By Lee Griffi, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Sadie-May Harrett has been director of the Tavistock Little Preschool for five years and had an opportunity to sign on to the federal Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care program (CWELCC) in 2022.
She had no intention of participating then as it didn’t make sense for her small business model until an email from Oxford County in August of last year arrived in her inbox. One month later, her hand was forced after county staff told her in late September she would lose out on all provincial funding if she didn’t sign onto CWELCC.
“We didn’t have to raise our fees by a crazy amount by not signing on, about $3 per day. Everything stayed the same until Jan. 1,” she said.
Harrett said there was no formal training to deal with the administrative burden she now faces, but she was given hundreds of pages of rules and question-and-answer pages to read through.
“The county is there to answer any questions they can. I will say, when the information was released, there were a lot of questions from operators across Oxford County in terms of how everything would work out.”
She added the cost-recovery program has turned into cost-based funding instead.
“What the government has done is come up with a crazy formula that barely makes sense to operators, let alone the average person. It comes down to what an average child would cost per day in Canada. There was no consideration for the fact some programs are half days, like mine, and some programs offer extended hours.”
Harrett’s half-day program is charging the same rates as a full-day program under the CWELCC system. Her rates have dropped from $27.50 per day to $22.
“Our government has fought long and hard to make sure Ontario parents are getting the best deal as part of the federal government’s national child-care program and has made substantive progress by capping fees at $22 a day for families with young children,” said Oxford MPP Ernie Hardeman. “This has reduced fees for 44 per cent of these spaces and lowered the average daily base fee to $19 per day.”
Harrett explained some additional funding has flowed to top up employee wages, but the program demanded a one-size-fits-all approach.
“That truthfully is where my issue lies,” she said. “I don’t disagree there are programs benefitting from this. Full-day child-care centres and families paying $50-60 a day for their child to be there do benefit. Those centres also have the resources to better manage the changes and the administrative burden that comes with it.”
Harrett said she doesn’t feel the program is sustainable in the long term and asking different providers to operate the same way across the board isn’t realistic. The federal government has hung its hat on the pledge of $10 a day daycare, something she said isn’t something she has faith in.
She explained she was able to be on the floor Monday to Thursday and perform the back-end duties in the afternoon and sometimes in the evening. What used to be about 15-20 hours of work has turned into much more. Because of the new administrative burden, she spends less time in the classroom with her educators and the children.
“Now, I’m doing hours and hours of work at home whether it’s new administration tasks or reading through and trying to understand the 400 pages of CWELCC guidelines.”
Harrett recently became a parent and explained while she understands being a business owner is a commitment, much of the time she used to spend with her family is now spent working.
“It has taken away from the reason why I decided this business and career was the best thing for my family. I set myself up with this career so I would have those extra pockets of time to be more flexible.”
She admitted she is not a political person by any means, but the Gazette asked if she thought a new government might make changes to the current CWELCC program.
“I am sure we will see major changes regardless of whether we have a new (federal) government or not. There’s no saying when I could potentially get the opportunity to go back to where I was, running my program and my business the way I want to instead of doing what the government tells me I have to do.”
The Gazette reached out to Oxford MPP Ernie Hardeman and was provided with a written statement.
“To ensure the success of the national child-care program in Ontario, starting Jan. 1, all direct provincial and federal funding has been reallocated to the CWELCC program.”
It went on to say Ontario will continue to advocate for parents, child-care workers and municipal partners to the federal government to build a sustainable child-care system.
Tim Louis is the MP for Kitchener-Conestoga and agreed to look into the issue as a member of the current Liberal government. He explained the decision to divert child-care money away from normal funding streams comes straight from the Ford government.
“The decision in this case is made by the province. We are building a national system but we are working with the province and they are dictating how it’s rolling out. One of the concerns I have is with Ontario coming on (to CWELCC) late; they are one of the provinces that aren’t $10 a day yet.”
He added he feels for the parents and kids who are affected and for the people who own daycares, especially in small towns.
“It has to be challenging and stressful.”
On the other hand, Oxford MP Arpan Khanna pointed the finger of blame squarely on the federal government.
“Just like everything else he touches, Trudeau’s child-care photo-op announcements have resulted in chaos and disorder, and he has broken yet another promise. Joining a waitlist is not access and announcing a program doesn’t mean it exists.”
He added Trudeau and Jagmeet Singh promised to make child care more accessible however, across Canada, daycare providers have pulled out of Trudeau’s Liberal-NDP program, more families are struggling to find spaces and child-care workers are walking out in protest of what he said were Trudeau and Singh’s failures.
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