Minutes after media outlets declared a majority government for Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives last Thursday night, Carolyn Ferns began gearing up for a renewed fight for affordable, high-quality child care for Ontario families.“Feeling blue about child care? We hear you,” wrote Ferns, policy co-ordinator for the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care, in an email to early childhood educators, parents and other supporters urging them back to the battlefield.“Ontario had never been closer to achieving quality child care that all families could afford and trust,” Ferns wrote in the email fired off at 11:01 election night, as her Facebook feed started filling up with messages of despair. Both Liberal and NDP platforms promised multibillion-dollar commitments to create more licensed spaces, boost wages for early childhood educators (ECEs) and either make child care free or lower parent fees to as little as $12 a day.But the PC platform promised just $389 million in child care tax rebates, an amount critics say won’t go very far because it covers both licensed and unlicensed care for as many as 2 million kids up to age 15. The rebate does nothing to address the lack of licensed spaces nor the chronically low pay for ECEs who are fleeing the sector in droves, leaving centres unable to hire enough qualified staff, critics add.“The next few years will be a challenge for our community,” Ferns wrote in her e-blast. “But child care advocates don’t back down from a challenge!” Read more:Here’s a rundown of the PCs’ election promisesB.C. to start $200-a-month child-care pilot to prepare for universal systemFerns is most concerned about the PCs’ support of any kind of care, including unlicensed home daycares.“We forget the Liberal government started working on this issue in earnest because a child died in unlicensed child care,” she said. Toddler Eva Ravikovitch died in 2013 ...
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