Childcare

Child Care and Early Learning Programs

  • City programs are overseen by the Community Development and Recreation Committee, chaired by Executive Committee member, Georgio Mammolitti.

  • There are 946 licensed child care centres and 21 licensed private home care agencies working with over 2,000 approved home care providers in Toronto. Fifty-seven of the child care centres and one home child care agency are directly run by the City. The rest are private (including not-for-profits). Together, these provide 56,500 licensed child care spaces.

  • This accommodates only 21% of Toronto’s children aged 0-9 years.

  • The City subsidizes 24,000 child care spaces.

  • Roughly 80% of funding for Children’s Services comes from the Province, with the City paying 20% of most costs (this division varies for some services, including After School programs).

  • User fees account for approximately 4% of the overall cost of the child care system in Toronto.

  • The budget for Children’s Services is significantly under-funded. The City is using funds from the Child Care Expansion Reserve to maintain existing service levels.

  • Currently there are almost 20,000 families waiting for fee subsidies, and only around 30% of families with the lowest incomes can access a childcare fee subsidy.

  • There are neighbourhoods/communities that remain significantly under-served in terms of both licensed child care and access to the fee subsidy. Each ward has “equity targets” based on the number of low-income children in the community. There are maps that show the wards with the shortages (particularly in a line down the centre of the City north to south) (see attached).

  • Child care for children 0-18 months is the largest gap, and will require substantial investment in new facilities.

  • The City child care system is also short approximately 2,000 spaces in supported child care for children with special needs.

  • Several recent developments by the provincial government are expected to impact on child care programs:

    • The loss of provincial Best Start funding and federal Early Learning and Child Care funding;

    • The expansion of all-day kindergarten;

    • The Province has approved legislation that will allow school boards to deliver the extended-day portion of the all-day kindergarten program through third-party operators;

    • The Province has asked Charles Pascal to develop a new system of services for children 0-4, focused on establishing new Child and Family Centres (including child care services);

    • Changes to eligibility rules under income testing resulted in growing wait lists for child care subsidy. There were just over 4,000 children on the wait list in 2005.

  • The availability of full-time kindergarten will reach 49% in Toronto in September 2012. It is expected that the impact on child care will include an increase in fees to families with younger children whose care is more costly to provide.

  • Additional provincial funding has extended the City’s capacity to maintain current (although inadequate) service levels and subsidies. However, if this funding is not extended, there could be a reduction of 2,700 subsidized spaces in 2013.

  • The City has mapped out scenarios involving cutting 2,000 spaces and 5,000 spaces. There are maps showing where the cuts would be targeted on a ward by ward basis included at the end of these report (particularly York West, Don Valley West, Scarborough South West, Toronto Centre-Rosedale).

  • There are no subsidized spaces available in Ward 21 at this time.

  • Other family services funded by the City that are facing potential or current cuts:

    • There are over 170 family support programs serving Toronto families and children. These programs are operated and funded by various levels of government as well as by community organizations (include Ontario Early Years Centres, Parenting and Family Literacy Centres, Family Resource Programs and Community Action Programs for Children).

    • There are 28 sites in Toronto running After School Recreation Care, serving 810 children between the ages of 6-12. These are operated by Toronto Parks, Forestry and Recreation. There is a nominal fee and eligible families can receive fee assistance through the Welcome Policy. The Welcome Policy is facing significant cuts and potentially will end altogether.

 

Sources:

 

Minutes from Community Development and Recreation Committee meeting (May 27, 2011), item CD4.3.

 

Toronto Child Care Service Plan 2010-2014 (May 2010).

 

Children’s Services Division Fact Sheet

 

General Manager, Children’s Services to Community Development and Recreation Committee, “Recent Developments in Child Care and in Provincial Implementation of Early Learning” (June 15, 2011).

KPMG recommendations and City Council’s decisions to date

  • The City consultants, KPMG, recommended the following areas for cuts to Children’s Services:

    • Privatization: Transfer of child care centres operated directly by the City to non-profit or commercial operation to reduce costs. KPMG notes that care would be needed to ensure the needs of special needs children are met, and to ensure active spaces remain properly distributed.

    • Reduction of quality control: Termination of City inspections of subsidized child care centres could be terminated, leaving child care licencing and quality control to the province.

