EXCERPTS
Toronto's share of provincial child-care funding is going up by almost $21 million this year, a windfall that will allow the city to add 668 new daycare-fee subsidies for infants, toddlers and preschoolers.
The new subsidies will boost the city's total to a record 24,932.
The 7.6-per-cent provincial funding increase will also help finance the addition of desperately needed infant and toddler spaces and ensure fee subsidies cover the full cost of care, says a city staff report to be discussed by Toronto's budget review committee Wednesday.
"This is a significant increase and very welcome news for families with young children in Toronto," said Jane Mercer, of the Toronto Coalition for Better Child Care.
It is the largest enhancement to the city's subsidy system since the federal government killed the national child care plan in 2006, she noted.
The extra money is a result of Ontario's new child-care funding formula and a three-year, $242-million increase announced in the 2012 provincial budget.
The funding formula, which is based more closely on need and the latest demographic data, brings Toronto's share up from about 22 per cent to 30 per cent, according to the staff report.
The extra support gives Toronto "breathing room" while the city crafts a long-term strategy and its own changes to child-care funding, said Toronto Councillor Janet Davis (Ward 31, Beaches-East York).
"Our economy depends on having women available to work, and that means daycare," she said.
Toronto suffers from both a lack of licensed child care and high cost, Davis said. There are just 57,000 licensed spots, enough for only about one in five Toronto children under age 10. But with average daycare fees running between $11,000 and $20,000 a year, few families can afford it, Davis said. As a result, almost 20,000 children are waiting for fee subsidies.
Although Davis said the province's new funding formula is an improvement, it doesn't address inflation, program growth and the high cost of services.
"We can't continue to have child care that costs $1,500 a month and expect that women will be able to work," she said.
"As we look at how we fund child care in Toronto going forward, we absolutely have to address affordability. And that means putting more money into the base budgets. The more you put into base budgets, the lower the fees."
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While Toronto and other high-growth and high-need municipalities in the Greater Toronto Area are benefiting from the province's new daycare funding formula, other communities are facing cuts.
In December, Sudbury councillors voted to limit daycare subsidies to parents earning less than $20,000 and to cut the amount of subsidy families receive.
- reprinted from the Toronto Star