Providers fear 140K daycare spots will vanish under new bill

Independent child care providers, their supporters and the PC Party's education critic are pounding the pavement Nov. 16 to protest Ontario's attempt to modernize the act governing the province's daycare centres.

Ontario says the current Day Nursery Act has had no significant updates since 1983 and needs to be modernized — hence its intention to pass Bill 10, the appropriately titled Childcare Modernization Act.

The bill aims to provide the province with more powers of enforcement and regulation over the daycare sector and increases the number of spaces in licensed home daycares and firms up the number of allowable spaces in unlicensed daycares.
The act would also require school boards to offer before- and after-school programs for children 6 to 12.

But independent providers rather than modernization child care in Ontario, Bill 10 will actually lead to fewer spaces — 140,000 spaces by the estimate of the Coalition of Independent Childcare Providers of Ontario (CICPO).

“Bill 10 is proposing to restrict Independent Childcare Providers (ICPs) to the point that many of them will have to close their doors, leaving an estimated 140,000 children without daycare across the province,” said Sheena Nagy, one of two team leads with the Sudbury chapter of CICPO.

On Nov. 16, the Sudbury CICPO will be joined by MPP Garfield Dunlop, PC education critic, MPP Lisa MacLeod, local PC candidate Paula Peroni and other supporters to push for amendments to Bill 10.

The group will be demonstrating at 1 p.m. on the sidewalk along The Kingsway near the RioCan Centre.

In a recent joint statement with CICPO co-founder Heidi Higgins, Dunlop said it is imperative Bill 10's legislative committee hold public hearings on the act.