Social Policy in Ontario

Ontario cannot allow a few for-profit child care owners to run roughshod over the $10-a-day child care plan

Posted on October 28, 2024 in Child & Family Delivery System

Source: TheStar.com — Authors: Carolyn Ferns

TheStar.com – Opinion/Contributors
Oct. 28, 2024.   By Carolyn Ferns, Contributor

“Many families … know that the $10-a-day plan is the one child-care policy that has actually lowered their child-care fees,” writes Carolyn Ferns. “Do we still have further to go to ensure more quality spaces for every family and decent work and pay for educators? Yes, but we’ll never get there if we keep putting on the brakes.”

Canada’s progress toward a universal, affordable, quality child care system is facing opposition from an entirely predictable threat. A small group of for-profit child-care owners, who profited from the previous market system of high parent fees and rock-bottom wages, are unhappy with current efforts to lower fees for families and improve wages for staff under the publicly funded Canada-wide Early Learning and Child Care plan (or $10-a-day plan).

They focus their current objections, ostensibly, on Ontario’s new child-care funding formula. The formula, released in August and currently being planned for implementation by most child-care operators in Ontario with little objection, moves Ontario — finally — to a cost-based funding formula.

In essence, under the new guidelines, a child-care centre can submit its budget to its municipality and, if costs are reasonable, get them largely covered with public money. While the new formula isn’t perfect, it’s a lot better than what preceded it. And it comes with a new $22-a-day cap on parent fees — a major fee reduction, especially for families in the GTA or those using infant child care.

But apparently, even the mild accountability that comes with the new formula is too much for some for-profit owners. And never mind that child-care programs with higher-than-average costs will get them covered with top-ups, or that the new formula provides operators 8 per cent funding in lieu of profit or surplus — this small group of owners wants more.

In their quest to convince the Ontario Ministry of Education to “pause” the funding formula, these owners are willing to put parents’ care at risk. They staged closures last week with only a few days notice to parents. Thankfully, on Tuesday Ontario Minister of Education Jill Dunlop had the good sense to stand by the funding guidelines that her ministry consulted on for over two years.

But the truth is, these owners’ protests are not about the technicalities of Ontario’s child care funding formula at all. Some for-profit child-care owners have been trying to block a publicly funded child-care system for decades. What is their alternative to the $10-a-day plan? They prefer the cheque-in-the-mail approach or as they like to put it “fund the families directly” with a government tax credit or voucher.

The problem with that as a child-care plan is it’s one that works for for-profit child care owners — and absolutely nobody else. It doesn’t lower parents’ fees. Its value is almost immediately swallowed up when owners raise their fees (and then raise them again). It doesn’t improve wages for hard-working educators. It doesn’t build new child-care spaces.

And, of course, it is an approach that has been tried, failed and rejected here in Canada and abroad over the decades. In fact, the failure of cheque-in-the-mail child care policy is exactly why Canada is finally joining other countries in building a publicly funded child-care system.

Many families of course, see this cynical bid by some for-profits for what it is. They know that the $10-a-day plan is the one child-care policy that has actually lowered their child-care fees. Do we still have further to go to ensure more quality spaces for every family and decent work and pay for educators? Yes, but we’ll never get there if we keep putting on the brakes. Ontario is only a couple of years into the journey toward a real child-care system and we must not let a small group of owners put their private interests ahead of those of our children, families and communities.

Back in July, Ontario was asking the federal government to allow more for-profit owners to join the reduced fee child-care system. But what a mistake that looks like now, with only a few months of retrospection. So it is surprising to see Minister Dunlop double down on that request in a new letter.

If there is a policy lesson to be learned from for-profit owners’ shenanigans over the last week, it’s that expanding public and non-profit child care is the best path forward to ensure reliable, affordable, quality care for Ontario children and families.

Carolyn Ferns is policy coordinator for the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care.

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/ontario-cannot-allow-a-few-for-profit-child-care-owners-to-run-roughshod-over-the/article_20b9b368-92f9-11ef-b569-2b04a3452059.html

Tags: child care, featured, ideology, participation, privatization

This entry was posted on Monday, October 28th, 2024 at 10:57 am and is filed under Child & Family Delivery System. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.