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Better child care would ease welfare cases, YWCA says [CA-NS]

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Author: 
Keilty, Lindsey
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Article
Publication Date: 
8 Jun 2006
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Sherilyn Saccary says she isn't the type who abuses the system.

But the 33-year-old single mother of four will start drawing social assistance next month because she's out of options.

Her baby is eight months old and her unemployment has run out. Her other children are six, nine and 11 years, and all in school. She says waiting on lists for subsidized day-care spots is the worst feeling she's had yet.

The YWCA in Nova Scotia wants to help reverse this trend for desperate parents.

Putting tax dollars in the pocket of Wal-Mart-like, big-business child-care centres will take away from the future of the province, local YWCA officials insisted at a news conference yesterday.

Comparing the issue to public-versus-private health care in Nova Scotia, YWCA Halifax spokeswoman Tanis Crosby called on government to emphasize the public good over profit.

Introducing the Early Childhood Learning and Care Blueprint for Nova Scotia, the province's YWCAs laid out how three years of research by the national organization applies directly to Nova Scotia.

The concerned group called on all parties in the [provincial] election campaign to:

- Commit to considering the blueprint for early childhood learning and care as laid out by the YWCA.

- Commit to a full debate in the legislature and public forums on this community-wide issue.

- Guarantee that Nova Scotians' tax dollars will go toward child development and communities, and not to shareholder profits and big business.

- reprinted from the Halifax Daily News