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BC’s Path to Universal Child Care
BC’s Path to Universal Child Care
Season 6, Episode 2 - In Memory of Dianne Liscumb - A Revisited Conversation
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Welcome to Season 6 Episode 2 of our BC's Path to Universal Child Care Podcast!
This episode is dedicated in memory of Dianne Liscumb.
As we re-air this podcast episode, we do so in loving memory of Dianne Liscumb, a remarkable leader, educator, mentor, and former Executive Director of WCCRC (now CCRC), who passed away on September 15.
Dianne dedicated her life to strengthening child care and early childhood education in British Columbia. Beginning her journey with the organization in early 1990, she helped shape the Child Care Resource and Referral model that would go on to support children, families, and educators across the province. As Executive Director from 1998 to 2012, she led with wisdom, humility, and vision, championing innovation, learning, and excellence while always keeping people at the heart of her work.
Those who knew Dianne remember not only her extraordinary professional contributions but also her kindness, generosity, and unwavering belief in the potential of others. She was a thoughtful mentor who encouraged people to grow, a trusted colleague who brought calm and clarity during challenging times, and a passionate advocate for the child care community. Her quiet strength, compassionate leadership, and commitment to lifelong learning left a lasting impression on countless individuals.
Today, Dianne's legacy lives on in the programs she helped build, the resources she developed, the leaders she inspired, and the relationships she nurtured. The values she embodied, collaboration, respect, curiosity, and service, continue to guide our work and strengthen our community.
We invite you to revisit this conversation in honour of Dianne and the profound impact she had on the field of early childhood education. We are deeply grateful for her leadership, her mentorship, and the enduring gift of her vision. She will be remembered with great respect, appreciation, and affection by all whose lives she touched. ❤️
Listen now at BC's Path to Universal Child Care Podcast: Season 6, Episode 2 or wherever you get your podcasts.
Welcome to our second season of BC's Path to Universal Childcare Podcast.
SPEAKER_05As we usually do, we start our episodes with a land appreciation and acknowledgement. We are honored and ever grateful to live and work on the unceded lands of Damascus, Squamish, and Selewututh nations. We thank them for having cared for these lands and waters since time out of mind. We would like to recognize that this podcast is recorded on traditional unceded lands and honors indigenous ways of knowing that have nurtured the children and peoples of this land and waterways from time immemorial.
SPEAKER_06Since we started this series last September, there have been a number of actions completed by the province of BC that support their commitment to universal childcare. Some changes are that now child care is represented and overseen by the Ministry of Education and Childcare. There is an expansion to 10-a-day child care sites and a promise for all other existing child care programs to be $20 a day by the end of this year 2022. For West Coast Resource Center, we are absolutely thrilled to be celebrating our 35th and 35th year and to be able to say that funding childcare is finally a priority for all levels of government.
SPEAKER_05And today we're excited to revisit the government's promises and commitments with a look back at the past 35 years of West Coast. And again, we're excited to be here with all of our former executive directors, Marianne Bird, Diane Liskam, and Pam Preston, and how West Coast both affected change and was impacted by government policy over the past 35 years.
SPEAKER_06As the new interim executive director of West Coast, I've been inspired and mentored by all of these women here with us today, and it's truly an honor to have them join us to look back at 35 years of West Coast.
SPEAKER_05And of course, introductions, our introductions are not complete without introducing our master interviewer, Gira Chad, who by the way is our founding board chair and a member of the group of visionary women inspired to create West Coast. We are thrilled to work with you, Gira, on this project for a second season of this podcast. Welcome once more.
SPEAKER_00And please know how thrilled I am to be and work with you, Nora, Crystal, and our wonderful guests. Marianne, Diane, and Pam, it is truly a pleasure to be with you all today and to talk about the work that we've all been involved in to impact children, families, and educators. So we're going to begin with Marianne and ask you, please, dear Marianne, when you think back to more than 35 years ago, as the vision of West Coast was born around the table at the 12th and Cambi white spot. What was the catalyst for those early designs of our organization?
