Dear Premier McGuinty,

In 2006 budget, the your government allocated $63.5 million for child care for each of the next four years. Each year since $63.5 million went to support our vital child care services.  

If the Province does not continue this funding in the 2010 Provincial budget, Municipalities will have no option but to make dramatic cuts to child care subsidies, destabilizing the entire system.

Cuts to child care subsidies will have a huge impact on families:

• Thousands of low and middle income families will lose access to safe, quality care for their children.
• Parents may have to leave their jobs or postpone going back to school.

Cuts to child care subisidies will also impact on child care centres and everyone will be affected. Cuts to subsidies will mean empty spaces in child care programs from parents who can not afford the whole cost. 

• Empty spaces mean centres will be forced to layoff staff and increase parent fees
• Many centres will close, and ALL will become extremely vulnerable

In the 2010 budget, we call on your Government to: 

1. Ensure the province provides sufficient funding to maintain existing levels of child care service; and recognize cost of the living and other legitimate increases in operating costs;
2. Provide all necessary tools to support the transition to an Early Learning Program - including base funding for child care programs to support operations and wages, comparable to the full-day learning program, in order to ensure the child care system remains stable and sustainable.

Sincerely,