B.C. NDP Leader David Eby is defending his family’s enrolment in the provincial $10-a-day child-care program.
Eby is under attack from Conservatives who say his “wealthy family” should not benefit from the program that they say is inaccessible to many low-income families.
In a post on X Monday, Eby said one of his children was already attending a child-care centre when it was designated as a $10-a-day site.
“When that occurred, we chose as a family to make a donation to that excellent facility,” Eby said.
“We felt that we did not need that discount and we wanted to make sure that the child-care centre could provide other supports for families in the community.”
Eby said his family will make a similar donation to the child-care centre for their youngest child who attends the same facility.
At a news conference on Tuesday, Eby would not specify the donation amount or if it was used as a tax write off.
“We certainly didn’t need that discount,” Eby said.
“We paid the difference between what it was before and what it was after the $10-a-day daycare,” he added.
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Now, Eby is taking heat from the B.C. Conservatives during the snap provincial election campaign.
“It’s shocking to learn that while hundreds of thousands of British Columbians are struggling with the most expensive child care in the country, David Eby’s family landed a plum $10-a-day child care spot,” said Margareta Dovgal, the B.C. Conservative candidate for Vancouver-Yaletown, in a news release Monday.
The Conservatives called attention to Eby’s compensation from 2025 to 2026 as premier, which totalled more than $226,000, and criticized his “wealthy family” for benefiting from the subsidized child-care program.
After Eby’s Tuesday news conference, Dovgal said Eby was dodging the tough questions.
“David Eby should look a working single mother paying thousands in childcare costs in the eye explaining why his wealthy, powerful family deserves $10/day childcare first,” Dovgal said in a second news release.
“David Eby is trying to defend the indefensible, as British Columbians are seeing Eby for the opportunistic hypocrite he is.”
The Conservatives are demanding Eby answer a number of questions, including around the value and proof of his first donation, whether it was a tax write-off, and more information on the value of the second planned donation.
The $10-a-day program is operated by independent businesses who have chosen to participate; access to one of the facilities is based on each location’s licensed capacity and waitlist, according to the provincial government.
When a child-care centre is approved to be a part of the $10-a-day program, the child’s space is automatically converted into the $10-a-day program, according to a provincial Q&A webpage.
According to the webpage, which was last updated in 2024, there were more than 13,200 $10-a-day child-care spaces throughout B.C. The Ministry of Education and Child Care would not provide an updated number of spaces as the government is in a temporary caretaker mode due to the election.
The B.C. NDP say their Conservative opponents “have been silent” around whether their party would reverse child care fee caps.
Eby said Tuesday the Conservatives are proposing to cut certain child-care programs. However, the Conservatives have not laid out their plan yet.
CBC News has reached out to the B.C. Conservatives for their child-care proposals.