SPEAKER_01My goodness, it's hard for me to remember that it was really so long ago. And yet, in some ways, it's so exciting to think about it. Because West Coast started with a group of really committed volunteers. And Gita, you were the leader from the beginning. And we often facilitated the meetings, as you said, around the coffee table or around the white spot table or around this or that place where we could sit and talk about our both ideas and our frustrations. And one of them was that what childcare organizations there were were didn't have a home. And often people would say, if only I could just access a photocopier, or if only we just could have meeting room space. And so slowly this idea of having a resource center, and yes, it was built on some earlier models that we knew of from California and other places, we we we we started to think about having a resource center that would be sort of an umbrella organization for uh the groups that were involved. And they were early childhood educators of BC, the Children's Services Employees Union that later on became the BCGEU, the School Age Childcare Association, the Western Canada Family Childcare Organization, and the Coalition of Childcare Advocates of BC, all of which were scattered or with files and papers in various people's basements and so on. So the idea was to come together, and we then found that there was a possibility of some federal funding, a pilot project that might see us through the first three years of getting started. So that's how I remember, and Gita, you were there with many other committed people. What do you think?
SPEAKER_00What I indeed, Marianne, you haven't missed a thing. Just on the lighter side in the day, a white spot hamburger was 45 cents. And I remember taking our notes about our vision and our growing on the back of a placemat at the white spot. And when it was our 30th anniversary, um, the wonderful group at West Coast had laminated that um, pardon me, table mat, and I took it to the manager, and they gave us $100 of gift certificates for our celebration. Even the manager couldn't believe 45 cents for the burger. I remember as we described, Marianne, the vision with the umbrella, we would draw it in different ways, again on the back of the placemat. So actually, it's just a wonderful legacy that we've retained both those thoughts, feelings, and the paperwork. That's so thanks, Marianne. So we'll go on to the second question. What was the public and political opinion about childcare at that time?
SPEAKER_01Well, I uh you know the public opinion was still at the stage of saying, uh, do women, women, really need childcare? Shouldn't we be finding ways for women to stay home and take care of their children? Or um uh we would often talk about the role of early childhood education within a child's development and find so many people out in the community still needed to be convinced that this was a a public service that should be available to all children whose families needed it or wanted it. Um and uh of course the political opinion reflected the public opinion. So there were some people, some uh often women in various political parties that recognized uh the need for quality childcare that was both affordable and accessible, but then there were many others that needed to be convinced. Of course, we also were yet to convince all three levels of government that they had a role to play. And that was one of the reasons why it was like to me, the thin edge of the wedge, that the federal government was considering funding some pilot projects because if they funded a pilot project, it was in our minds, would they fund more? So there's been an enormous amount of work done uh in the past 35 years and an enormous change in the opinion, both public and political, in that time.
SPEAKER_00Also very well said, yet again, Marianne, and I'm thinking uh very much at that time, childcare providers were often and most often called babysitters, and certainly the term early childhood educators was not even on the table. So that really offers a great segue, Marianne, to the third question for you today. How did the creation of a unique organization like West Coast impact both public and political opinions?
SPEAKER_01I I think I think in two ways, I I like to think that uh West Coast was a bit of a catalyst or a facilitator for the organizations that I earlier referenced to begin to network and come together as an early childhood community. And once instead of being school age talking here and the family childcare there, once the childcare community began to come together, our voices could grow together and we could have a greater impact, both at the level of um uh talking with families across the province, but also in talking with um politicians at the city level and also at the federal level and at the provincial level. And and of course, in that regard, it was our sisters in the coalition of child care advocates that that began to uh uh raise the awareness, not past Vancouver, across BC, and um take the public policy uh options for childcare forward.
SPEAKER_00Thank you so much, Marianne, and absolutely the idea of bringing so many of the early childhood world organizations together in one home provided so many opportunities for collaboration on activities and events, and as you say, increasing and raising the visibility of childcare and all of the various issues that needed to be addressed. So I think I'm remembering times when you know we had actual interface both with uh municipal and provincial and federal politicians to spread the word and lift things up. Thank you, thank you. We'll now move on to uh Dai, as we often always called her. Uh Dai, your early involvement in developing and implementing Vancouver's CCRR, Childcare Resource and Referral, was so innovative. What were, please, some of the initial impacts of this model?
