If you’re a parent in Ontario with kids in licensed child care, Tuesday is a pivotal day. When the province signed the Canada-wide Early Learning and Child Care agreement in March, it set a deadline for centres to opt in by Sept. 1. After some centres objected to several provisions in the deal, the deadline was delayed until Nov. 1.
For centres that do not apply by Tuesday, the good news is that they will still be able to opt in to the program next year. The bad news – for parents who have been eager to start enjoying savings – is that they will miss out on the funding for 2022.
So far, approximately 86 per cent of licensed child care centres in the province have opted in to the program, and funding has begun flowing to many of them, significantly reducing the burden on a family’s bottom line.
Centres that chose to opt in to the $13.2-billion deal by Tuesday will be able to offer parents a rebate of 25 per cent of their fees retroactive to April.
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A parent in York Region paying $72 a day for their 18-month-old child and $31 a day for their five-year-old will get a refund of $3,528 in fees this year, while a parent in Sudbury paying $31 a day for their 18-month-old and $11 a day for their five-year-old will get a refund of $1,519, according to the province.
Fees will be reduced by another 25 per cent by Dec. 31. The ultimate goal of the program is to reduce fees to an average of $10 a day by 2025.
The guidelines to opt in next year have not been finalized. But centres that do so will likely be able to offer parents rebates from January onward, even if those centres don’t apply until later in the year, said Carolyn Ferns, policy co-ordinator for the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care.
“It’s for the full calendar year,” Ms. Ferns said of the funding.
Families with children in licensed child care centres that are part of the deal next year will actually see a slightly deeper discount than the 50 per cent that’s been promised, according to Ms. Ferns. That is because the deal says that reduction for 2023 is supposed to be based on 2020 fee levels, meaning families will actually save approximately 54 per cent.
Ontario’s decision to extend the deadline to opt in to Nov. 1, along with changes it made to the agreement, seem to have encouraged more centres to apply.
For example, in Toronto, 560 operators had indicated their intent to opt in to the program as of Aug. 12. As of Monday, 847 operators have said they will opt in. Of those, 667 are not-for-profit child care centres, and 180 are for-profit. Of the 70 operators that have opted out, 30 are not-for-profit and 40 are for-profit centres.
Many of the centres that have decided to not opt in this year are reluctant to do so because the funding guidelines for 2024 are not yet clear, said Andrea Hannen, president of the Association of Daycare Operators of Ontario.
“You’re kind of signing on blindly because we don’t actually know what the funding levels will be beyond the end of 2023,” Ms. Hannen said.
When Ontario first announced it had signed the deal, some operators, many of whom run for-profit centres, objected to several provisions, particularly that property taxes and some other expenses wouldn’t be covered. There was also a stipulation that profits would be capped.
The province sent out new guidelines promising to cover property taxes and eliminated the cap on profits in the hopes of encouraging more centres to join the deal.
The holdouts may decide to opt in next year, but many parents who have children at those centres are frustrated that they are missing out on nine months of reduced fees in 2022.
Ms. Ferns has heard from many of those parents.
“They’re just kind of beside themselves because there’s nothing they can do. If they’re at a centre that’s not going to opt in they’re going to lose out,” she said.
Dave McGinn