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The City of Toronto and the Ontario government are being urged to stop the private sector from taking on a greater role in the daycare system.
A report prepared for the Toronto children's services division charges that commercial daycares provide significantly poorer quality care than non-profit centres.
The report says large corporations want to increase their involvement in the child-care business in Canada.
The author, University of Toronto economics Prof. Gordon Cleveland, says, "They're decidedly different, they're clearly different, in how good they are for kids."
Cleveland studied quality assessments completed at more than 600 daycare centres in Toronto, examining how well the workers interact with the children and what the classroom environment is like.
Cleveland found significant differences.
"The non-profit centres in all age levels of classroom are consistently better in quality than the for-profit centres."
Cleveland says the city should press Queen's Park to tightly control new child-care licences and prevent large chains from expanding.
Coun. David Shiner doesn't have a problem with the overall objective, but he's concerned such a recommendation could freeze out small daycares that are run as businesses.
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If companies are kept out of the daycare sector, the report says, governments must do something about the space crunch.
New figures released Monday say 13,000 children are currently waiting for subsidized daycare in Toronto.
- reprinted from CBC News