TORONTO — Two months after Josclyn Johnson's 18-month-old daughter started daycare, the centre announced it was leaving the national $10-a-day program, which has left Johnson anxious about how her family will cover the new $2,310 monthly fee.
"We're sort of forced to stay in the daycare for now," Johnson said. She has not yet been able to find a space in another daycare offering the reduced fees.
"I work contract to contract, so while it feels like a waste to be sending her to a daycare right now, when I technically could do the care here, if I want to continue to grow in my career..." she trailed off, choking up.
"Today just feels pretty hopeless."
Sunnyside Day Care, with two west-end Toronto locations, represents two out of 14 centres in the city that have given notice to leave the $10-a-day system since the province announced a long-awaited new funding formula this summer. The national program subsidizes fees for parents, and in Ontario they have so far been cut at least in half, with a goal of getting to $10 a day by 2026.
Parents like Johnson have been paying $928 per month for a space in the toddler room.
"As a final note, hope remains, and perhaps (the program) will continue to evolve and return in a new and improved way," the daycare wrote in a Nov. 1 letter to parents announcing it was withdrawing as of Jan. 1.
New fees would be up to $2,565 per month for an infant space, the centre said, based on its pre-pandemic fees with "deferred annual increases relative to inflation" factored in.
But the parents at Sunnyside are mad, and they are not accepting the news quietly. They have sent the daycare a letter of their own, demanding a meeting and an explanation of why they feel they cannot stay in the $10-a-day program.
"This abrupt change, coupled with the tone of your communication, has conveyed a lack of empathy and transparency that falls far short of what we expect from a child-care centre so integral to this community," the dozens of parents wrote.
"We understand that there are challenges related to participation in (the program), but such a drastic decision merits an open, thorough dialogue with the families whose lives will be affected. Instead, your communication was conspicuously vague and unacceptably final."
The parents didn't stop there. The leadership structure of the daycare has always been unclear, they said, so they pulled corporation profile reports from a provincial database.
Two people — Holton Hunter and John McCallum — are listed as the active directors of Sunnyside. They are also listed as the active directors of Curious Caterpillars, whose two locations are also leaving the $10-a-day program.
Curious Caterpillars, care of John McCallum, is listed as the registrant for two other centres leaving the program — Alphabet Station and Alphabet Academy.
Teddy Bear Academy, which is also exiting the program, is listed as being registered by MVG Ventures, care of Holton Hunter. A website for MVG Ventures describes it as a venture capital firm.
All told, Hunter and/or McCallum appear to be connected to half of the centres in Toronto leaving the $10-a-day system.
Hunter and McCallum declined to comment on any daycare except Sunnyside.
"We hope that future changes to the ($10-a-day) program will evolve or be replaced with something that allows for increased viability, better access and more choice in selecting child care for all parents," they wrote in a joint statement as Sunnyside directors.
Education Minister Jill Dunlop said the apparent connections between daycares that are withdrawing are news to her, as provincial data shows that 96 per cent of for-profit operators have one or two sites, and are primarily women-owned small businesses.
Ontario has been pushing the federal government for more money, saying that the province has so far used the federal funding to cut fees for parents, but that little money is left to help operators add more spaces or help ease an early childhood educator recruitment and retention crunch.
Dunlop said she feels for the families in this situation, but did not indicate that there were any immediate solutions that could help them.
"I used child care at one time in my life with my children too, so I can imagine how upset they would be," she said.
"So my message to parents would be, I will continue to fight for affordable child care in this province for all families. I will continue to call on the federal government to increase the funding for their signature program."
New Democrat Bhutila Karpoche has spoken to the Sunnyside parents and said that people have made household budgeting and family planning decisions based on paying $10-a-day fees.
"This caught parents by surprise," she said. "In terms of family budgeting, in terms of commitments, in terms of household expenses and things like that, that's a huge, huge impact."
The province does not keep track of how many centres have withdrawn from the $10-a-day program.
York Region said one operator is pulling out as of Jan. 1. Peel Region said one operator exited in August before the new funding formula was announced. The City of Ottawa said no operators have given notice to withdraw.
A group of for-profit operators in the province staged rolling closures this fall to protest the new funding formula, worried it will mean a lack of flexibility and autonomy.
One operator, Zoe Prassoulis, said she is still wary about the program but is staying in it for now because it helps families.
"We've been very vocal with our parents that this is not carved in stone, and we're doing this for the affordability side," she said. "We see the need, and we see the benefit, so we're staying in it for now unless ... we see that it's hindering our sustainability and viability."
The ministry has been working with for-profit child-care providers to ensure they have accurate information about what types of costs will be covered and how much operating funding they will get, which seems to have allayed concerns, Dunlop said.
"I think the more that we do that, as child-care centres come forward with those questions, and we can answer truthfully and give them the details, I'm finding that things have quieted down," she said.
In Toronto as of last month, there were 233 for-profit centres in the $10-a-day system, or 72 per cent of the total for-profit centres in the city, according to a city staff report. On the non-profit and public side, 690 centres were participating, or about 92 per cent of them.
Jacqueline Stein, who was in a similar spot to Johnson's when her son's daycare left the program earlier this year, said she doesn't understand why some for-profit centres leave when so many others are able to stay.
"So many are trying to make it work and understand, understand the value that this has for families, and understand especially the values that this has for working women and mothers," she said.
"Typically speaking, it's not the man that has to stop working most of the time...This has significant implications for women especially, when daycares decide to do this."
Sarah Gaby-Trotz, another Sunnyside parent, managed to snag a spot for her daughter at another centre – no easy feat. But she is still upset by what happened with Sunnyside after only starting there in September, and is emotional about its toll on her family and so many others.
"I felt hurt and angry and really sad, because the daycare teachers are amazing...my daughter is a bit shy, and it was a harder transition for her, and they worked so hard to really integrate her into the classroom and make her feel comfortable," she said.
"She was just starting to march up to the daycare like it was hers...and saying all the names of the kids in her class and just really starting to come out of her shell and love it."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 20, 2024.
Allison Jones, The Canadian Press