A Toronto daycare that signed on to the national childcare program is now in such financial difficulty that its board is considering closure, a plight that advocates say reveals flaws in how Ontario funds the system.
Sunnyside Garden Daycare, a non-profit that serves nearly 150 children in Toronto’s west end, is appealing to the province and city for emergency funding to stave off a shutdown by the end of the year.
Ontario’s funding model — in place since the province agreed to join the national program in 2022 — has had “devastating consequences” for the daycare centre, says Wannan in the letter, a copy of which was provided to CBC News.
She says without an infusion of cash, its board will have to choose between dropping out of the program or shutting down.
Carolyn Ferns, policy co-ordinator of the advocacy group Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care, says Sunnyside Garden’s situation is not unique.
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“We are facing an urgent financial crisis that threatens the existence of our not-for-profit daycare,” the centre’s director Barbara Wannan wrote in a letter sent Thursday to Premier Doug Ford and Education Minister Stephen Lecce.
Ontario’s funding model — in place since the province agreed to join the national program in 2022 — has had “devastating consequences” for the daycare centre, says Wannan in the letter, a copy of which was provided to CBC News.
At issue, according to Ferns and the operators of multiple daycares around Ontario, is the province’s formula for centres that have opted into the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care program, the federal initiative designed to bring fees down to $10 per day by 2026.
The rapid rise in the cost of living since then and the need to improve the pay of child-care staff to cope with a severe shortage of workers in the sector have outstripped those increases, said Ferns.
When the board of Sunnyside Garden took their concerns about funding to Ontario’s Ministry of Education, a provincial official told them to talk to their service system manager, the City of Toronto.
“Our office will work with the local councillor to better understand the issue this child-care centre is facing and see what support the City may be able to provide,” said Chow’s director of communications Shirven Rezvany in an email to CBC News.
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