Daycare at risk
February 7, 2010
Laurie Monsebraaten
SOCIAL JUSTICE REPORTER
Some of Toronto’s highest-needs neighbourhoods would be the biggest losers if Queen’s Park doesn’t shore up a child care system facing a triple threat of chronic provincial underfunding, the loss of $63.5 million in federal money and the impact of all-day kindergarten coming next fall, city data shows.
“What we are facing in child care is the perfect storm,” said Beaches—East York Councillor Janet Davis, chair of the city’s community development and recreation committee.
“If the province doesn’t step up in the budget, all the gains we made in the last decade will be lost,” she said. “We’ll be back to where we were in 1995.”
The city oversees Toronto’s 56,400-space child care system, including 24,000 subsidized spots. But as reported last month, the city stands to lose 5,000 of those subsidies by 2013. The cuts would be made as children with subsidies leave or “age out” of daycare, starting as soon as this summer.
Since neighbourhoods with the lowest incomes have the most subsidized daycare, they would be the biggest losers, Davis said.
Weston and Jane-Finch, two of Toronto’s 13 so-called “priority neighbourhoods,” earmarked for increased services and support, would both lose more than 300 child care subsidies, according to the city’s children’s services department, which is preparing for the worst.
Across Toronto, about 16,000 children are waiting for subsidies, which are based on family income. More than 600 are waiting in Ward 12 and more than 700 in Ward 8.
The full cost of child care runs from an average of about $17,000 for infants to $11,000 for pre-schoolers.
Liberal MPP Laura Albanese’s York South—Weston riding (which includes city Wards 11 and 12) faces the biggest subsidy loss in Toronto with 573 spaces in peril.
New provincial fee subsidies for children up to age 4 will help municipalities adjust to all-day kindergarten, she said. But the details are still being worked out.
However, with a $24.7 billion provincial deficit, Ontario can’t afford to replace the federal money, set to expire April 1, she said.
“I know (Children and Youth Minister Laurel Broten) is talking to the federal government and we’re calling for them to step up,” she said.
Peter Frampton, executive director of the Learning Enrichment Foundation, which runs 18 child care centres in the Weston and Jane-Finch areas where most families rely on daycare subsidies, said the cuts will be devastating.
“These are families earning between $22,000 and $25,000 a year. Without subsidizes I don’t know what these parents will do,” he said.
“These are parents who want to show their children the importance of work and carrying their weight,” he added. “Without support and subsidies, they can’t be good role models for their kids.”
Downtown Toronto single mom Ashley Burt, 25, was thrilled when she got a subsidized daycare spot for her 3-year-old son Lucious, last year.
But she had delay plans to attend college last fall because she hasn’t been able to get a subsidy for her older son, Dezmond, 4.
Dezmond is one of 406 children on the waiting list in Ward 28 where 232 subsidies are at risk.
“I’m trying to make something of myself and this has been really hard,” said Burt, a former drug addict who was homeless for six years.
“I can’t imagine what it will be like for people like me if they cut subsidies,” she added.
The federal money is part of $252 million in child-care funds Ontario received from Ottawa in 2006 when the Harper government cancelled a previous $5 billion national child-care plan.
Instead of spending all the money that year, Ontario spread it over four years to support about 7,600 new child-care subsidies. The last $63.5 million instalment runs out April 1.
Last summer, Queen’s Park gave municipalities a one-time $18 million grant to keep the subsidies flowing until the end of the current school year. Toronto’s share of that funding was $4.4 million.
A spokesperson for federal Human Resources Minister Diane Finley said federal investments in Ontario children and families are at an all time high.
Through the Canada Social Transfer, provinces have predictable funding for child care that is growing at 3 per cent per year, said Ryan Sparrow. Provinces will receive $1.1B this year, with about 40 per cent of that destined for Ontario, he said.
In addition, Ottawa provides $100 per month for every child under 6, which translates to another $1 billion to Ontario families every year, Sparrow said.