Ontario Gov and the OMA Write to Feds Asking to Lift Cap
The Ontario Ministry of Education is trying to throw a wrench into the child care program by lifting the cap on for profit spaces in Ontario.
Minister Todd Smith, along with the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) have sent a letter asking the federal minister Jenna Sudds to remove the cap on for-profit child care spaces in Ontario, calling it one of the “imposed policies” even though it was part of a long-negotiated agreement. The AMO and the Ontario government’s demand would require a change to the CWELCC agreement with the federal government.
Cap exists to protect quality of child care
The current agreement states that only 30% of child care spaces can be in for-profit centres or home-based care and that a minimum of 70% of spaces must be in not-for-profit or public child care centres. This is to ensure that the quality of child care is maintained at a high level and that public money funding child care expansion does not just become a cash-grab by for-profit providers.
Non-profits Organize to Urge Minister Sudds to Keep Cap
Since the letter was publicized, non-profits have written letters and started petitions explaining why we need to keep the cap on the level of for-profit child care in Ontario.
Sponsored by the Ontario Non-Profit Network, there is a letter for child care organizations to endorse, urging Minister Smith to work with the nonprofit and public sector to expand the number of child care spaces.
The OCBCC and the AECEO have created a petition/letter for individuals to sign. It suggests: “Rather than considering further expansion of for-profit child care, your governments should be working to solve the child care workforce crisis and ensuring that public and non-profit programs are stable, thriving and expanding.”
For-profits Try to Organize Against Non-Profit Demands
As an effort to shore up the support for the PC government, the for-profit operators (Private Operators Group Ontario) have started their own letter-writing campaign to the federal government. The letter they have produced tries to emphasize the “dire needs of Ontario parents (especially women)” to have child care spaces in for-profit centres, as if the only places willing to expand are for-profit centres.
Next steps
As Gordon Cleveland pointed out in his fantastic blog post about this issue: “there need to be strong measures of public management that limit the ability of for-profit enterprises to extract profit at the expense of quality.” Child care advocates will need to work together with others in this sector and across other sectors dealing with similar issues, in order to bring this point home. This is truly a fight over what the future of the child care sector in Ontario. In the coming days expect more news, social media posts, petitions, letters and actions about the ratio of for-profit to not-for-profit expansion in Ontario.