Make child care essential for economic recovery, city councillors say,
Economic recovery from pandemic relies on access to care, duo says
Toronto should declare child care essential for economic recovery from COVID-19 and urge Queen’s Park and Ottawa to start building a long-awaited national system that is accessible and affordable to all families that need it, say city councillors Joe Cressy and Mike Layton.
“There is a moment in history right now where we can finally replace a flawed, largely parentfunded model, with a publicly funded and accessible one,” said Cressy, who represents Ward 10, Spadina—Fort York.
“The question is, do we seize this moment as a country and as a province?” he asked in an interview. “We believe the city of Toronto should take a stand and help make that a reality.”
In their motion to city council’s meeting Monday to Tuesday, Cressy and Layton also call on the province to develop “a comprehensive plan” to ensure every child who was enrolled in licensed child care before the pandemic, has access to a spot as centres reopen this summer.
To prevent the spread of the coronavirus, provincial safety measures for daycare reopening limit group sizes to just 10 children and staff. But this will force centres to operate at only 30 to 40 per cent capacity, the councillors note in their motion to be released Thursday.
“This means that there will be 60 per cent to 70 per cent (fewer) spaces than before the pandemic — when access to child care in Toronto was already nearing crisis levels,” they add.
The city’s child-care capacity can’t return to pre-COVID levels until the province provides a plan to find — and fund — those extra spaces, they say.
Without a plan, at least 56,000 Toronto children may not be able to return to their daycares, Cressy said earlier this month, quoting city estimates.
Advocates have said work should begin now to identify unused public and private space that could be retrofitted for child care.
But even a return to the status quo will continue to exclude many Toronto families who have “long struggled with accessing affordable child care” and are facing multi-year waitlists and other barriers, the councillors say. Toronto has the highest child-care fees in the country, with the cost of infant care topping $21,000 a year.
Both Cressy and Layton have young children and say they have heard from many stressed-out parents in their wards who can’t return to work without child care.
Cressy’s son, Jude, was born in November, and Layton has two daughters, Phoebe, 4, and Chloe, 2. “I know my two-year-old won’t be going to child care any time soon because a lot of spaces will be lost,” said Layton, who represents Ward 11, UniversityRosedale.
As a result, Layton’s spouse has agreed to step back from her career for the summer to free up a spot for a family “that needs it more than ours” and doesn’t have grandparents to help, he said.
“Our economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic depends on access to affordable child care,” the councillors say in their motion.
“Parents can only return to their jobs if they are able to find a child-care spot for their children. This is especially true for women, who are more likely to be excluded from the workforce if they cannot access child care,” they add.
The councillors’ motion argues that child care is a sound investment.
In Quebec, where families pay less than $20 a day, child care produces $5 in economic stimulus for every $1 in provincial government spending. It is also essential for addressing gender inequity and tackling the pay gap, they add.
“Providing affordable child care creates jobs, reduces inequality and ensures that working parents are empowered to make decisions about what’s best for their family,” the motion says.
“That’s why all levels of government must work together to create a national framework for child care that is truly affordable and accessible to all,” the councillors say. “We cannot move forward into full recovery without a national child care strategy.”