'A big bombshell:' Toronto parents scrambling to find child care after daycares warn of huge fee hikes in January

Parents with children at two west-end daycares say they are scrambling to find alternative child-care arrangements after their centres informed them that fees are set to more than double in the New Year.

Parents with children at two west-end daycares say they are scrambling to find alternative child-care arrangements after their centres informed them that fees are set to more than double in the New Year.

Melissa Bruno told CP24 on Tuesday that she recently received a letter from Sunnyside Day Care, the Roncesvalles centre where her son attends preschool, informing her that in January, the facility will be withdrawing from the national $10-a-day childcare program, which has reduced parent fees by more than 50 per cent since it was implemented in 2022.

The change, she said, will mean her family will have to fork over nearly $1,200 more a month as the tuition for her son’s preschool spot jumps from around $900 to $2,090 a month on January 1.

“They know that they have parents between a rock and a hard place,” Bruno said, noting that it is very difficult to get into other daycares due to lengthy waitlists.

“It’s one thing if our daycare just never agreed to go into the program in the first place, but… we made life decisions based off the budget and the math as it was.”

In the letter sent to parents, which CP24 has reviewed, the centre provided details of the new fees parents would be facing.

It explained that daycares participating in the Canada-wide Early Learning and Child Care (CWELCC) program were restricted from introducing fee increases over the past two years and based on “deferred annual increases relative to inflation,” new monthly fees for full-time programs will be $2,565 for infant spaces, $2,310 for toddler spots, and $2,090 for preschool spaces.