B.C. NDP Leader David Eby gets $10-a-day child care. Opponents are outraged

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.

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.

What is the $10-a-day child-care program?

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.

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.

Experts weigh in

Sharon Gregson, provincial spokesperson for the $10-a-day child-care campaign with the Coalition of Child Care Advocates of B.C., said Eby’s situation is less newsworthy than the structural system.

“What’s newsworthy is that expansion of the system has stalled,” Gregson said on CBC’s BC Today.

“I don’t think any reasonable person would begrudge a family have access to quality affordable child care,” she said.

“But the point is, as a decision-maker and as the leader of the province, he should have been — and whoever is elected next — should make sure that the $10-a-day system is expanded.”

Gregson said thousands of families have benefited from the program.

B.C. has about 18,000 $10-a-day child-care spaces, or about 10 per cent of the province’s licensed child-care spots, according to Gregson.

She said there shouldn’t be income-testing for the program.

“The point [is] that all programs should have the opportunity to be $10-a-day, not just 10 per cent of spaces.”

Hamish Telford, associate professor of political science at the University of the Fraser Valley, said the Eby issue may concern some residents.

“A lot of people will have raised eyebrows from this story,” Telford said.

But Telford added, based on the premier’s messaging, it sounds like he did the right thing by paying the difference and that as long as he didn’t get special access because of his role as premier, there’s nothing necessarily nefarious unless other information emerges.

But it’s still poor optics, according to Telford.

“It looks like the privileged are getting a privilege — and that never, never looks well on a politician.”