With the parents and caregivers of over 8,000 children waiting to access child care in Guelph and Wellington County, a different kind of waiting game is also playing out in the sector.
In May, the province pledged to introduce a new cost-based funding formula for service providers, to be implemented in January 2025.
Details of that funding formula have yet to be released, and it is causing quite the stir.
“Ontario has not made a commitment, and given clarity or transparency to what these child care operators or centres will receive in order for them to even contemplate what growth could look like in their centres,” said federal Families, Children and Social Development Minister Jenna Sudds.
Sudds spent Monday in Guelph, talking with child care service providers and parents.
She said the formula is “undoubtedly the number one issue” being raised by providers, adding it is having a huge impact on the waiting list.
Many she said she spoke with say the formula “can’t come soon enough,” adding it’ll give service providers who want to grow their spaces the certainty to move forward.
Sudds acknowledged Todd Smith just took over the portfolio as Ontario’s education minister on June 6 as part of a cabinet shuffle.
She said the two of them have met virtually since then, and a letter was sent to Sudds requesting flexibility to offer more for-profit spaces.
In Wellington County, there is a requirement that 60 per cent of child care spaces need to be not-for-profit and 40 per cent for-profit. This reflects the proportion of spaces there was locally when Ontario signed on the $10-a-day agreement with the federal government in 2022.
As of July 12, one enrolment application from a child care service provider has been turned away locally because of this 60/40 requirement.
There is also a balancing act going on in trying to grow the system and ensuring there are enough early childhood educators in the workforce to care for those children.
A report from the province in March estimated there will be a shortage of 8,500 educators in Ontario by 2026.
“I look to PEI, for example, which now not only has a wage grid in place, it also has a livable wage, but they’ve introduced benefits and a pension plan for their workforce,” Sudds said. “And they will tell you that they have solved the workforce problem in PEI, which was once a very big issue inhibiting their ability to grow the number of spaces.”
She said the federal government has already made a $10.2 billion investment in the system in Ontario.
Ontario has committed to creating 86,000 child care spaces between 2022 and 2026. That includes a local growth target of 1,721 spaces in that time.
In order to do that, Sudds said Ontario needs to make investments in the workforce.
Smith said a strategy has been introduced to provide wage increases by more than 19 per cent "and support the recruitment and retention of registered ECEs across Ontario."
The funding formula, increasing wages to attract more ECEs and leveraging the Canada Mortgage Housing Corporation’s child care capital program are three recommendations to Smith, written in an open letter on July 18.
Sudds said she and Smith will meet face-to-face in the next couple of weeks.
“I have confidence if the province can move forward with a funding formula that’s going to work for operators, it’s going to give them certainty,” she said. “We will start to see these wait lists decrease because we will see new spaces come online.”
Smith's office said details of the funding formula will be shared "this summer."
“Our government has already reduced childcare fees by 50 per cent on average, saving families as much as $10,000 per child," Smith's office said in an emailed statement.
"However, the federal government needs to provide more funding and more flexibility if they want their signature program to succeed. That’s why we negotiated a mid-agreement review of the Canada-wide Early Learning and Child Care program, to ensure Ontario families were getting the support they need from the federal government."
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