Child-care proposals come up short

Re Too young for the toddler room? March 7 In response to outrage about proposals to cut staff: child ratios, group size and monitoring/support in regulated home child care, the Star reported that a Ministry of Education representative said the proposals “strengthen quality, increase access and reflect the feedback we received from child-care licensees and other early years partners in response to past consultations.”

I beg to differ. Evidence suggests that these proposals would diminish quality as well as threaten access for infants.

I urge the ministry to make public the feedback it received in response to its past two attempts to reduce these regulations (2014, 2010), which were so negative that they were withdrawn.

What happened to the commitment to “a system of responsive, safe, high quality and accessible child care and early years programs and services that will support parents and families, and will contribute to the healthy development of children”? This is clearly not that. Nor is it helpful in representing Ontario as a leader in working toward a universal quality national child-care program.

This needs sober second thought. Martha Friendly, Childcare Resource and Research Unit, Toronto A child’s success is my success. I am strongly disappointed in the Wynne government for prioritizing cost-saving measures over early childhood investments, as indicated by their ridiculous proposal to lump 12-month-olds into the same room as 24month-olds in licensed child-care centres.

I am highly skeptical that this change, which would in effect place children in very different developmental stages together,