TORONTO - Ontario's New Democrats are promising money to keep daycare spaces open and freeze fees if elected in the Oct. 6 election.
Leader Andrea Horwath pledged to invest $125 million a year over the next two years in licensed child care centres, money she said is needed because the planned rollout of full day kindergarten is squeezing their budgets.
"We have a government that chose all-day learning and thought it was OK to jeopardize the younger kids and their child care spaces, and I think that's the wrong thing to do," Horwath said.
"Families need a reliable affordable child care in order to be able to work, to re-train, to go to school."
More than 300 child care centres have closed in the province since 2007 according to the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care, which also estimates fees are in danger of rising by as much of 30 per cent.
Infants and toddlers require more caregivers than older children, and centres will often subsidize the staffing needs of the younger group with the income from the older one.
Once four and five-year-olds start going to full-day kindergarten, they will free up daycare spaces, but those spots will now have to be filled with younger kids, who are more expensive to care for.
"As you pull out those older kids, child care centres aren't going to be able to make up their budgets," said Horwath.
"If they want to stay open, the only option the child care centres have to get their revenue is to hit parents with higher fees."
The NDP is committed to full-day kindergarten, Horwath added, but would implement the program while still protecting child care spaces.
Laurel Broten, minister of children and youth services, said the governing Liberals have provided stabilization funding for daycares and will be taking a number of steps to help ensure that families have services and care that they need.
"We don't have a road map to follow because we're the first ones doing it, but through the development of full-day kindergarten we've been working closely with the child care sector to help them adjust to the fact that older kids will now be in school," she said.
"We've been working with them to reposition the spaces that they have so they will be available for younger children."
The Coalition for Better Child Care estimates middle class families pay as much as $15,000 a year for child care, while Child Care Canada has found there's only enough licensed child care in Ontario for one in five children.
