Horwath in Sudbury for last campaign push

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath was by Sudbury candidate Suzanne Shawbonquit's side Wednesday to give her campaign one last push before the Feb. 5 byelection.

“The campaign has been interesting,” Horwath said at Shawbonquit's campaign headquarters, where she attacked the Liberals' record on child care.

She also took the opportunity to address Glenn Thibeault's defection from the NDP and his appointment as the Liberal candidate for Sudbury.

“I hear every day a real sense of unhappiness around the arrogance of the Liberals,” she said. “People will be speaking to that in the way they vote tomorrow.”

On child care, Horwath said that while the Liberals supported the NDP's motion for $15-a-day child care across the province, their actions on that file have shown a lack of commitment.

“We are quite concerned about the Liberal cuts to child care funding, that are creating these losses of municipal centres in 18 communities across the province,” she said.

Early childhood educators with the city's Junior Citizens Day Care joined Horwath and Shawbonquit to share their concerns about local child care cuts.

The day care is scheduled to close June 30, 2015, and its 20 employees have already been handed pink slips.

“Every one of our people has been issued a layoff notice, and this has been directly attributed by the city to the cutbacks in the Liberal provincial government funding to the city,” said Darryl Taylor, a union representative with CUPE 4705, who spoke on behalf of the employees.

Child care services in Sudbury have received $1.8 million in cuts, and that number could expand to $3.6 million in 2016, says the NDP.

When the city announced in August 2014 it would be closing Junior Citizens Day Care, the facility was at full capacity, and took care of 110 children.

Unlike many other day cares, Junior Citizens is open until midnight, to accommodate shift workers.

Vanessa McMahon said her three-year-old daughter goes to the daycare, and does not have a backup plan yet after it closes.

She said she still hopes for a “miracle” and for the daycare to stay open somehow.

But in a response to Horwath's comments, Education Minister Liz Sandals said the Liberals have increased licensed daycare spaces in Sudbury by 164 per cent – to 3,684 spaces – since 2004.

“The NDP is absolutely wrong,” Sandals said in a written statement. “Since 2004, we have increased funding for child care in Sudbury by 110 per cent. The City of Sudbury continues to receive over $15 million for child care even though full day kindergarten is now available for all four- and five-year-olds.”