Bilingual daycare to reopen after receiving rent waiver

A Tunney's Pasture daycare is reopening after it was forced to close when its landlord, the federal government, hiked its rent to $14,000 a month.

Officials from Public Service and Procurement Canada and Treasury Board Secretariat were able to provide an exceptional rent waiver for Garderie Tunney's Daycare, Ottawa Centre

MPP Catherine McKenna said in a statement.

“I am very happy that Garderie Tunney's Daycare, a well-loved francophone and bilingual daycare in Ottawa Centre, is able to reopen with the support of Andrew Fleck Services and the federal government,” McKenna said.

“As has been made absolutely clear with the pandemic, childcare is not a convenience, it is a necessity.”

Garderie Tunney's rent went up six years ago when the Conservative government of the day mandated that businesses renting space in federal buildings pay full market value. The Liberal government offered a three-year subsidy to the rent in the Statistics Canada building in 2016.

The daycare was forced to close on Oct. 15 when various subsidies and grants that had kept it afloat since 2014 ran out.

There's a shortage of French-language and bilingual spots in Ottawa, and of childcare for infants 18 months and younger.

The Public Service Alliance of Canada joined the campaign to save the daycare, lobbying MPs and Treasury Board to find a permanent solution and pointing out that the government's throne speech had promised affordable, inclusive childcare.