Excerpt
Two months after Josclyn Johnson's 18-month-old daughter started daycare, the centre announced it was leaving the national $10-a-day program, which has left Johnson anxious about how her family will cover the new $2,310 monthly fee.
"We're sort of forced to stay in the daycare for now," Johnson said. She has not yet been able to find a space in another daycare offering the reduced fees.
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Sunnyside Day Care, with two west-end Toronto locations, represents two out of 14 centres in the city that have given notice to leave the $10-a-day system since the province announced a long-awaited new funding formula this summer. The national program subsidizes fees for parents, and in Ontario they have so far been cut at least in half, with a goal of getting to $10 a day by 2026.
Parents like Johnson have been paying $928 per month for a space in the toddler room.
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New fees would be up to $2,565 per month for an infant space, the centre said, based on its pre-pandemic fees with "deferred annual increases relative to inflation" factored in.
But the parents at Sunnyside are mad, and they are not accepting the news quietly. They have sent the daycare a letter of their own, demanding a meeting and an explanation of why they feel they cannot stay in the $10-a-day program.
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