Daycare should be available and free for all children


By Liz Briemberg

One of the first public meetings the Vancouver Women’s Caucus set up was to discuss the child care situation in B.C. It was held on the 4th September, 1969 with the intention of launching a project to improve the provisions for the care of children of working mothers.

Melody Kilian

Melody Kilian, from the Louis Riel University family co-op, and Mrs. Maycock, from the BC provincial health and welfare office, were the speakers.

In our program, we argued that society – not just the mothers and fathers — has the responsibility to provide for children, and that daycare should be available and free (Pedestal Vol. 2 no. 2, 3 & Vol. 3 no. 10).

Melody was a member of Women’s Caucus and had been instrumental in setting up the daycare facility at Simon Fraser University, challenging the university administration to support that facility. She wrote a pamphlet “Children are only Littler People, or the Louis Riel University family Co-op,” which puts forward a radical program for providing such a service.

Although the public meeting attracted about 60 people and was very informative, nothing much came of this intention. The subject came up often, but only a few of the more active Caucus members had children under school age. While we noted childcare would be available at our meetings, it was poorly provided and received little attention. The issues of organizing working women, educating women about women’s oppression, and the abortion campaign took precedence and required much energy.

It was, however, an issue that was considered very pertinent to union contracts when we were involved in organizing women’s unions, such as SORWUC, and AUCE, and was included among the demands. The workers at two daycare centres were organized into SORWUC.

Related Materials