Toronto Star
When a home daycare is unlicensed, however, it means no one is actively monitoring what goes on, notes Rob Thompson, a spokesman for the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto.
“It is one of the grey areas, that, frankly, causes CAS concerns,” he said.
With the abysmal shortage of licensed child care in Toronto — there are licensed spots for barely 28 per cent of kids under age 4 — and costs often topping $2,000 a month, parents like Styles and Moore are scrambling for quality care in a fiercely tight market.
They say parents shouldn’t have to rely on unlicensed daycare because they can’t find or afford licensed care.
“It should be a public system with a licensed spot available for every child that needs care at a price parents can afford,” said Dana Suvagau-Greenlaw, a legal aid lawyer whose son Oliver, 22 months, attended Nikolic’s daycare two days a week last fall.