SUMMER CAN BE SO EXPENSIVE FOR FAMILIES

By SHAGORIKA EASWAR

This time of year, anxiety peaks for parents of young children who require daycare. Well before May, if we’re realistic, as a young woman tells me.

“Come March, I am scrambling to find daycare spots in camps. You won’t believe how quickly they get filled up, there just aren’t enough for everyone,” she says.

I believe her. We used to sign our sons up for camps, too. One year, before leaving for a brief summer vacation in India, I requested our neighbour to sign our sons up when she signed up her kids. We returned to an embarrassed woman who said she’d called first thing on the day the registration opened up but there were already people ahead of her.

Our kids enjoyed a camp-free summer that year. Fortunately, as someone who set her own hours, I didn’t need it like the young woman sharing her story.

Let’s call her Meena.

I learn from Meena that the costs of camps have gone up significantly over the years. A quick search for summer camps in the GTA, York Region as well as Peel reveals pretty much the same high rates, ranging from $275 to $345 a week. Daily costs start from $69.

There is no denying that there is an intrinsic cost to camps – staff have to be paid, facilities maintained, and all that. But camps that can set a parent back by close to $2000 for the summer?

How many people can afford that?

There are a few subsidized or even free spots.

“But I don’t qualify,” says Meena ruefully. “I earn more than the cut-off point, but not so much that the full cost is affordable.”

As a relative newcomer, the single parent also doesn’t have the network some have or build, someone who can watch over her child even for a day or two a week to help manage costs.

Some people resort to taking their kids to work at least some days of the week. Imagine a kid spending hours in an office. Even the best, most comfortable space for adults is not the best suited for a child. But these are the lucky ones. For someone working retail, this is not even an option.

And the hours are just plain ridiculous. I see on the sites for various camps that they run from 9 am to 4:30 pm. “Extended” hours, from 8 am to 5:30 pm are available – at an added cost.

“They basically strong-arm you into paying more because how can I get to work after 9, after dropping my daughter at a camp and then leave before 4 to pick her at 4:30?” Meena wants to know.

 In Canada, we are rightly proud of the generous maternity leave and child tax benefits.

But to state the obvious, a newborn doesn’t stay a newborn. Babies grow, their needs change and grow.

It defies logic that in a country where education is free up to grade 12, a summer camp can cost $2000. Per child.

In Maximum Canada, Doug Saunders has written about how the heavily subsidized daycare in Quebec (compared to rest of Canada) paid rich dividends. Women were able to go back to work sooner, confident that their children were in good hands, and the taxes they contributed to the economy more than covered the subsidies.

Why can’t we implement something similar in rest of Canada?

Here’s an idea.

We have the space – all the schools that lie largely empty during summer and winter breaks. We have the staff. We have newcomers coming in by the hundreds of thousands, all looking for jobs.

Why can’t we combine the available resources and offer affordable camps?

The birth rate for Canada in 2021 was 10.224 births per 1000 people, a 0.74% decline from 2020. In 2023, the birth rate for Canada was 10.072 births per 1000 people.

Could the cost of raising kids be a factor, you think?