Hello surplus! Let's talk child care!

I’m choking back the tears. I mean, let me get this straight: the Tories promise a surplus and give us a deficit, but Mayor David Miller gives us a surplus and he’s slammed for it?

Perhaps it was the show he made of it, but let me tell you I am breathing a sigh of relief that SOMEONE has been handling our finances to the point where we have more and not less… unlike --and indeed in spite of -- other levels of government.

Let’s think for a second about an issue that is dear to the hearts (and pocketbooks) of many Toronto families: child care. For working parents in this city, child care is a constant concern.

Toronto is full of women who have toddled into every day care they could find, while still pregnant, to get their names on waiting lists. And even then, they are told their chances of finding a spot, when and where they need it most, are slim to none. Just this week a single working mother in my neighbourhood was told her child can’t go to our neighbourhood school because there simply aren’t any spots available in local day cares. And she doesn’t need a subsidized spot.

The federal and provincial governments have dropped the childcare ball, and we – the working families they scramble to embrace in their rhetoric – are left juggling increasingly outrageous daycare fees (for example, for one child in kindergarten and one in after-school care, you will be paying close to $20,000/year for daycare). Meanwhile, families with subsidized spaces teeter on the edge of losing their subsidy, and daycare workers remain some of the most overworked and underpaid.

The provincial and federal budgets failed to step up to the plate. All they had to do was come up with a paltry $63.5-million to save 8,000 subsidized spaces. And then, to top it off, city staff propose to cut rent subsidies for some day cares …adding $60-80 a month to fees. That’s enough to push anyone over the edge!

Our little day care is run by a board of parent volunteers, all of us struggling to understand the extraordinarily complex finances involved in running a not-for-profit day care. Right now, we are in the midst of trying to figure out how to keep the day care afloat, trying to ensure that once the much-welcome all-day learning comes to fruition, we will still have enough day care spaces – throughout the city – to accommodate the infants and toddlers and preschoolers…

So, hello surplus. I welcome you with open arms and hopeful heart.

If you are a parent with kids in child care or you ever expect to be one, join in the call for support for child care. Tell the city to shelve the plan to cut the rent subsidy. And celebrate the fact that things at least didn’t get worse...

Comments

[Sonny Yeung]

Dear Marit; I attended the Budget deputations and there were 15 to 20 that raised child care and nutrition. The concern was the loss of subsidies. With additional funds, Shelley would restore the rent subsidy for 373 daycares located in schools now.

I have proposed $30-35 a day child care since Quebec can do it for a few dollars plus subsidy. The variable is location!(see my Mar. 7 post)Thanks, SonnyYeung.com

[Al McPherson]

To get enough money for DAYCARE , we need to keep more of Torontonians money here in Toronto. This can definitely be done. It can be accomplished by making Toronto a Province---like New Brunswick or Saskatchewan. Toronto has more people tha all 4 Atlantic Provinces combined ! The website www3.sympatico.ca/credo2 shows that this is the obvious way to go. We have to wake-up and smell the coffee. Let's not throw our children's futures away.

[Glenn]

Care for your own child!

Stop waiting for the state to do everything for you!

Suck it up Toronto, Move on!

[Marit Stiles]

Great news! The Budget Committee adopted a motion to reject the proposal to eliminate the rent subsidy for school-based daycares! Now City Council has to approve it...but looks good!

However, there is still a looming crisis. There's the immediate problem of a $38-million shortfall in provincial funding. By 2012, we'll lose 3000 subsidized childcare spaces in this city without a significant commitment from the province (and the Feds for that matter!). McGuinty needs to replace the rhetoric with some action, and quick.

Marit

[Bobbie]

Agreed, let's focus the surplus on child care and other measures that support families. This is a very expensive place to raise a child.

The city could start by eliminating the stupid $25 fee for signing up for recreation programs. It's good that they will reduce that from $50, which was the original dumb idea, but this new fee will be a major barrier for many, many children in this city. Why set up barriers to people's health? Makes no sense whatsoever.

Looks like the current council has lost its way, when we see backward ideas like this in the year 2010, and we see tens of millions going to reroute an intersection at Queen and Dufferin, and millions more loaned to the merchants of Bloor Street for granite sidewalks. Not to mention $40 million ideas to move the Peace Garden at Nathan Phillips Square and huge sums to redecorate subway stations, which in reality need repair more than redecoration.

These are all hugely expensive projects, and show the city has the wrong priorities. I'm sure there are more examples if the Star did a little more digging. Let's not dream of moving traffic lanes on University Avenue ($100 million anyone?) until we get the community development file right.

Families in this city have huge expenses -- just look at the article in the Star about the cost of houses here compared to Florida.

In the next election, let's make child, youth and family-friendly policies a major focus.

The Star can take a lead on this -- shine a bright light into all the candidates' faces and see who is for children and families and who is working against us. Please take up the challenge, Toronto Star.

[Sylvia]

Childcare is an embarrassing topic in Ontario. Firstly, families have to face the costs for it, while future generations of DINKS (double-income-no-kids) reap the support from those kids. Secondly, families have higher living expenses, anyway, pay more taxes (don't get me started on the HST), and have high time constraints. On top of that, a mother cannot even find affordable and high-quality childcare. It simply doesn't exist. There is no policy, no provincial standard, no provincial support - nothing. I've had my children in childcare all over the world (e.g., England, Denmark, Germany), but Ontario is the WORST. You feel like a beggar and then you have to PAY to get on a waitlist. And thereafter: nothing. No space, nowhere. I'm left thinking out loud "welcome to the neo-liberal world, you poor, little kids". As a citizen, I feel double-crossed by paying high taxes and receiving no service.

[Sonny Yeung]

Dear Marit; there is a provincial election in Oct. 2011 and likely a federal election this fall OR next spring. So you could blog about it then. I am sure that parents realize the $100 a month from the feds through deficit spending is not that useful in finding child care.

You would be best to not just address child care to help parents but go after the politicians that vowed to eradicate child poverty decades ago.