At the Union of B.C. Munipatilies 2020 Convention, the City of Williams Lake, was looking to increase early childhood educators’ wages.
The City was looking for it to resolved that UBCM lobby the provincial government to implement a standard minimum $25 per hour wage for ECE’s in British Columbia to address the challenge of a lagging labour force in the child care sector; And be it further resolved that UBCM lobby the provincial Ministry of Advanced Education, Skills and Training to address the gender-biased systems that place an unequal requirement on entrants into the ECE profession in comparison to other sectors, particularly when compared with trades education.
That resolution, which was apart of over 200 brought to the table during the convention, was not addressed by the UBCM Resolutions Committee as they ran out of time.
Walt Cobb, the Mayor of Williams Lake, said that though they didn’t get to it, the resolution still has a chance.
“An executive will deal with and make a recommendation, and it may come back,” he said. “If it’s something that they can’t get enough information or don’t think they can deal with on there own, they may come back to us. It might go back to our convention again next May, and we will see where it goes from there.”
Cobb said that despite there resolution not being passed, there were positives from the convention.
“One of the things that were noteworthy that of all the resolutions that went in, the three that we questioned at city council meetings, and asked for clarification or amendments too, were all addressed and they were the only ones out of all those resolutions that anybody had comments on or did anything about,” he said. “To think that our voice doesn’t count sometimes in small communities is not so. I think in this case, we showed that it does sometimes make a difference.”
Cobb added that overall he was pleased with how the convention went but would like to see more time to discuss resolutions.
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