SPEAKER_02Oh, thanks, Kita. Um just a note that in the beginning of uh this program, it was not called child care resource and referral. It was called family daycare program, something of that nature, but it was very much focused on family child care. Um so at that time, childcare seemed to be somewhat stratified. You either worked in group care, or you were part of family child care, or you were part of school-age care, and there wasn't necessarily ways for those groups to talk together. And that's where West Coast became so important because we could bring those groups together to talk about what we had in common, how we could support each other, and how we could make sure that services were being provided across the spectrum of child care. Now, excuse me, at that time um in Vancouver, the family child care program was uh a unique model in that we had what we called a decentralized model. So West Coast held the contract with the ministry for the funding, but the services were delivered by West Coast staff who were located in other agencies in the city of Vancouver. And the reason for that is that it was closer to people's homes. So we started off with partners in two uh neighborhood houses in Vancouver, and these neighborhood houses were already deeply involved in child care in the city. Primarily, they conducted um group care programs within their organizations, but they were visionary enough to see that that didn't address the whole need because many families could not find or could not afford group care um services. The neighborhoods in which those two neighborhood houses worked were in high need, low income, and linguistically diverse families. So that was the group of people who we first started to make contact with. Um so we did have at the time um, of course, licensed family to child care in the city. Um, and licensing did provide some supports for licensed providers, but we know that many families were accessing care in other ways, more informal care, because that's what they could find, or that's what they could afford, or that's what met their cultural and linguistic needs. So we worked with Kawasa Neighborhood House at the time and Collingwood Neighborhood House at the time, and the staff who were hired to provide the child care resources and referral services in those areas lived in those neighborhood houses, even though they were West Coast staff. So it was that decentralized model that allowed the program to develop in a way that would meet the various needs of those areas of the city. One of the goals of Vancouver CCR was to increase the recognition of family child care as a legitimate partner in the provision of quality care of families in addition to licensed group care. So people would know about licensed group care. They might know that there was something called licensed family child care, but the sector that did not become licensed were not really recognized, but they were providing a lot of care. And so we wanted to increase the supports to those people who were providing that care and to do what we needed to do to make sure it was quality care, just like was happening with group care or licensed family job care.
SPEAKER_06And Di, I'm just remembering too that a lot of these um care providers had barriers to um employment and other traditional uh, you know, out of out of the home roles, too. So this was a program to support those care providers, as I remember.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. These families were often low income, they needed a second income. The women who were part of those families um were often restricted from other work opportunities, they might be restricted by language passage or cultural considerations, yeah. Yeah, so where people perhaps other family members didn't think it was suitable for the women to be outside the home. So if they provided child care in their own homes, that solved that problem. But they didn't necessarily know what it was we were expecting as a quality childcare setting. And so the CCRNR helped them in a whole variety of ways to understand the quality issues and to meet those standards.
SPEAKER_00I'm really um excited the way in which you've helped us better recall the two key elements, centralization in terms of West Coast and who we were and are, and then the decentralization by servicing directly to other neighborhoods in the broader community. Thank you for that.
SPEAKER_02So in the beginning, we had those two neighborhood house partners, and we also had, as one of our partners, Vancouver Community College because we knew that one of the things that was going to be very important for these women who decided they wanted to be uh licensed, not required, childcare providers, was to make sure that they had an opportunity to learn more about what childcare was in Canada. So we wanted to promote the idea of childcare being education and to offer them training opportunities where they could learn what that means and how they could participate in that. But we didn't want to have those women who were so limited in so many ways in the city to just be taking one-off workshops that didn't have any credibility. So having Vancouver Community College as one of our partners meant that the courses and workshops that we offered to those licensed, not required, and for some licensed family child care meant that their certificates were recognized.
SPEAKER_00Right, Di. And so then the reaching out to the post-secondary system for not only the education of those childcare providers, but also to lift up the respect and recognition with that area of study for them.
SPEAKER_02So one of the things that was identified early on is that if we delivered this training only in English, many of the people who were interested in becoming licensed, not required child care providers would not be able to participate.
SPEAKER_00The English skills were not uh at a high enough standard to be able to a huge barrier to their participation.
SPEAKER_02So out of that grew um our family child care training course in other languages. Uh we did it in Spanish, we did it in uh Chinese, we did it in um you name the language, we did it. And all of the materials that we needed to deliver that training then became available upon request to other CCR and Rs in the province who may be encountering the same issues.
SPEAKER_00That was an absolutely outstanding, especially in the day, if I can use that phrase, um, to develop the training and translate all the materials into a wide variety of languages and then distribute that through province-wide. And perhaps some other provinces took that idea from us as well. I'm not as clear, but yeah.
SPEAKER_06And it's a legacy to this day when I think about the partnerships I'm doing with um immigrant organizations and the neighborhood houses still around the supports to immigrant women and pathways to employment through the family child care course or the responsible adult course, which you developed as well, Diane.
