Excerpts

Federal government is warning that increasing the number of for-profit child-care operators will create a two-tier system as Ontario pushes for more private providers to help alleviate lengthy waiting lists for families.

The dispute over how best to deliver child care under the federal government’s $10-a-day program is taking place as Ontario pledges to release a new funding formula that Education Minister Todd Smith says will “more accurately” reflect the true cost of child care in the province.

The province has so far created less than a third of the 86,000 spaces it committed to by 2026. Meanwhile, waiting lists have ballooned since the introduction of the program, which has already cut fees in half for parents at participating child-care centres and they are set to be lowered further to an average of $10 a day.

Jenna Sudds, federal Minister of Families, Children and Social Development, in a recent interview blamed Ontario for the lack of available child-care spaces, accusing the province of not giving operators clarity and predictability around what their funding is going to look like in the months and years to come.

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She said research shows that non-profit child-care centres provide a higher quality of care where every dollar is reinvested in the centre, in the children and in the work force.

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