THUNDER BAY – With Ontario having signed on to the federal government's daycare plan, parents and guardians of children aged zero to six will see much lower fees for childcare.
“Overall we're pleased that Ontario finalized an agreement with the federal government for childcare and it will lead to lower fees for parents for those children under the age of six and also provides some wage enhancements for early childhood educators in the system," said Bill Bradica, District Social Services Administration Board chief administrative officer.
Bradica also says the local impact of the provincial government's move toward affordable child care is still unclear, and the board is waiting to see what its funding allocation will be and how many licensed child care programs will opt in.
"Those that do would then be subject to decreasing their fees initially by 25 per cent up to 50 per cent by the end of December and down to an average of $10 a day by 2025, so they have until September to make that decision," said Bradica.
"We also hope that perhaps this will provide an incentive to those providers who may be operating home childcare who are licensed but not part of the current funding system to opt-in, so that parents accessing those particular home-based childcare centres would then get the benefit of those decreased fees."
Bradica says there are currently 2,700 licensed childcare spaces available in the city, a number he hopes will increase under the new program.
Some of this funding will be going to raising wages for people working in the childcare sector, but Lindsay Gaw-Martin, CEO, Little Lions Waldorf Child Care, says it's not enough to draw in the number of workers needed.
"We are in a major staff crisis right now. The whole sector is very short-staffed," said Gaw-Martin.
"And I don't really think that's going to change yet with this implementation until wages are going to go up. So, they have allocated some money towards wages but some centres including ours are already paying more than that which is still not really enough to keep qualified staff."
