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EXCERPTS
The threat of big-box child care coming to the region provoked councillors to impose a moratorium yesterday on tax subsidies for new commercial centres.
The move followed reports that an Australian-based daycare company wants to do business in the region.
"We can't stop them from setting up shop here, but what we can control is the number of subsidized spaces that we would make available to them," said Coun. Tom Galloway of Kitchener.
Waterloo Region spends about $32 million a year to subsidize child-care fees for about 2,500 children a month, subsidize the wages of child-care workers, fund services for special-needs children and pay the cost of regional daycare facilities and home child-care programs.
The region has 124 licensed child-care programs, of which 89 are non-profit centres and 26 are for-profit. There is also a shortage of child-care spaces, and only 17 per cent of children have access to licensed facilities.
The moratorium is to last until January to give regional staff time to prepare policies ensuring both non-profit and commercial child-care centres provide quality care. Existing commercial centres would be grandfathered and continue to receive subsidies. Toronto, Ottawa, Sudbury and Peel Region have issued similar moratoriums.
A report to regional council said a lawyer representing 123 Busy Beavers, an Ontario subsidiary of the Australian daycare company, has contacted the region about opening centres in the area and asked about tax subsidies.
Catherine Fife, co-ordinator of the Child Care Action Network of Waterloo Region, urged councillors to take a stand against the privatization of daycare by multinational companies. "Do you want tax dollars going to quality daycare or going to improve the bottom line of a commercial centre?" Fife asked.
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Ontario's 123 Busy Beavers doesn't have a Canadian phone number and hasn't responded to e-mails.
The province is responsible for licensing child-care facilities and monitoring legislated standards.
Parker said advocacy groups continue to lobby the McGuinty government to stop licensing new for-profit centres, but so far the province has only agreed to stop providing capital funding to commercial facilities.
In a recorded vote, regional councillors voted 12-3 in favour of the moratorium. Coun. Jake Smola of Kitchener voted against it, saying he feared it would lead to universal, free child care.
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There are no applications for new commercial daycares in the region.
- reprinted from The Record