Thank you, Mr. Chair, and good morning to everybody.
Thanks for inviting the Association of Day Care Operators of Ontario to make a presentation to the committee. We appreciate the work you are doing to study this bill.
ADCO was founded in 1981 and is the industry association for Ontario’s independent licensed child care centres, both commercial and not for profit. Roughly a third of the Ontario families who use licensed child care rely on the services of an independent, licensed child care centre. Typically, these are small businesses owned and operated by women. Many of them are also registered early childhood educators.
ADCO envisions a thriving and diverse independent licensed child care sector. We provide our members with a forum to work together to continually enhance child care quality, affordability and choice for parents. Our goal is to help every family find the right child care fit—for both their child’s unique temperament and their family’s lifestyle, beliefs, budget and work arrangements. This goal is most achievable when governments prioritize parental choice.
Parental choice has four key elements: one, a diversity of providers, including commercial, not-for-profit and public programs; two, a diversity of settings, including centre-based, home-based, and workplace-based care; three, a diversity of hours, including full-time, part-time, occasional and 24-7 care; and four, a diversity of teaching methods so parents can choose the kinds of learning experiences they want their children to have.
Previous government efforts to introduce child care programs have not prioritized parental choice. Instead, they’ve funded large, public sector institutions versus smaller private and not-for-profit child care centres. Ontario families have seen this first-hand.
In 2010, when the province launched its full-day kindergarten program, forcing the closure of some 1,200 independent, licensed child care centres—both commercial and not for profit—not only were the kindergarten spaces in these centres lost, so were all of the spaces they provided for preschoolers, toddlers and infants. Since then, licensed child care has been far more expensive and far more difficult for parents to find.
ADCO is concerned that the proposed federal child care plan could have a similar impact across the country. If it follows a similar path—replacing existing child care infrastructure with new, public-sector institutions—it’s predictable that similar challenges will occur. These challenges may be even more pronounced because of the diversity of systems we see from province to province. Other organizations across the country share these concerns. Among them are the Canadian Council of Montessori Administrators, the Alberta Association of Child Care Operators and the Child Care Professionals of BC.
Canada’s child care sector is already fragile because of last year’s extended pandemic closures. Taking a national, one-size-fits-all approach is risky. It could close thousands of woman-owned small businesses, destabilize existing provincial child care systems, and cause chaos for families. This would leave taxpayers having to pay not just to create any new licensed spaces but also to replace all of the spaces that are lost.
Support for all licensed child care centres, regardless of their corporate structure or ownership, is hugely important in mitigating this risk. The most efficient way to do this is to fund families directly, so parents can make the child care choices that work best for them. Not only is this the fastest way to help families who are grappling with child care issues right now; it also helps ensure they’ll have access to the broadest range of child care choices for years to come.
In closing, ADCO offers this committee the following recommendations. One, prioritize parental choice by funding families directly through measures such as the Canada child benefit program. Two, respect provincial diversity; don't make funding contingent on changes in the provincial program and don't discriminate against small entrepreneurs who run child care centres. Three, support all child care spaces equally, regardless of whether they are in publicly owned, privately owned or not-for-profit centres.
ADCO looks forward to working with you to help all families find the right child care fit, however they define it. Again, it is about trusting parents and empowering families for the greater good of children and generations to come.
Thanks very much for your time.