Toronto’s daycare dilemma,
The Toronto area has among the highest daycare fees in the country, with licensed centres downtown charging an average of $19,200 a year per child.
If the New Democrats are elected on Oct. 19, Leader Thomas Mulcair has promised to create up to one million new child care spots costing no more than $15 a day.
The Star asked three families with young children to assess how the NDP’s child care platform would affect them. High Park parents Lliam and Angela Cole Lliam, Occupation: Advertising, sales, marketing and promotion Angela, Occupation: Bank analyst Annual family income: About $100,000
Lliam Cole has a daycare dilemma. Times two.
The new father of twins — “sleep is for the weak, or childless,” he says — is looking at a monthly daycare bill of at least $1,800 when his wife, Angela, returns to work next June. That is more than his family pays to rent the top floor of a High Park triplex.
At an annual cost of more than $21,000, Angela would be spending most of her take-home pay on care for twins Adam and Alex, says Cole, 38. The family would be financially better off if Angela, 31, quit work and Lliam could deduct her as a dependent, he says. But Angela’s career at the bank is soaring and she can’t imagine quitting.
He says the NDP’s plan would change everything for his middleclass family, which earns too much to qualify for a full child-care subsidy, but still can’t afford to pay partial fees that would cost about $90 a day.
Flemingdon Park single mother Saleheh Jackson Occupation: Child care worker, permanent part-time Annual income: About $17,000
Saleheh Jackson knows she’s one of the lucky ones.
Her daughters Arianna, 8, and Surina, 4, are among just 25,000 Toronto children in low and modestincome families receiving a child care subsidy. More than 17,000 others are on the waiting list due to tight public funding.
Since Jackson and her ex-husband separated a year ago, her monthly daycare payments have dropped from $800 to zero.
“Without a subsidy, there is no way I would be able to work, so I am very grateful,” says Jackson, 28.
For low-income families such as hers who are already receiving a daycare subsidy, Jackson doesn’t expect much will change if the NDP is elected and makes good on its national promise.
“It’s definitely important to have subsidies to help people like me who can’t even afford $15,” she says.
A recent city report notes that just 36 per cent of Toronto’s low-income families with children under age 5 have access to daycare subsidies, meaning many low-income parents can’t work or study to improve their family situation.
Jackson, who fills in for staff who are sick or on vacation, works between 25 and 30 hours a week.
Stoney Creek single mother Rachel Davidson Occupation: Personal support worker Annual income: About $34,000
As a personal support worker, Rachel Davidson helps frail seniors and disabled adults bathe and dress in the morning and get ready for bed at night.
It often means being on the job as early as 6 a.m. and as late as 11 p.m., with long stretches of “down time” in the afternoon and early evening. The work also includes weekend shifts twice a month.
The job is a juggle at the best of times.
But for the 30-year-old new mother, the prospect of adding child care to the mix when she returns to work in November is daunting.
She likes the NDP’s promise of $15-a-day child care, but she doesn’t see how she could ever take advantage of the program.
“Licensed daycares just don’t operate when I need it,” says the Stoney Creek single parent.
“If I had a 9-to-5 job, it would be amazing,” she says. “But so many people in the home care field won’t be able to use it.”
Davidson says she will likely rely on her parents to look after baby Lorena.