SPEAKER_00And I actually just went last week to visit a student at one of the Kawasa group child care centers who told me that she originally was a student in one of these programs. She had come from Peru, so I'm assuming she. Likely took the training in Spanish. So I just love the circles of connection, you know, 30 plus years later.
SPEAKER_02We were also fortunate enough through various means of funding to be able to take some of our parent support information about quality child care and translate that so that families had access uh to the information they needed to choose good quality care for their children. Great.
SPEAKER_00Anything else, Di, you'd like to add in that this domain of the vast many?
SPEAKER_02Well, the notion of um decentralized programming um remained key to much of what West Coast did over the coming years. For example, um we realized that the richness that existed within the West Coast library needed to be available to child care providers in other parts of the province. So we had we set up a system where West Coast could send library resources to child care sites throughout the province, and the providers could return those materials when they were finished with them. So that took West Coast on the road to a more provincial face. So these were primarily with family places and other programs where parents brought their children and they could borrow from us at their home site and they could return it there. So it really made their. I mean, again, we've been talking about families who did not have much uh financial uh income and this allowed them to enrich their own children's lives and to recognize what quality resources looked like. That led to a province-wide mobile landing service. It only operated in the summer because we couldn't travel to places up north in winter, but we met with childcare providers across the province and took the resources to them and then on the return trip to pick them up. So we had we had some vans that we could uh provide that with. So again, this whole notion of decentralized uh services. Um, in addition, not with CCR and R necessarily, but with West Coast was the development and delivery of safe spaces, which was a bullying prevention program very unique for uh preschoolers.
SPEAKER_00And it was provided initially for group care providers, and they would come together, some at West Coast, and some co some gathered at other sites, and our trainers went to those sites so that the notion of providing um blame credit prevention didn't have to wait until the child was 12 or 14, it needed to happen way before that, and it was extremely I think Di, um even now uh as you discuss how we expanded the mobile library uh with face-to-face traveling uh throughout the province and particularly the Safe Spaces Bullying Prevention Program was an absolute foundational uh activity and service of West Coast in so many ways.
SPEAKER_02It provided an opportunity for child care providers in other parts of the province to have access to the colours.
SPEAKER_00Access, access, access. Exactly. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Okay. And I'm sure Guy, uh much more, much more. I'm just thinking, you know, all that Marianne and you Guy and in a moment to be Pam have and are sharing with us today should be not only recorded in this podcast, but actually written up. Because I guess the older I get, the more and more important I understand historical accounting and references to be. You know, we may know the names of some of these projects and initiatives, but to have this background and to relate the kind of social, public, and political and funding aspects to them, really key. Thanks so much, Di. And we will now move on to Pam. Pam, you started it with host in the early days with information daycare. I totally remember that time. Uh through the years of your career, you have seen the growth in both public awareness and family knowledge of the value of quality child care, and the importance, of course, of affordable, accessible, and universal child care for not only children and families, but for our society as a whole. You've been a strong advocate representing West Coast at the Advocacy Forum, First Call, Joint Child Care Council, Healthy Child Development Alliance, and even Health, just to name a few. What do you feel, Pam, are some of the greatest achievements, as well as some of the greatest challenges for West Coast over the years in regard to advocating for child care?
SPEAKER_01Good luck, Pam.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we we've got some smiles on our faces.
SPEAKER_03Thank you, Gita. I I will I will try to remember a few of these achievements and challenges, and hopefully my co-ex-EDs and current interim ed and first board chair will help chip in a little bit. Um, it's been really amazing listening to these stories as we got started because it reminded me that West Coast was the first time that I had ever been in a room as an early childhood educator where I had preschool people, I had daycare people, I had school age child care providers, and family child care providers all in the same room. And sometimes, even lo and behold, the parent might be in that classroom too. So, you know, we were together, and before that, we were very divided. I came from childcare. People would say, Oh, I'm a preschool teacher, no, not a child care provider. So West Coast really crossed that divide and bridged it. And I think that is a great achievement and just reflecting on that, hearing people talk now. And as Di and Marianne talked a little bit about those early days, and Diane reminds us of the strides that had to be taken in this province and in the city. I'm reminded of early childhood multicultural services, which was West West Coast Multicultural Diversity Services and formerly preschool multicultural services. These were very innovative services in the city that were not available in the province and were not available in other provinces. And other provinces looked to us and said, How did you do that? Well, it was very hard to keep it going, but some of those guiding principles at the core of West Coast and how we got started around diversity and inclusion and multiculturalism, you know, um, this idea of meeting people where they were. We never said, You are not good enough to join this group. We said, Where are you at? Come along, we will show you some resources. And people, you know, we talk about responsible adult being a gateway uh course because people take it and they go on to early childhood. And I can remember sitting down the hallway and listening to a training one night, and the I I kind of remember who the teacher was, but she was explaining to the class that she was working on her PhD in early childhood education, and somebody put up their hand and said, You can do that. They didn't even know that there was a pathway, and there wasn't a pathway in those really early years, right? Right. So, and that's just you know, off the top of my head, but listening to you guys reminding us about safe spaces, you know, wow, those those are these are great things.
