Daycare starts fee-based wait list after revoking 'guaranteed' spots from families

A daycare chain that's been the subject of complaints in recent months says it will stop asking families for a deposit to secure a spot on their wait list.

Until now, Kids & Company was requiring parents to pay the last month of child care, which was over $1,000, along with a non-refundable $200 registration fee to guarantee a spot for their child.

But the Ontario-based child-care provider will be keeping the $200 fee in place to get on the wait list, saying it is seeing growing demand. 

Some parents have been complaining that Kids & Company revoked their "guaranteed" spot weeks before their children were due to start daycare, telling them that they no longer had space. 

Kayleigh Fleet says she paid the company $2,360 in November 2022 to secure two daycare spots for her twins, who were three months old at the time. The expectation was that they would start at one of the company's seven Halifax-area centres in August 2023.

But when Fleet inquired at the beginning of June to ensure that everything was still in place, she was told a few weeks later that her spots were no longer available.

"My heart sank," she said. "I had no other plan. They were my plan. I paid thousands of dollars for them to be my plan and take care of my children while I went back to work." 

With her maternity leave coming to an end, Fleet now has to extend her leave without pay. 

"I want to go back to work. I love my job. I want to be able to provide for my family, my kids and give them everything that they want, and need and more. But I'm in a position where I can't."

When Fleet asked about having the deposit refunded, she was told she would lose her place on the new wait list. But she is having no luck finding another daycare centre or private day home for her twins on short notice.

CBC News has learned of several other parents who were left in a similar predicament.

Fleet has since started a Facebook group for people who had paid deposits to the same daycare provider only to be told months later that their spot had been revoked. As of Monday, it had 64 members. 

Last week, reporters asked Education Minister Becky Druhan about the government's stance on wait list fees for daycares. She said that these practices "are not in line with the goal of inclusive, accessible, affordable child care."

After being asked repeatedly whether the government would consider banning such fees, Druhan told reporters that "the situation is something that we are aware of, absolutely. And the department is considering options around it. I don't have more details for you than that right now."