EXCERPTS

Increased demand for child care spaces may well be the greatest effect on the Oshawa area of increased migration, said Dr. Hugh Drouin, Durham Region's commissioner of social services.

"Two years ago our waiting list might have been 200 or 300," Drouin said yesterday. "Now it varies between 1,000 and 1,100.

"That's a significant jump, absolutely."

Close to 1,200 children are on the waiting list for a daycare spot in Durham. About 25 per cent of those live in Oshawa proper and slightly more than half live in the Statistics Canada census area that includes Oshawa, Whitby and Clarington.

Drouin said yesterday that most of those migrating to Oshawa are young families, which, he said, puts pressure on our child care system.

About 100 new applications for subsidized child care are received each month by Durham Region &emdash; 138 from Oshawa in the past month alone.

- reprinted from the Toronto Star