Representative image of daycare centers. Credit: Unsplash-CDC
Toronto/CMEDIA: Ontario’s early childhood educators’ percentage of registered child-care centres has reportedly been declining over the past few years, moving the province further away from one of its goals in the national $10-a-day system.
According to a recently published Ministry of Education report, while there has been a net increase in the total number of Registered Early Childhood Educators (RECEs) in Ontario’s child-care programs, there has been a larger increase in the number of non- early childhood educator staff in daycares.
Aiming at lowering fees for parents and expanding availability of care, Ontario signed on to the national program in 2022 in its deal with the federal government, when 58.9 percent of full-time staff in child-care programs were RECEs not far off the 60 percent goal that Ontario agreed to, but now, that share has declined to 56 percent.
Besides recruitment as an issue, retention has been a huge challenge, Alana Powell, the executive director of the Association of Early Childhood Educators of Ontario reportedly said.
“Unfortunately, it’s not totally surprising, because RECEs have been telling us for years that wages and working conditions are their biggest challenge…When we hear from early childhood educators about their decisions to leave the workplace, it does come (down) most often to …just their wages, but access to extended health benefits, dental, vision care, opportunities to participate in an RRSP or a pension program,” said Powell.
A wage floor for RECEs, set at $24.86 an hour, has been implemented by Ontario in 2025.
Not only do the wages need to be higher, but there needs to be a wage grid as well as pensions and benefits in order to make a dent in recruitment and retention challenges, advocates and some operators have said.
The ministry’s 2024 annual report shows an increase of 3,488 total number of full-time RECEs in Ontario child-care programs since March 31, 2022, while the number of non-RECE staff spiked by 4,426 during that time.
About 14,700 new RECEs would be needed by 2025-26 when the program’s full fee reductions are in place, said the previous workforce document, from January 2023.
Ontario’s plan to further reduce child-care fees at centres to $10 a day by March 2026, the national program will be an average of $19 a day, capped at $22.
Some centres are struggling to find and keep enough staff to allow them to operate at full capacity, let alone contemplate expansion, said Andrea Hannen, executive director of the Association of Day Care Operators of Ontario.
“It’s probably the biggest barrier to, in a lot of cases, to the viability of a lot of licensed centres, because if you don’t have all your rooms open you’re paying for space that’s not really generating any revenue for you, and that’s whether you’re commercial or not-for-profit,” she said.
“It’s also … certainly a barrier to expansion of the federal government’s $10-a-day program.”
In contrast to Ontario’s commitment to creating 86,000 new spaces in the program by the end of 2026, it has so far added 27,993 net new spaces, the recent ministry report said.
Ontario still has “quite a bit of work” to do to meet that target, said Jenna Sudds, federal minister of families, children and social development.
Although up to $1 billion in low-cost loans for public and not-for-profit child-care providers were announced by the federal government in the spring to build new spaces and renovate their existing centres, loans aren’t expected to start being awarded until spring of 2025.
“I do want to be clear that the province has adequate funds and has committed to creating those 86,000 spaces,” Sudds said in a recent interview.
“The dollars that we’ve put forward through this low-cost loan fund, absolutely we hope they will help, and I’m sure that they will help, but we still expect the province to be doing their part and to be putting in the work to make sure these spaces are created for parents.”
Education Minister Jill Dunlop wrote in a statement, “Not-for-profit providers play an important role but our municipal partners have told us that they cannot fill the demand alone, which is why we are advocating for more flexibility.”
“The cost of delivering child care in Ontario is among the highest in Canada, which is why I’m engaged in collaborative discussion with Minister Sudds to provide flexibility and reasonable funding that recognizes our higher costs.”
But Sudds said in her interview that she won’t allow Ontario to increase the percentage of for-profit providers.
“What I can say very clearly is that I will not be removing the cap…Undoubtedly, there are many for-profit operators in Ontario and in other parts of the country that…care deeply about providing high-quality care for families…but where there is venture capital, private equity, these are not necessarily operators who are here for the best interests of our children,” Sudds said.