    • Cuts to services: Cut the 2000 subsidized child care spaces that are subsidized 100% by the City (because of reduced provincial funding). KPMG notes that “Reducing the number of subsidized child care spaces will make work and/or school less accessible to some parents, and may increase Ontario Works and Employment and Social Services case loads (and costs). There is already a waiting list of 19,000, equal to 70% of subsidized spaces. With 60% of low income children in the GTA living in Toronto, there is ample need/demand for subsidized child care. Achieving provincial support for the spaces would eliminate the value in this option. It will take some time to achieve by attrition but would not seem reasonable identify families currently with subsidy and eliminate their subsidy immediately.”

    • Increase User fees: Reduce the maximum subsidized per diem rates to levels near the average rates of non-profit providers.

    • Change program structure so that it is consistent with full-day kindergarten initiative (this seems reasonable).

    • Cuts to Wages and Services: Eliminate “Child Care Funding and Subsidies” costs. This funding currently includes pay equity wage subsidies, funding for special needs children, and the Family Resource Centre.

  • While the media has reported that Ford has backed off on sweeping cuts to Child Care, this is not the case.

  • At the Executive Committee on September 19th, Ford and his allies formally asked the City Manager to consider the following:

    • Whether quality assessments of child care are required;

    • Review option for reducing child care funding and subsidies;

    • Consider transferring the city-operated child care centres to community or private operators;

    • Consider reducing the maximum subsidized per diem rates the City will support for subsidized spaces.

  • So in essence, the major cuts to child care have simply been deferred.

  • At the City Council meeting on September 26/27, 2011, City Council did not reject cuts to child care (as they did with some other services), so this remains on the table. Instead, City Council voted to call on the provincial and federal governments to work with the City to develop “a strategy to expand the number of child care spaces in Toronto over the next two years.”

  • Without additional funding, there is no commitment to save (much less expand) child care spaces.

 

SOURCES:

 

Minutes of Executive Committee Meeting of September 19, 2011: https://www.app.toronto.ca/tmmis/viewAgendaItemHistory.do?item=2011.EX10.1

 

Minutes of City Council Meeting of September 26/27, 2011: https://www.app.toronto.ca/tmmis/viewAgendaItemHistory.do?item=2011.EX10.1

Mammoliti’s Task Force

  • The direction that City Council takes on child care issues is likely to be affected by a new City Task Force.

  • Mammoliti has been named as the head of a City Task Force on Child Care. Few details are available, but it is reported that the task force is already underway. However, the meetings have been closed to the public and few details are available.

  • The Toronto Sun quotes Mammoliti as saying that the “task force will review our existing services and how we can continue to support child care in our current economic times.” He made specific reference to the provincial withdrawal of funding for 2,000 subsidized spaces as something that would be considered and whether the City can afford to continue to pay for those spaces.

  • The Task Force is expected to report by the end of the year and is tasked with “finding a way to ensure childcare is sustainable in Toronto”.

  • When Mammoliti proposed the Task Force several months ago, he suggested a task force that would identify and assess options for expanding childcare, “that is part of an integrated system of early childhood development and diversifying childcare delivery models to meet the future needs of Toronto’s families in the context of other governmental legislative changes and policy initiatives.”

  • This language suggests privatization and sell-off of City-owned day care facilities.

 

SOURCES:

 

Toronto Star (October 14, 2011), “Ford’s child care task force meets in secret”

Other provincial cuts affecting services for children

  • The Province funds 100% the following Public Health programs for babies and children: Healthy Babies Health Children; Preschool Speech and Language; Infant Hearing; Blind-Low Vision programs.

  • The Board of Health has identified that current levels are insufficient to meet the needs of the children of Toronto and to meet provincial standard protocols. For the fourth consecutive year, funding levels have remained frozen, with no increase to address cost of living budget pressures (a de facto reduction of funding of almost 13%). In addition, a significant reduction to the “universal postpartum” component of the Healthy Babies Healthy Children program will go into effect on January 1, 2012. Due to funding pressures, this program has had to restrict the availability of “food certificates” for low income families to emergency situations only.

 

SOURCES:

 

From Medical Officer of Health to Board of Health, “Staff Report: 2011 Update on Public Health Programs Funded by the Ministry of Children and Youth Services” (May 24, 2011).

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