The Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care, along with the Ontario Federation of Labour, is touring the province hosting community forums to discuss: lack of funding to the child care and early learning sector; Impacts of Ontario's Early Learning Program on child care; How to stop increasing parent fees; and ensuring that all child care staff receive decent wages.
For more information on the tour and campaign, please click here.
Below is just some of the media coverage that we have found from some of these events!
Windsor - March 1st - The Windsor Star covered our community forum in an excellent article. Please click here to read the story.
Peterborough - Dave Flaherty, Lindsay Post Reporter covered our forum in Peterborough in the article “Child care in dire need of funding, workers say” .
In Lindsay Ontario people are advocating for the need of more funding in child care. Sandi Ashton of Kawartha Child Care Services says that “there are always waiting lists for child care centres, yet there are not as many jobs. In turn, many child care professionals look at other career options or students won't show interest in the post-secondary programs.” She and her colleagues asked for a meeting with Liberal MPP Rick Johnson he informed them that higher wages are not out of the question but “the government froze wages of government ECE workers and said this year's budget is a unique situation with the province's huge debt.”
Click here to read the full article.
Kingston - February 18 - Erin Howe of CKWS Newswatch covered the Kingston community forum and interviewed OCBCC's Andrea Calver. To view the video, please click here.
Orillia - February 16th - The Packet & Times reporter Jennifer Burden attended our forum and discusses the OCBCC's emphasis on putting child care on the public agenda before the provincial election on October 6th, 2011. Click here to read the story.
Thunder Bay - February 9th - The Chronicle published a brief summary of the events by Evelina Pan, who attended the forum. Click here to read it!
Kenora - MPP Howard Hampton visits child care centres!
As part of the campaign, child care advocates in Kenora and Dryden have invited their MPP, Howard Hampton, to visit child care centres to see first hand the integral role they play in their community.
Hampton believes that the financial situation that our sector is in reflects the difficult economic times working parents must contend with on a daily basis.
"When you lose good paying manufacturing jobs that pay $30 an hour and replace them with service industry jobs at $15 an hour that's when both parents have to work," he said. "The need for childcare is escalating because both parents have to work to make ends meet."
Media coverage sais that Hampton noted the move to all day kindergarten in the school system increases the financial pressure on childcare centres which previously provided half day programs for children when they were not in school.
"It has taken a lot of funding from day care centres," he said.
He met with Kelly Williams Director of Children's Services at Kenora Association for Community Living, who said:
"We're concerned about not being able to have as many full time staff and going with more part-time casuals...We would really like to have a national child care program which, like education, is based on an annual budget. Currently, we rely on spaces and stabilization dollars and we don't know what they're going to be from year to year."
According to an article in Lake of the Woods Enterprise, Williams noted the demand for spaces for younger children exceeds availability.
If you find coverage in your community, please feel free to e-mail us a link or scanned copy!