Excerpts

Canada’s progress toward a universal, affordable, quality child care system is facing opposition from an entirely predictable threat. A small group of for-profit child-care owners, who profited from the previous market system of high parent fees and rock-bottom wages, are unhappy with current efforts to lower fees for families and improve wages for staff under the publicly funded Canada-wide Early Learning and Child Care plan (or $10-a-day plan).

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In essence, under the new guidelines, a child-care centre can submit its budget to its municipality and, if costs are reasonable, get them largely covered with public money. While the new formula isn’t perfect, it’s a lot better than what preceded it. And it comes with a new $22-a-day cap on parent fees — a major fee reduction, especially for families in the GTA or those using infant child care.

But apparently, even the mild accountability that comes with the new formula is too much for some for-profit owners. And never mind that child-care programs with higher-than-average costs will get them covered with top-ups, or that the new formula provides operators 8 per cent funding in lieu of profit or surplus — this small group of owners wants more.

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