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Ontario education minister asks feds to lift pro-profit child-care cap, cites stifling growth

Ontario’s education minister is asking the federal government to lift a cap on the proportion of for-profit child-care spaces within the 10-dollar-a-day system in the province, saying it’s stifling growth in the sector.
Todd Smith has sent a joint letter with the Association of Municipalities of Ontario to the federal minister in charge, Jenna Sudds, saying municipalities have been forced to turn down thousands of spaces because of that limit.
In the deal with the federal government, Ontario committed to maintaining a ratio in the 10-dollar-a-day system of 70 per cent non-profit spaces and 30 per cent for-profit spaces.
But Smith says that in Peel Region, for example, the municipality has had to turn down more than two-thousand potential spaces under the 10-dollar-a-day program because the operators were for-profit.
A spokesperson for Sudds says the minister would be responding to Smith to continue discussions on how Ontario can meet its space creation targets.
Child-care operators and advocates have also blamed Ontario’s formula for how it doles out funding for stifling growth — they say it is not covering their costs and the province has promised a revised formula soon — as well as the compensation levels for child-care staff.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 9, 2024.