The province's Child Care Modernization Act would ensure greater protection for children in child care, said Education Minister Liz Sandals in a recent editorial.
“There have been four deaths in unlicensed home care and the legislation that governs the child care sector is woefully outdated,” Sandals wrote. “In fact, the Ombudsman of Ontario recently released a report that stressed the need for urgent legislative change. As the ombudsman’s report clearly indicated, we need new legislation in place that will allow the province to provide greater protection for children, especially those in unlicensed care.”
The Child Care Modernization Act, also known as Bill 10, would amend the Day Nurseries Act, which was enacted in 1946 and has not been comprehensively reviewed since 1983.
The proposed amendments to the act would give the province the power to issue administrative penalties up to $100,000 per infraction to all child care providers.
The province would also be given the authority to immediately stop a child care provider from operating in circumstances where a child's safety is at risk.
The amendments would increase the maximum penalty for offences under the act to $250,000. The current maximum penalty is $2,000.
But Bill 10 has come under strong opposition from the Coalition of Independent Childcare Providers of Ontario and the Progressive Conservatives.
They have said the Child Care Modernization Act would eliminate up to 1,200 child care spaces in Sudbury, and 140,000 across Ontario.
In addition to stiffer penalties for child care providers who put children's safety at risk, the act would also limit the amount of children independent providers – not licensed by the province – can have under their care.
Independent child care providers can currently watch up to five children, not counting their own.
The bill would also limit independent providers to caring for no more than two children under the age of two at a time, and would change the definition of a child, for the purpose of the limits, from 10 to 13.
But the act would increase the number of children licensed home child care providers can care for, from five to six. If all current licensed home child care providers added one additional space, the province says it would create around 6,000 new licensed child care spaces.
“When I was a young mother, and balancing an unpredictable career schedule with the usual demands of a growing family, I often depended on unlicensed, independent care for my children,” Sandals said in her editorial.
“I make that point so that everyone understands that as the Minister of Education, with responsibility for child care, I firmly believe that independent unlicensed child care providers need to remain an important part of the child care sector, and an option for parents.”
During a demonstration against Bill 10 along the Kingsway on Sunday, Elyse Chamberland said its impact on independent child care providers could impact her ability to work.
“I'm a nurse and my husband works for CN, so we're both shift workers,” she said. “City daycares and school-based daycares cannot accommodate our hours.”
Simcoe North MPP Garfield Dunlop, the Progressive Conservative education critic, told NorthernLife.ca unlicensed child care workers care for nearly 80 per cent of children in Ontario who receive daycare.
“In the end they provide a good service with very few problems, or deaths, or anything like that in a long history,” he said.
