'A wake-up call': Advocates call on Ontario to add daycare spaces after FAO warns of shortage
CBC
Bibian Aguirre signed up for a wait list for a child-care centre in Toronto while she was pregnant with her daughter, worried that she might not be able to get a spot.
The mother of two says she was told it would be "next to impossible" to find a place for her now 15-month-old daughter at a daycare centre in January 2023.
Aguirre finally did find those daycare spaces starting in January at a centre that has opted into the $10-a-day child-care program. But she says she's unsure when those reduced fees will be kicking in. Until then, she still has to pay $1,800 per month for her youngest child, in addition to $800 a month for her four-year-old daughter, who requires before and after care during the school year.
"Daycare expenses can make up to half of our income," Aguirre said. "My concern is that they do it fast, [so] everyone will be able to benefit from the program."
The national program that the province signed onto will see fees lowered to an average of $10 a day by 2025. Aguirre is just one of many Toronto parents hoping it will help them afford child-care in the city. However, in a new report released Monday on the Ford government's spending plan, the province's financial watchdog estimates that Ontario will not be able to meet the demand for child-care spaces.
Ontario extended the deadline for child-care centres to join the $10-a-day program was extended from Sept.1 to Nov. 1. About 92 per cent of licensed child-care operators in the province have opted into the program, according to the education ministry.
Part of the agreement saw Ontario commit to 86,000 new child-care spaces by the end of 2026, and the government says 33,000 have already been created. But even if that target is met, Ontario's Financial Accountability Office said in its report that "significant excess demand" for the $10-a day program will exceed the number of available spaces.
"The FAO estimates that by 2026, Ontario families of approximately 602,257 children under age six will wish to have access to $10-a-day child care," the report reads.
"With only 375,111 $10-a-day licensed child care spaces planned, the families of 227,146 children under age six ... would be left wanting but unable to access $10-a-day child care."
In wake of the report, child-care advocates said the projections only underscore the urgent need for spaces.
"It provides a bit of a wake-up call that we really do need to expand child-care spaces more quickly," said Carolyn Ferns, public policy coordinator for the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care.
Ferns said she hopes the report will prompt the the province to start consultations on how to expand the program.
"You can build the bricks and mortar, but that's not child care. Child care is really child educators and child-care workers, and in Ontario right now we have a shortage of both."
The FAO said its estimate is based on pre-pandemic Statistics Canada data on how many families were not accessing child care because it was too expensive or they couldn't find a space, as well as looking at how many kids are still cared for at home in Quebec where fees are subsidized.
Strong winds across the Maritimes left thousands of N.B. Power customers without electricity on Saturday afternoon — and it could be days before all customers have their power restored.
Toronto police say they located a body inside a downtown Toronto home Saturday.
Quebec Immigration Minister Jean-François Roberge is responding to public outcry against his government’s policy changes for non-permanent residents by making a plea to the federal government.
A man in Saskatoon is in hospital after being shot by police as officers executed a warrant late Friday night.
RCMP say a man who was reported missing near Key First Nation has been found deceased.
Christy Morin says life was never the same in Alberta Avenue after the fires began.
It's small things, like a cigarette or a pair of clean socks, Rachel Montour says, that can go a long way to make you feel more human when you’re out on the street.
Several dozen members of Windsor's Chaldean community and its supporters celebrated in the cold at the corner of Marentette Avenue and Wyandotte Street East Friday, as city officials gave a secondary name to the section of Marentette between Wyandotte and Tuscarora Street: Chaldean Way.
Allison Hill says she tries to make people’s experience at the Thunder Bay Food Bank “as pleasant as possible.”
Two years after a man went missing in Scarborough, Toronto police are renewing the investigation in hopes that the public will bring forward more information.
A musical instrument created in Guelph, Ont., has been thrust onto the international stage — or rather, screen.
More than 1,000 Maritime Electric customers are without power after high winds blew across the Island Friday night into Saturday.
The Supreme Court of Canada is deliberating a case that could shape the way sentences are handed down in cases where both the offender and victim are Indigenous, which some Nunavut lawyers say could have ramifications for the Inuit-majority territory.