference 2008, featuring guest speaker Deborah Brennan

In April 2008, Public Interest Alberta hosted Not For Sale: Promoting Public Solutions in Today's Alberta, a conference about countering the many faces of privatization in Alberta.

Deborah Brennan, a leading Australian public policy researcher and well-informed critic of the corporatization of childcare in Australia and of its consequences for families and children in need, was one of several international guests at the conference. Her presentation traced the development of the corporate childcare model in Australia and drew valuable comparisons to the Alberta context.

Click here to view Deborah Brennan's presentation.

Government failure to spend the allocated childcare budget, 2008-2009

Over the last few years, PIA has revealed that the Alberta government has under-spent its childcare budget by over $100 million since 2001, despite the fact that Alberta already spends the lowest per capita of all provinces on childcare.

Documents revealed in 2008 by PIA's official request for information about the province's use of the $25.9 million it received from the federal government for the creation of new childcare spaces revealed that the province did not factor this new funding into the childcare budget, and suggested the money was put into general revenue.

PIA released this information to the media, and called on the government to spend these allocated funds to create childcare spaces, as was originally intended, and to increase funding for childcare overall, which was still the lowest in Canada.

Click here to read the March 7, 2008 media release.

Click here to read the article in Vue Weekly.

Advocacy efforts in 2009 continued to put pressure on the Alberta government to invest in a non-profit and public childcare system. While previous efforts were successful in securing a large increase in the childcare budget, the Ministry annual report of September 2009 showed once again the under-spending of the 2008-2009 budget by $19.2 million, a full 10% of the allocated amount.

Finally, Budget 2010 shows a projection that for the first time in many years, the government plans to spend the full $205.8 million in the budget; unfortunately, this budget was also cut by $7.5 million, or 3.6%.

PIA's Childcare Task Force continues to monitor government spending to ensure that the full budget is going towards the benefit of Alberta's families and children.

Alberta's childcare spending lowest in the country

The national study released on December 7th, 2007 from the Childcare Resource and Research Unit at the University of Toronto, Early Childhood Education and Care in Canada 2006, showed that Alberta spends the lowest amount per capita on childcare and the lowest amount for each regulated childcare space.

Click here to read PIA's December 13 media release.

Click here to read Federal-Provincial Funding for Childcare: Background.

Education and Alberta's Future: PIA hosts three forums

All three forums featured internationally renowned education expert Dr. Fraser Mustard, a panel of speakers and a round-table discussion, and focused on the importance and interconnectedness of early childhood, K-12 and post-secondary education.