GUELPH/WELLINGTON – The County of Wellington is a little more than half way to its provincially-directed target of new child care spaces.
In an update given to the joint city and county social services committee, the director of children’s early years Mandy Koroniak said 952 new child care spaces have been created in Guelph and Wellington County since the province gave the county a target of 1,721 in December 2022 to achieve by the end of 2026.
These new spaces are also all enrolled in the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care (CWELCC) program, which is a government program aimed at making child care more accessible and affordable with a phased approach to bring the cost down to $10 a day.
Koroniak told the committee operators serving children from birth to five not enrolled in CWELCC can no longer access routine direct funding.
“This includes workforce compensation supports such as the wage enhancement grant and any child care fee subsidies,” she said.
In 2025, Koroniak said another 448 spaces are planned and approved to come online, bringing the county to a little more than 300 spaces shy of the provincial target at 1,400 with 628 spaces in Guelph, 350 spaces in the county and 582 home child care spaces in either.
Although many new spaces have been created, earlier in the meeting Coun. Mary Lloyd brought up the fact there were no planned new child care builds in the county’s 10-year capital plan and wanted to know if there was talk of any funding for this purpose being discussed.
“At this time we are not anticipating that there would be a significant increase from either the federal or provincial government for new builds of child care,” said Shauna Calder, manager of finance for the County of Wellington.
“If there was a direction and desire in future years to plan for builds those could be incorporated into future budgets but at this point it would be municipal contribution.”
