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EXCERPTS
Ontario is unwilling to take up the financial slack when federal
daycare subsidies that support thousands of child-care spots come to an
end in 2010.
Children and Youth Services Minister Laurel Broten said
Wednesday that she continues to urge the federal government of Stephen
Harper to maintain funding for child care.
"Obviously, we continue to call on the federal government to
step up, to meet their obligations for families across the country and
in particular in Ontario," Broten said.
The Ontario government spread a 2006 one-time federal payment for child care over four years.
That annual $63.5 million in funding runs out this year.
....
Rosemary White, executive director of Bond Child and Family
Development, a Toronto child care centre for needy families, told a
provincial government committee Wednesday that they may be down to
seven children in the fall as the pool of funds for subsidized spaces
dries up.
"I'm amazed that a program like ours could in two years lose so
many subsidy spaces that we're threatened with closure in September,"
White said.
"We've been open for 72 years."
Daycare advocates say the loss of $63.5 million will kill
thousands of jobs and cut spaces for 7,600 children from low-income
families.
"If this money is not in the budget, we face the collapse of the
child care system," said Andrea Calver, of the Ontario Coalition for
Better Child Care.
- reprinted from the Toronto Sun