Sheldon MacLeod Show: Parents and caregivers left in the dark about reopening plans

I think we’re also looking at a different kind of systemic blindness. I think that we have a government, not just here, but across North America certainly, that doesn’t really take into account women’s lives and work and, in particular, labour. . .  This is an issue that affects caregivers generally and not all of those caregivers are women. But many, many of them are.

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The Province is opening on Friday, but we know that there are a lot of people who cannot participate in that economic activity because we have thousands and thousands and thousands of children across the province who do not have childcare.

And despite our best efforts to bring attention to this issue: voices from business commissions to agriculture federations to individual entrepreneurs, font-line workers, all saying, very coherently and collectively: “This is an issue. What are we supposed to do about caregiving as this economy reopens?” And we’ve just heard a deafening silence from the government. And it’s just not good enough because the reality is that many women will not be able to go back to work: whether that’s running their own business, whether that’s running their own farm, whether that’s being a nurse or front-line worker, or working in an office, they just won’t be able to do it.

And the “organic childcare” that has really struck a nerve—the Premier talked about how childcare was happening “organically”—and it just doesn’t work that way. That “organic” opportunity doesn’t exist for most people.

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There’re lots and lots of people across Nova Scotia who know how to replace a window or fix a faucet or build a deck, but can you imagine if the Premier of Nova Scotia said, “Well, we’re going to keep the construction industry closed indefinitely because we feel like all of those construction things are going to happen ‘organically.’”? I think we’d have a really different response.

But we don’t hear that. And childcare and early childhood education certainly, and caregiving, is labour. It’s work. And it’s work that doesn’t get particularly valued and certainly doesn’t get economically compensated generally when done by family in our society, but it is work and it is being completely ignored.

And many, many, many of the women I’ve talked to across this province – myself included—are just at their wits end about it because we suddenly have two full-time jobs. And personally I’m speaking as someone who has a partner who does as much or more work as I do in the domestic sphere, but nonetheless, we don’t have summer camps, we’ve been told that some may open. I have not yet heard of any outside the city who are going to try and open a modified version of a camp. 

Daycares will open but that leaves children 5 to twelve or thirteen, whenever you want to leave your kids at home. And it’s a big issue and it’s, again, one we just haven’t heard anything about.

It’s not an easy fix, we’re certainly not suggesting that we contravene any kind of public health order, but what happens otherwise to ensure all of these other people don’t’ drop out of the workforce? We don’t have an answer to that question and we’d really like to hear one.