Ontario child care rebates starting to roll out but program remains a ‘patchwork’
Global News
"Rather than have a co-ordinated, centralized system or a co-ordinated messaging about what a deal looks like for every provider across the province, it's a bit of a patchwork."
TORONTO — Parents in some parts of Ontario are already receiving rebates under the national $10-a-day child-care program while operators elsewhere can’t apply yet to be part of the system, leaving a municipal patchwork of daycare pricing across the province.
Child-care operators in many communities have recently been able to start opting in and out of the program — although some areas have yet to open the process — and applications are steadily trickling in.
If that pace seems rather slow, keep in mind that Ontario was the last province to sign on to the program, said Carolyn Ferns, of the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care.
“There’s been kind of this message in Ontario that it’s taking a long time for this to roll out,” said Ferns, the group’s public policy and government relations co-ordinator.
“But really, that’s because we started so late …. In British Columbia and Nova Scotia, yeah, it took them six months to get this off the ground, but they started last July.”
Some Ontario municipalities are much farther along than others.
In Greater Sudbury, seven of the region’s 17 non-profit operators have signed on, as has its one for-profit operator, a spokesperson said. The municipality issued approvals for those eight child-care operators last week and rebates have started, Kelli Sheppard said.
Toronto, meanwhile, has 1,042 licensed child-care centres. As of Monday, 255 of the 729 non-profit operators in the city have applied, and 31 of the 313 for-profit centres have applied.