David Eby declines to disclose donation amount after family used $10-a-day childcare

NDP Leader David Eby said Tuesday his family donated back the childcare subsidy after his children's YMCA centre joined the $10-per-day program, but he declined repeated requests to disclose the donation amount or whether he received a tax deduction.

Eby told reporters in Vancouver that the decision came when the centre became a $10-per-day option. "We made that decision because we didn't feel that we needed that benefit. We wanted other families to benefit," he said. One of his children was already attending the facility when it transitioned to the subsidized model "a couple of years ago," and his youngest child now attends the same centre.

Conservative candidate Margareta Dovgal, speaking for the B.C. Conservative Party, criticized Eby for benefiting from a program that remains unavailable to most families. "He has a responsibility to recuse himself from programs like this that are really, really strained," Dovgal said in an interview. She called it "fundamentally unfair" that Eby's family took a spot in the program. The Conservatives are open to means testing for future spots, Dovgal added.

Sharon Gregson, spokesperson for the Coalition of Child Care Advocates of B.C., framed the issue differently. "The donation is completely beside the point. The point is that David Eby's family should have access to $10-a-day childcare — and so should everybody else," Gregson said. The NDP issued a news release highlighting comments from Heather Maahs, the B.C. Conservative Party's most recent child care critic, who called the $10-per-day system a "boondoggle" in the legislature.