Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'd like to thank the committee for the opportunity to participate in your deliberations on Bill C-303. I'm pleased to be here in person to represent the City of Toronto and to express, on behalf of city council, our full support for the provisions of Bill C-303.
I'm a member of Toronto city council, vice-chair of our board of health, vice-chair of the community development and recreation committee, as well as the children's advocate for the city of Toronto.
I'm here with Petr Varmuza, the director of Toronto Children's Services.
I too am a parent of two children who were fortunate to attend excellent regulated child care from infancy to school age, and who have benefited as a result.
Toronto is Canada's largest city and sixth-largest government, and home to a diverse population of 2.6 million people. The City of Toronto manages the largest child care system in Canada outside of the province of Quebec, with a budget of $336 million in 2007. As you know, in Ontario municipalities have a legislated role in the delivery and management of the child care system.
Toronto recognizes the significant contribution that high-quality, accessible, and affordable child care and early learning programs make to the healthy development of young children and the economic and social well-being of families and communities.
Toronto's child care system provides a range of services for over 65,000 children, including directly operated and community based licensed group child care, family home child care, after-school and summer programs, family resource centres, and special needs programs for children from infancy to school age.
Currently the city provides child care fee subsidies for 23,844 children in 16,000 families. Of those who receive subsidies, 50% pay no fee. Despite the size of our programs, Toronto still only provides services for about one-quarter of the children who need child care, and there are over 10,000 children on our waiting list for subsidized child care.
As you can see, Toronto has made a major commitment to child care and has a critical interest in the future of child care legislation and funding in Canada. Toronto's child care system is guided by a comprehensive service plan and operating criteria with established principles, service levels, program priorities, and program standards to ensure quality.
Toronto's service plan is focused on providing equitable access to services, high-quality programs, and planned growth in underserved age groups and communities. However, the city has been unable to make any significant progress, as the public policy environment and financing of child care and family programs has shifted dramatically over the past 12 years. Federal and provincial governments have changed program and funding priorities, forcing the city to change policy directions, fund services beyond its legislated cost-sharing levels, and often struggle simply to protect rather than expand services.
This has made the municipal role in service delivery and management challenging and unpredictable. Under ECDA, the previous Ontario government invested all the federal transfers in programs other than child care. This became known as the “ABC” policy--anything but child care.
Under the federal-provincial early learning and child care agreement signed in 2005, the Province of Ontario developed the Best Start plan to expand child care and early learning programs for children under six. As required by the province, the city developed a three-year service and infrastructure plan in partnership with school boards and other community service providers to develop new integrated models of service delivery.
Our plan is here and I've brought copies for you, if you're interested.
Toronto created over 3,000 new licensed spaces and 2,000 fee subsidies in 59 centres in the first year of Best Start. This was funded through the federal transfers, of course. An additional 3,400 spaces were planned, and provincial transfers were slated at $125 million annually. All expansion under Best Start or any new future funding program in Toronto will be delivered in the not-for-profit sector, or delivered by our municipally directly operated sector.
In 2006, when the federal-provincial early learning and child care agreement was cancelled, Ontario chose to distribute the final year of funding over four years. As a result, funding for Toronto was reduced from $125 million to $27 million per year.
These funding changes have meant the cancellation of further expansion under our Best Start plan, and a serious funding shortfall for the remainder of our child care system. Toronto is now facing a shortfall of $35 million, which, if not solved by the end of 2007, will result in the loss of 3,500 subsidized spaces.
The 2007 federal budget allocated $97 million to the province of Ontario for child care. The 2007 Ontario budget allocated $25 million for child care this year, and $50 million next year. Toronto has been allocated $6.8 million in 2007, and $9.1 million in 2008, far short of the $35 million needed to prevent service cuts, and far short of its per capita share of the federal funds. The remainder of the federal funds transferred to Ontario have not been allocated, and there is no indication whether they will go into child care or into other government priorities. The Ontario finance minister told the Toronto Star that the funds did not have to go to child care because they were unconditional transfers.
Toronto and other municipalities in Ontario, the level of government responsible for delivering programs, want and need a national legislative and regulatory framework to ensure that funds slated for child care go to child care.
Toronto supports Bill C-303 because it enshrines in legislation the critical elements of a Canadian system of high-quality early learning and child care services. This important piece of legislation will provide a legislative and regulatory framework to ensure that federal funding is transferred to provinces and service providers for high-quality child care and early learning programs; it will create a funding framework that requires provinces and service providers to meet criteria and standards that ensure programs are accessible, high-quality, universal, and developmental in nature; it will ensure that programs are delivered on a not-for-profit basis--and that is important, and we support it; it would require provinces and service providers to develop plans for a system of service; it will provide, through new reporting requirements, transparency and accountability for spending, which is also important to Toronto and to other municipalities in Ontario; and it will establish an advisory council to monitor and report on the operations and effectiveness of the act. We support this as well.
This is important legislation that will assist in protecting and enhancing early learning and child care in Toronto and in every province in Canada. Toronto is not alone in supporting federal child care legislation. Other municipalities, as well as provincial and local organizations, fully support the establishment of a national child care program entrenched in legislation and will be submitting letters of support to your committee.
In closing, I want to say that Toronto’s ability to succeed depends on the ability of our residents to contribute to the economic and social life of our city. Toronto’s future also depends on our ability to ensure that all children have the best chance possible to succeed. Investing in high-quality early childhood programs achieves both these goals.
In closing, I wish to urge members to support Bill C-303.