The OCBCC are pleased to share our latest report: Child Care Matters to Everyone: A Snapshot of Child Care in Ontario. In this report we try something new. We weave together recent data on child care in Ontario with personal perspectives to create a living snapshot of the state of child care in our province.

The voices highlighted in this report are each child care champions that we have engaged with over the past year: parents, early childhood educators, community activists and economists who have spoken to support child care here in Ontario.

Our analysis of recent data also highlights some startling statistics that serve as a reminder of why we need political commitment to build a real child care system. If child care spaces to continue to grow at their current rate it would take until 2065 to reach spaces for 50% of children 0-12 years. Fifty years! As the old slogan goes “Kids can’t wait!”

That’s why we’re organizing a new movement to push for the early childhood education and care system that Ontario deserves: one that addresses both affordability for parents and decent wages for staff, one that increases both access to spaces and quality of programs, and one that supports both expansion of new centres and sustainability of existing programs.