QUEEN’S PARK – Ontario’s NDP Leader Andrea Horwath sent a letter to Windsor Council today, urging Mayor Eddie Francis and councillors to push the McGuinty government on child care funding.
“I empathize greatly with the difficult position facing the members of Windsor Council regarding the fate of the city’s public child care services. The McGuinty government’s termination of Best Start funding has led to the drastic step of considering closing all municipal early learning and child care centres,” says Horwath’s letter.
“It is thoroughly unconscionable for the Government of Ontario to step away from not-for-profit child care knowing full well that financially strapped municipalities are unable to shoulder the added burden of cost. To be frank, this is another form of provincial downloading, which cannot be borne by municipalities. By abdicating responsibility for investing in universal, affordable child care and sustaining the excellent programs municipalities have built, the McGuinty government is creating a back door drive to the privatization of child care. This is outrageous.
“I would urge Council to view this direction with extreme caution, recognizing that a decision to outsource public child care spaces could set the most dangerous of precedents for the unraveling of the system now in place, for which many have worked very hard to develop and support.
“Study after study has shown that the best and most cost-effective model of early learning and care is the not-for-profit model. I will be calling on the Premier and his Ministers to help municipalities preserve their child care spaces by earmarking investments to sustain Best Start programs.
“Rather than funding all-day learning by closing community, non-profit child care spaces and forcing cities to privatize their services, the McGuinty Liberals do have a much more palatable option. They have the ability and the means to protect Windsor’s 425 spaces and 118 workers facing lay-off.
“I am requesting that Council join me in petitioning the province for specific investments in early learning for preserving existing municipal, not-for-profit spaces instead of closing affordable spaces and throwing more than 100 highly trained early learning specialists out of work,” Horwath concludes.
