VANCOUVER - British Columbia became the latest province to sign a child-care deal with Ottawa on Thursday in a step that Paul Minister Paul Martin likened to the birth of medicare.

Martin was joined by Social Development Minister Ken Dryden and B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell on Thursday to announce the deal.

British Columbia becomes the seventh province to sign an agreement with the federal government, joining Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, Ontario, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland and Labrador. Altogether they will receive almost $800 million in new funding in the first year.

British Columbia's share is about $92 million next year and $633 million over five years in an early-learning and child-care program worth $5 billion nationally.

"The surest measure of a forward-looking society is the effort it makes to help its youngest citizens," said Martin -- who toured a child-care centre in a downtown office tower -- in a statement.

"Decades ago, it was a series of such agreements that led to the creation of Medicare in Canada - a program that now helps to define us as Canadians."

Campbell also praised the deal.

"The agreement we have signed today will help parents balance the demands of work and family, and assist child-care providers with new funding opportunities," he said in a news release.

Dryden said the agreement aims to give children the best possible start in life.

"We are working to develop an ambitious, high-quality, developmental-based system of early learning and child care in every province and territory in this country," he said.

A joint news release said the B.C. government will consult to develop and release a plan on early learning and child care by January 2006 and work with Ottawa to conclude a detailed multi-year funding agreement.

The provincial government also promised to report publicly on early learning and child care, so progress is tracked.

But while the agreements all contain accountability clauses there are few strings on how the provinces can spend the money.

Only Manitoba's deal requires the federal money to be spent developing not-for-profit child care, said Susan Harney, chairwoman of the B.C. Coalition of Child Care Advocates.

Harney, who operates a private child-care centre, said more than half the centres in B.C. are for-profit operations. But her group supports a long-term transition to not-for-profit child care.

"There is no way that funding could go only to the not-for-profit sector this minute in B.C.," she said. "But we believe in the coalition that there could be some kind of a grand-parenting clause to build a community-based system."

Relying on for-profit operations is inherently unstable, said Harney, because the government would have no say if the private operator chooses to shut down. It's very common, for instance, for a young mother to open a small day care while looking after her own kids.

"When her children are seven and she decides to go somewhere else, the community loses those spaces," she said. "If taxpayers' dollars are going to fund those spaces there's no long-term viability."

The turnover rate in such home-operated centres is traditionally high, Harney said.

"So to be providing funding on an ongoing basis long into the future without any kind of a plan of how can we build this ... I think is short-sighted on the part of the provincial government," she said. "With this money good can come from looking to the future."

Harney said the B.C. government must be held accountable for how it spends the money.

"We already know there's plans for early-literacy or early-learning centres," she said. "There's already pre-school and day care. They don't have to invent something else. They need to build on what's here."

Critics point out the Canada Health Act gives Ottawa greater say on how federal money is spent. There's nothing outside the agreements-in-principle to hold provinces to account for the child-care program's four main goals of accessibility, universality, quality care and that they are developmentally centred.

"We called on the federal government to have strong leadership in that area, to make provinces accountable" said Harney. "What seems to be happening with these deals is provinces have a very, very wide range of flexibility in how they decide to use the money."

There are licensed child-care spaces for about 10 to 12 per cent of B.C. kids who need it, said Harney. It's not clear how many additional spaces will be created from the new federal funds, she said.

"It will depend on how the province chooses to spend that money," she said.

The B.C. government has increased child-care subsidies for parents and raised the income level for eligibility, said Harney. Operating funding for child-care centres has also risen by 36 per cent but there are no restrictions on how individual private operators spend that money, she said.

"There is more accountability in a not-for-profit setting because you have a parent board and they can't profit by it," she said.

Not-for-profits received a scientific boost recently in a study by University of Toronto economist Gordon Cleveland, who found they out-performed private child-care centres by 10 per cent in terms of pre-school child development.

Relying on for-profit operations is inherently unstable, said Harney, because the government would have no say if the private operator chooses to shut down. It's very common, for instance, for a young mother to open a small day care while looking after her own kids.

"When her children are seven and she decides to go somewhere else, the community loses those spaces," she said. "If taxpayers' dollars are going to fund those spaces there's no long-term viability."

The turnover rate in such home-operated centres is traditionally high, Harney said.

"So to be providing funding on an ongoing basis long into the future without any kind of a plan of how can we build this ... I think is short-sighted on the part of the provincial government," she said. "With this money good can come from looking to the future."

Harney said the B.C. government must be held accountable for how it spends the money.

"We already know there's plans for early-literacy or early-learning centres," she said. "There's already pre-school and day care. They don't have to invent something else. They need to build on what's here."

Critics point out the Canada Health Act gives Ottawa greater say on how federal money is spent. There's nothing outside the agreements-in-principle to hold provinces to account for the child-care program's four main goals of accessibility, universality, quality care and that they are developmentally centred.

"We called on the federal government to have strong leadership in that area, to make provinces accountable" said Harney. "What seems to be happening with these deals is provinces have a very, very wide range of flexibility in how they decide to use the money."

There are licensed child-care spaces for about 10 to 12 per cent of B.C. kids who need it, said Harney. It's not clear how many additional spaces will be created from the new federal funds, she said.

"It will depend on how the province chooses to spend that money," she said.

The B.C. government has increased child-care subsidies for parents and raised the income level for eligibility, said Harney. Operating funding for child-care centres has also risen by 36 per cent but there are no restrictions on how individual private operators spend that money, she said.

"There is more accountability in a not-for-profit setting because you have a parent board and they can't profit by it," she said.

Not-for-profits received a scientific boost recently in a study by University of Toronto economist Gordon Cleveland, who found they out-performed private child-care centres by 10 per cent in terms of pre-school child development.