QUEEN’S PARK – Kitchener-Waterloo MPP Catherine Fife’s private member’s bill, Bill 98, will ensure stable public funding for quality, accessible and affordable child care by ensuring provincial funding goes only to licensed, not-for-profit and public child care spaces.
“Far too many families in Ontario can’t find quality, affordable, licensed child care for their children,” said Fife. “By committing all provincial funding to not-for-profit and public child care, we’ll ensure more parents will be able to afford high quality care.”
Only one in five families in Ontario have access to licensed child care for their kids. Not-for-profit and public child care is not only more affordable than what for-profit child care corporations offer, but has lower staff turnover and higher quality of care, research has shown.
“This bill is an important step toward building a better future for child care in Ontario,” said Carolyn Ferns of the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care, who joined Fife at the legislature Thursday to support the bill. “We need to ensure that every new child care space created in Ontario is going to be non-profit or public. We need every dollar going to our kids, not to profits.”