SPEAKER_00And really, Pam, as you say, not even a PhD in the early days, there wasn't even a degree option for early childhood.
SPEAKER_03That's right.
SPEAKER_00Certificate and standalone courses only. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So just for the profession itself to be seen as a profession, as a body of knowledge, this is huge, you know, when you think about where we started and where we are now. So the roadblocks that occurred on the way. Yeah, right. Which which were many. And so when I think about funding, if not less, not the funding needed. I wanted to start with challenges and end with achievements because I didn't want to end on the negative note, but um you know, gaining that political will and understanding of the role of early childhood development and early care and learning uh supports like child care, um, were those are huge, huge barriers for us to overcome. Um, working to prove, we always were proving, people kept saying you have to go and get the evidence. How is early childhood uh linked to the economy? How is it linked to the workforce? How is it linked to human development, to social development, to every aspect of civil society? The evidence was brought and still there was not the political will. It's been an age-long struggle on the provincial and federal fronts. But I do have to say the city of Vancouver was there before others were, and they did give us they deserve credit for that. Um they put resources into place, they supported West Coast, they supported child care programs, they supported the innovation in the translation work and development work that we were doing with family childcare. Um, they looked at the city permitting process, the development of putting childcare programs into building developments. I give the city of Vancouver over a many, many years a lot of credit. And you know, I was thinking about my early days at West Coast. One of the things I did was I was the minute taker for so many of these groups, right? That would come together. And that's what I considered my university degree in minute taking, but I was able to listen to and transcribe everybody's points of view at the table and learn from these amazing women. And just one example, because there were so many, but one example is the table uh for the child care advocacy forum and how they stayed together for 10 years, and it wasn't always, you know, everybody agreeing. We would have to put down ideas and really batter them around and think about them and test them. And and it was so, so important to uh West Coast development and also my personal development. So that was a very intense time. Um, I think those challenges are just going to continue as the childcare BC rolls out and federal uh commitments, you know, will be tested. Uh and the role of CCRR is uncertain and remains very vital to the building of the system. So we have to, you know, keep our noses to the grindstone on that piece of work. You've heard so many of the achievements already. Um when I think back just really broadly, I think the fact that West Coast really focused on our guiding principles, those founding beliefs and values, and we did test them over time. And I learned this very much from Mary Ann as our founding ED. How many nights did we stay late and just batter around some of these ideas? Um, but yeah, do we have a guiding principle on this? What do we really believe? What does it look like when it looks like this, when it looks like that? When the government first had the inception of what was the family child care support program, the original idea was women on welfare would look after other women's children. So it was a welfare-to-work program. And and we had to say, no, that's not how we're gonna do this. And luckily enough, we worked with the government enough that yes, we still got the contract. Right. No became yes. No became yes. Um, so that that sticks in my mind. Um but that wasn't always the way, Pam. No, no, it wasn't always the way. Um, but where, you know, where we had a really if it had come, if push had come to shove in that instance, and I was not at the executive table at that time, I don't think we would have taken the contract. And I think that there were times where we had to really think, what does this look like? What does one stop access look like in Vancouver? Where we called it multiple stops of convenience. One stop access in a big city. It doesn't really make sense, right? Yeah. So interpreting it on the ground and by being with the people and listening and asking and and not just parachuting in with the resources, like you know, Diane talked about the decentralized model, which is so important. We never showed up up north and said, we know everything, you know, here's the stuff. No, who's here on the ground? Who can we work with? Who can we co-teach with? Who can we, how can we do the tea train the trainer model out there? And that's uh that really enriched our learning, us working with the CCAN table, the child care administrators network in Vancouver, which originally came out of a project as well. Um, we learned so much listening and working with that group. Um, yeah, the decentralized model, uh, that's huge. And I would really give Diane so much credit to that to bringing us to the neighborhood house. For sure group and and bringing together a lot of diverse stakeholders for a common purpose. And yeah, we we had desks and offices, we had desks in um closets, we had desks in stairwells, but our staff were out there and they were seen out there and they were present out there and they met the people where they needed to be met.
