Toronto families living in Premier Doug Ford’s riding could be among those worst hit by provincial child care cuts announced in the April budget, according to a new city analysis of where the axe may fall.A total of 6,166 fee subsidies are on the chopping block due to almost $178 million in cuts to Toronto, including $84.8 million being slashed from child care funding this year, city manager Chris Murray has said.Ford’s Etobicoke North riding could lose as many as 455 subsidies — the second deepest cut in the city — at a time when 741 children are on the subsidy wait list, according to a ward-by-ward breakdown by children’s services staff, released Wednesday. (Since the Ford government halved the number of seats on city council last summer, city ward and provincial riding boundaries are the same.)Toronto Mayor John Tory, who has decried the provincial cuts, said he spoke to a mother at a Scarborough daycare Tuesday who told him the loss of her subsidized spot would be devastating. “She said she’d have to move out of the city because ‘We wouldn’t be able to support our mortgage,’ and that’s very much tied to her continued employment,” Tory told reporters at city hall Wednesday.Read more:Ford ally speaks out against child care funding cuts Doug Ford’s cuts put over 6,000 subsidized daycare spaces at risk, Toronto warnsOpinion | Martin Regg Cohn: In a world of artificial intelligence, Doug Ford goes with his gutHe wants that mom and others potentially affected by the cuts to sign the city’s new online petition, urging Ford and his 10 Toronto MPPs to reverse cuts to child care, public health, transit and more.“I believe this petition will be an important opportunity for people like those moms to raise their voices,” and “hopefully bring to life” PC MPPs who have remained silent while Toronto is threatened, he said.The petition follows letters to Ford’s T ...
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