Toni Tolomeo-Locantore. Photo: DR.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nMil\u00e9nio Stadium: How is your daycare implementing the new federal\/provincial program that reduces fees for parents? Why did you choose to participate?<\/strong>
\nToni Tolomeo-Locantore:<\/strong> The Centre applied to enroll in the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care know as (CWELCC) with our local service system manager who is the City of Toronto. Within 14 days we notified families verbally that we opted in to the CWELCC. By September 1,2002 we updated the parent handbook notifying families of the application. Within 31 days of CWELCC enrolment date- we reduced base fees for applicable families. Within 60 days of CWELCC enrolment rebates went out to all applicable families retroactive to April1, 2022. All operators would need to be in accordance with CCEYA\/CWELCC agreement.
\nWe chose to participate because we believe this will provide financial relief for families through lower licenced childcare fees to 10 dollars per day in 2025, also enable space creation so more families can access licenced Child Care to support their children and participate in the workforce and enhance quality through stronger qualified workforce, more recognition to the field.<\/p>\nMS: In order to comply with this program, did your daycare have to make any changes?<\/strong>
\nT.L:<\/strong> The main changes were to administration of the program and the fees had to be frozen from March 2022 and then rebates of fees had to be calculated as indicated in the guidelines. This Centre already provides the RECE\u2019s (registered early childhood educator) staff with a wages floor above the wages proposed in the work force plan. It also has 2 or 3 RECE already in our programs.<\/p>\nMS: Do you think the quality of service will be affected?<\/strong>
\nT.L:<\/strong> Yes and no, depending how each licensed childcare centre is operating. For centre\u2019s that have the required minimum of a RECE under the CCEYA (Child Care and Early Years Act)- to these centre\u2019s quality of RECE will have a big impact on quality. The Ford government is not doing enough to support the workforce in child care. The wage floors of $18 dollars will not attract high quality RECE\u2019s.<\/p>\nMS: Regarding parents, how has their feedback been? Have you noticed an increase in demand for vacancies?<\/strong>
\nT.L:<\/strong> Parents are very grateful in the reduced fees as other expenses are rising. Women wanting to go back into the workforce makes it less stressful and more affordable for them. The demands seem to be the same, but it\u2019s too early in the program to have an impact. Over the years we always see a greater demand for infants spaces, as these spaces a very costly due to the child and adult ratios having to be covered all day to meet licensing requirements. As the system is more stable and fees are reduced we will see a crises if spaces are not increased and the workforce issues are not addressed.<\/p>\nMS: Do you think that such a considerable reduction in values will have an impact on the future of day care centers as a business?<\/strong>
\nT.L:<\/strong> If the centre is a profit centre then the bottom line of what the owner makes will have an impact, because there will be guidelines, and everything will need to be transparent. Also, for non or profit centers the impact will happen if the government doesn\u2019t provide a plan for covering other costs of operating a business example, rent taxes, bills, insurance, wages\/benefits. If the government doesn\u2019t cover our daily costs by keeping fees reduced at a reduced cost, how can we continue to offer quality in programs?<\/p>\nLizandra Ongaratto<\/a>\/MS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Relief. This is a word that can summarize what millions of Canadian parents of young children felt when the Ontario government finally reached a deal with the Federal counterpart …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":103275,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4530],"tags":[4745,6425],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/bbc-creative-1w20Cysy1cg-unsplash.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103274"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103274"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103274\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":103283,"href":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103274\/revisions\/103283"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}