Toronto Star
New provincial child care legislation, reintroduced by the Kathleen Wynne government this week, may give Toronto new powers to stop commercial child-care centres from gobbling up non-profit daycares when their leases expire, say city staff. If approved, the legislation may offer some protection to two non-profit daycares that are poised to lose their leases to a for-profit child care chain willing to pay more rent. Under the proposed Child Care Modernization Act, the provincial Education Ministry is still responsible for licensing child care in Ontario. But a new clause requires the province to consider the advice of municipalities when issuing a licence that is inconsistent with the municipality’s child-care service plan. If the legislation passes, Toronto could ask the province to deny Kids and Company’s request for a licence in these two daycare locations since the city’s child-care service plan clearly favours non-profit or public child care over commercial operations. Although the percentage of for-profit child-care spaces in Canada has grown to almost 30 per cent, the commercial sector in Ontario is dropping. Just 24 per cent of the province’s daycare spots are for-profit, the third lowest in Canada.