Wee Care staff, parents and board members united with five other centres in marching to Province House to protest the government's latest changes affecting non-profit child care centres. Proposed changes include:

• Planned elimination of stabilization funding in March 2008 amounting to $4,000 less for each qualified teacher per year.
• Reduction of toddler and pre-school grants from the current $4 per day to $3 per day.
• Enrolment evaluation every 6 months. If enrolment is down, funding will be reduced yet again - and will not go back up.

Contrary to what Minister Judy Streatch has said, there is no guarantee that funding for non-profit centres will actually go to wages and benefits. Funding for many non-profit centres will actually go down under this new scheme.

These changes could result in salary decreases, benefit decreases, staff layoffs, and/or possible centre closures.

The government of Nova Scotia continues to refuse properly funding a universally accessible, non-profit child care program!