Horwath’s NDP responds to federal child care funding

TORONTO — NDP Leader Andrea Horwath released the following statement in response to the announcement of federal funding for child care in Ontario:

“While this is welcome news for parents who need relief from the sky-high cost of child care, by holding out for an extra nine months, Doug Ford didn’t get a better deal, he just robbed Ontario’s parents of nine months of lower prices. They’d have about $2,300 more in their bank accounts right now if it weren’t for Ford’s bad choices — and he should rebate that money directly to parents now.

With child care fees that can be the size of mortgage payments, parents tell me they’re racking up credit card bills and losing sleep over how to stay afloat. They’ve waited too long for relief.

In 2019, Doug Ford cut $80 million from licensed child care across the province. Thousands of child care spaces were lost as a result of Ford’s cuts. With this federal funding, and with long-term support assured thanks to a confidence and supply agreement between federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, we can finally start to fix what’s broken, and move towards the universal, affordable child care system families deserve.

If elected premier in June my commitment to Ontarians is to work with the Trudeau government to get child care down to $10-per-day as soon as possible, expand the number of high-quality, public and non-profit child care spaces, and make sure child care jobs actually pay the bills.”