This Sudbury, Ont., mother quit her job because she couldn't get affordable child care

Emilia Valente-Salhuana of Sudbury, Ont., quit her job at a career college because she couldn't afford private daycare, which isn't subsi‐ dized by the Canada-wide Early Learning and Child Care (CWELCC) system.

"We don't have the funds to pay for a nanny or babysit‐ ter and we don't have family as well to provide care in the area," said the mother of a 16-month-old son. "So yeah, I had to quit my job."

Valente-Salhuana's long wait for a child-care spot isn't unique. Waitlists across On‐ tario have risen dramatically since the province signed on to the national $10-a-day program.

Valente-Salhuana's son has been on the city's child care registry since January 2023. She's expecting her second child in about a month.

The city says the average wait time for a daycare spot in Sudbury is now 23 mon‐ ths.

Valente-Salhuana said if she could get a spot in a li‐ censed daycare, it would al‐ low her to return to work.

"Right now we are strug‐ gling a little bit financially," she said.

"My husband does have a relatively good-paying job, but it's not enough. I need to get back into the workforce, whether it be 32 to 40 hours a week, just for us to kind of balance out a little better. It would make things easier."

Valente-Salhuana said she loved her work as a financial aid administrator at the pri‐ vate college.

"It was a pretty good-pay‐ ing job."

To get a spot in one of the city's 75 licensed daycares, parents or caregivers have to register with the city's childcare registry.

"That online platform is monitored by children's ser‐ vices on a regular basis," said Miranda Mackie, manager of children's services for the City of Greater Sudbury.

"It allows us to capture real-time data about how many families we have wait‐ ing for care and in what age grouping as well."

Mackie recommends that parents get on the list as soon as they can, long before a child is born.

As of December, she said, 4,029 children were on the waitlist.

Jennifer Seaward said her seven-year-old son has been on the waitlist since 2019 and her two-year-old daugh‐ ter has been on it since Janu‐ ary 2022.

Seaward's partner works full time; she's a student at Laurentian University. While they wait for spots to be‐ come available, they are pay‐ ing for private home daycare.

"It's not able to be cov‐ ered by the subsidy because it's a private daycare," she said.

"So I'm having to pay out of pocket $50 a day. That's $500 every two weeks, $1,000 a month. It's financial‐ ly, a struggle"

Right now, she said, it's a struggle to cover basic ex‐ penses because of the high cost of daycare.

'Workforce in crisis'

Tracy Saarikoski is execu‐ tive director of Discovery Ear‐ ly Learning and Care, which runs four child-care centres in Sudbury and serves around 450 children each day.

Saarikoski said the sector faces a labour shortage that has led to long waitlists for a child-care spot because cen‐ tres like the ones she man‐ ages don't have enough staff.

"The workforce is in a crisis right now," she said.

"I work with the Ontario

Coalition for Better Childcare and it's across the province, this workforce shortage. It's because of low wages, no benefits, no pension plans."

Saarikoski said Ontario has fallen behind other provinces such as Manitoba, British Columbia, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island that have invested more in child care since joining the federal CWELCC system.

In January, Ontario in‐ creased the starting wage for registered early childhood educators by 19 per cent, from $20 an hour to $23.86 per hour. Registered early childhood education pro‐ gram staff who make under $26 an hour are also eligible for annual wage increases of $1 per hour.

But Saarikoski said early childhood educators in day‐ cares often make less than colleagues at school boards. While her workers have a benefits package, she added, they don't have access to a pension, as is the case in school boards.

"We hate that they're walking the floor and going across the hall," she said, re‐ ferring to educators who transfer to school boards to work in kindergarten class‐ rooms or with younger chil‐ dren.

If she had funding to pay better wages and add em‐ ployees to a pension plan, Saarikoski said, that would have the biggest impact on reducing the city's waitlist.

"Absolutely everybody de‐ serves a spot and all families deserve access."

Education Minister Stephen Lecce acknowledged recently that the national child-care plan would un‐ doubtedly mean increased demand, but Ontario is work‐ ing to increase the number of spaces.

"We have a plan to in‐ crease spaces across the board, 86,000, and obviously the government is commit‐ ted to keep building spaces well in excess to meet the de‐ mand of the families in the province."