Excerpts
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“There’s a pretty clear relationship between community size and coverage rates,” [David Macdonald] says.
That means that smaller communities such as Parry Sound, with a population of approximately 7,000 people in town and just under 50,000 in the entire district, are among the least likely to have child-care spaces for families who many need them. The CCPA report on child-care deserts found Parry Sound has only enough licensed spaces for 27 per cent of children below kindergarten age.
When it comes to creating new child-care spaces in smaller communities, a big part of the problem is the way in which expansion has typically worked, Mr. Macdonald says.
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But child-care advocates say Ontario’s expansion plans need to be much more aggressive.
“The plans for child-care expansion just aren’t ambitious enough,” says Carolyn Ferns, policy co-ordinator for the Ontario Coalition for Better Childcare. “We’re seeing other provinces come up with creative solutions to try to make child-care expansion happen, and in Ontario we’re just not there yet.”
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