SPEAKER_00To be.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. One of my last points is about West Coast resiliency and our ability to adapt to change. Um, you know, over the years we established and defined our programs and services. We grew those offerings. And then when the big funding cut started in 2003 and really continued in a big way through 2006 and 2007, we had to recraft these programs. We had to really think about what is relevant to the people. How are we going to stay relevant? We went to work after 2007 and the fund with the funding cuts and began to grow our networks and keep our expertise relevant to the changing childcare landscape. And I just want to credit Crystal Janes, the current interim ED and director of programs, in this collaborative work because it really played to her strengths, which are oriented to building those relationships on the ground. So as we celebrate 35 years, one of our great achievements right now is we are in a renovated and revitalized space at East Broadway. We have a spectacular. It's a great space, and we really can't wait to keep inviting people in. We've been inviting people in, and it's going to only continue. Um, our agreement with the province and the Fed federal government around the renewed support for the ECE bursaries and the admin and management for child care program is established and launched along with that VC Early Learning Hub. These are really big um strides, and I think we have a lot to be proud of 35 years later. So open it up for comments.
SPEAKER_00Wow and wow, Pam. Just love that. I found myself taking pages of notes from all of you and um a little humor woven in from uh part to part. Um, however, the achievements, absolutely, you use the term, you know, we we crossed and abridged the divide, the innovation of early childhood multicultural services with the focus on diversity and inclusion, uh, meeting people where they are, bringing our world to a more professional place, uh, continuing to work on uh political will through evidence-based research and uh findings, the pioneering role of the city of Vancouver, our guiding principles that always makes me think of um, pardon me, um VMV, vision, mission, and values. And I love learning that the vision is inspirational, and the mission is informational. So we give people in our mission a whole overview of the services we provide in order to move us to that inspiration of our vision. You talked about guiding principles and our values, um, and of course the ongoing challenges that'll always be there. However, let us focus as we conclude on those great three R's: renewal, revitalized space, resiliency that I think we have always been able to demonstrate. And I heard uh, Marianne Diane Pam, Nora, and Crystal, a great little line the other night that I'm gonna use all the time. Life is a huge classroom. I just love thinking about the fact that our stories, our experiences in life are such an in-depth, broad learning experience. So we thank you, we thank you for this absolutely incredible session. And uh know those who are now going to be able to listen to the podcast are going to gain a tremendous amount of knowledge, not only about West Coast Childcare Resource Center, but the whole history and coming forwardness of childcare, the role we have played, and with huge tribute always and always to our three incredible EDs, Mary Ann Byrd, Don Listum, and Pam Preston. Thank you. Thank you.
SPEAKER_06Oh, and thank you, Gita, for that wonderful uh interview. I just had a smile from ear to ear with listening to all three of you this past hour. It's just so incredible for me in this new role, being grounded in our beginnings and looking forward to the future and to be reminded of our history and childcare as I help guide West Coast into the future. It affirms me of the work that we do today is the legacy of the past, uh, work that you all um were so inspirational and in doing and how essential it is then and now for families, educators, and most importantly, the children. So thank you so much. I've I learned uh today um listening to you all and really appreciate this time.
SPEAKER_05And hopefully we can have you back for West Coast's uh 40 year anniversary. Is that it? Yeah, we can have you back in five years uh and maybe sooner, hopefully. But um thank you so much for being here with us and thank you so much to all our listeners for joining us today and uh for your interest and support of West Coast and our little podcast. Uh, you can get other episodes of BC's Path to Universal Childcare wherever you get your podcasts, and join our mailing list at wccrc.ca forward slash e news sign up to get all our future episodes and more straight to your inbox. And if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions of guests, email uh those ideas to our new email that is ptuc at wstcoast.org. Uh, we love to hear from you, so please make sure to drop us a line. And uh thank you again to our wonderful uh panelists, guests, uh, and uh until our next episode in October. This is BC's Path to Universal Childcare signing off.