Child care centres in the Yukon will soon have no choice but to raise their fees to sustain their services, says Cyndi Desharnais, president of the Yukon Child Care Association.

Desharnais has run the Care-A-Lot Day Care in Riverdale for 20 years. As of June 1 she raised her monthly fees by $50, she told the Star. It's the first time she has increased the cost to her clients in 12 years.

She is not the first child care centre to up the rates over recent weeks.

La Garderie du Petit Cheval Blanc, the Yukon's only French-language child care centre, is raising its rates by 30 per cent.

The cost will work out to approximately $200 more a month for the parents of children attending the centre full-time, said Celine Yergeau, La Garderie's manager.

The decision was made in the wake of the federal Conservatives' decision to scrap the $5-billion series of federal-provincial child-care deals reached with the provinces.

The Conservatives will instead be offering parents $1,200 per year for each child in their home under the age of six. The money can be used for day care, babysitters or to help offset the cost of being a stay-at-home parent.

That change has meant that money that would have been flowing to the child-care centres is now in the hands of parents, said Yergeau, and to try to get some of it back, the costs are having to be raised.

In the end, parents of children at La Garderie will be paying about $60 above what they will be receiving from the child care allowance, she said.

There are other problems with the allowance, said Liberal Leader Arthur Mitchell. The money is currently taxable income that amounts to a government 'claw-back', he said.

It is an issue that could at least be changed at the territorial level, said Mitchell.

'(The Liberals) would exempt parents from paying any Yukon tax on this money,' he said.

He added the allowance should also be excluded from family income when it comes to calculating the day care subsidy parents are entitled to receive.

There are clear problems with the federal government's stance on child care, said Desharnais, but resolving some of the concerns must come from a joint effort of Ottawa and the Yukon government.

The cost of living in the territory has gone up dramatically over recent years, she said, but the wages for child care workers remain low.

Day cares want to recruit trained staff who have diplomas, but are unable to offer them competitive wages, she said. It makes it difficult to retain employees.

'It's a huge issue,' she said. 'One of the first things they are told when they go to school is it's a field of compassion. You don't make money in this field.'

Mitchell said the direct operating grant provided to day cares in the territory clearly must increase.

He has heard that it needs to grow by at least 25 per cent to ensure some of the money does flow through toward the wages.

'We need to look at the role child care providers play in society,' he said.

Day care has become almost institutionalized in Canadian society with an educational background and level of professionalism accepted for the providers, he said.

Yet, the way it is addressed by governments seem to place it in the realm of still being perceived as 'advanced babysitting,' said Mitchell.

'It's becoming an essential service, yet we're not treating it that way,' he said. 'We need to look at how to attract the best people to look after our kids.'

NDP Leader Todd Hardy said, 'It's the kind of investment that you know has return, but you don't see the immediate results. '

A properly-funded system would allow more people to enter the work force and to combat other social and educational issues in the territory.

Child care has been an issue that's long been on election platforms, Hardy said, but there needs to be action and not just promises.

'We need to move forward,' he said. 'There has to be a significant increase in direct operating grants and it has to happen right away.

'It's too easy to say the federal government should be doing this and that.'

Health and Social Service Minister Brad Cathers said the concerns regarding the territory's child care system are not new.

'Wages, training and cost pressures have been a concern for quite a few years,' he said.

The Yukon Party government has been addressing child care and following up on recommendations from the child care working group that focused on enriching the direct operating grant, he said.

The Yukon Party has increased investment in child care by 30 per cent since coming into office in late 2002.

In 2002 and 2003, $230,000 was put toward child care's direct operating grant annually to help boost staff wages and aid with increased operation costs.

In the 2004/2005 budget, another $675,000 was placed in child care, with the amount rising by three per cent in 2005/2006. It will again climb by five per cent in the 2006/2007 fiscal year.

The supported child care budget has also received additional funds. In 2004/2005, it was given $10,000. In 2005/2006, it hit $15,000, and this fiscal year it will get $20,000.

The Yukon government has also invested $70,000 in a public education campaign on the value of child care and child care providers.

Cathers has met with federal Human Resources and Social Development Minister Diane Finley to discuss child care in the Yukon.

'(The Conservatives) are committed to implementing their election commitments, but that's not what Yukon child care operators had hoped for,' said Cathers.

The minister simply 'turned around and came home with his marching orders from Ottawa,' said Mitchell. 'The federal Conservatives said no and there was nothing more he could do.'

The territorial government isn't trying to minimize the issue and is working on it as best it can, said Cathers.