TORONTO - The province is in danger of losing subsidized daycare spaces if the Liberal government doesn't act to fulfil its commitment to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on child care, an advocate said Wednesday.
Jenny Robinson, executive director of the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care, said given the current economic crisis, child care is more important than ever as parents go back to school or seek retraining to find work.
"Seventy per cent of moms with kids under the age of six have some kind of child care, so we really need it to operate our economy and to stimulate our community economy as well," Robinson said.
"On top of what's already happening with the economic crisis, this just adds to it."
Robinson said the Liberals need to fulfil the commitment they made during the 2003 election to spend $300 million on child care.
Her comments came the same day the head of Toronto's daycare service said the city is preparing to close up to 6,000 -- or one-quarter -- of all city-run subsidized spaces.
Closing those spaces could start as early as this fall unless there's a way to make up for a $63-million shortfall in federal funding, said Nancy Matthews, acting general manager of the city's children's services division.
Thanks to excellent record keeping, Toronto's daycare situation is often seen as a "litmus test" for the rest of Ontario, Robinson said.
"We suspect that it will be a problem across the province," she said.
"The system is incredibly underfunded, and as spaces or subsidies are put at risk, we'll start to see a disruption in service that will probably ripple out."
