The $10-a-day childcare funding agreement signed between the federal government and the province in 2022 was aimed at delivering affordable daycare for working adults as part of a national strategy to enhance the economy and open the doors to employment for many struggling parents. The agreement was ballyhooed with great abandon by the province with Premier Doug Ford standing proud over how he had managed to wring more from the federal government as “Ontario’s fair share.”
All well and good, but now Education Minister Stephen Lecce has cut a whopping $85.5 million from municipal service providers’ budgets, putting the success of the program at risk.
This despite the Ontario Municipal Social Services Association (OMSCA) informing the education minister in a letter that the program has piled a significant amount of extra work onto municipal childcare administrators—the cuts could not come at a worse time.
The result of the cuts will result in service delays and additional costs to municipalities (read property taxpayers) according to the OMSCA.
The letter spells it out succinctly: “It puts at risk successful and full implementation which will have a negative impact on children and their families.”
Ours is the only province that lays the responsibility for administering childcare services onto the backs of the municipalities and the ruling Progressive Conservative mantra espoused by Premier Doug Ford at every whistle stop opportunity is that by cutting funding organizations and departments will be forced to find “efficiencies.”
Those efficiencies will mean fewer applications approved for the childcare subsidies and even more childcare operators fleeing a flawed provincial system. The result will be fewer spaces available, longer waiting lists and far fewer parents able to enter the workforce and help an economy struggling with labour shortages that are at crisis proportions.
Operators have made it clear that available funding does not meet the actual costs they incur to deliver services—especially in these times of high inflationary pressures.
The province responds that childcare administrators were given plenty of time to “realign” their systems to the new funding reality, that they are focused on reducing fees, increasing working parents and not increasing the size of back office administration. “Our government will keep reducing red tape for municipalities and operators so they can focus more on delivering affordable and safe childcare for Ontario families,” is the provincial response.
Ask just about any employer in this country about staffing and they will tell you it is their greatest headache—for most, those challenges are far outstripping the Tories’ favourite target of reducing “red tape.”
For those operators who do stick it out, there is less oversight over access to spaces or to ensure benchmarks are met and the services being delivered are up to the standards set.
For parents, the high cost of private daycare will keep them out of the labour market and contributing to the economy. For those young couples considering creating a family, the daunting prospects of finding affordable housing, transportation and groceries may well trump that dream unless they can find quality daycare at a price that they can afford.
The Ford government needs to learn a bit about systems theory and pay a lot more attention to unintended consequences of their actions and stop playing politics with our children—unless of course those consequences are fully intended—in which case, Lord help us all.
