EXCERPTS
Ontario is at risk of losing thousands of planned child care spaces, including 3,049 spaces in Toronto because of the Ford government’s cuts to child care. A list obtained by the OCBCC from the City of Toronto shows that 51 planned projects previously approved by the province for development in schools, may never be built because the Ford government has reneged on a government promise to provide full operating funding to support the projects.
Instead, the government has told municipalities and school boards that, in order to access the province’s child care capital fund, the municipalities must now re-apply for the projects and find operating dollars for the new spaces from within their current budgets. Municipalities and school boards may be hard pressed to secure the money because their budgets were set when the province was still committed to providing the operating funds. And with funding reductions and other cost share changes from the province set to hit next year, the plans for thousands of child care spaces could be scuppered.