On December 6, 2018, the Conservative government of Ontario proposed new legislation called “Restoring Ontario’s Competitiveness Act, 2018”. This legislation would be part of the Ontario Open for Business Action Plan which the Ontario Conservative government claims would give businesses more flexibility to create jobs in Ontario. One of the 30 actions under this Act would include the Ministry of Education allowing additional children to be in the care of home-based child care providers. While the provincial government claims that this change would make it easier for parents to find affordable child care, the cost of the labour continues to fall on home-based child care providers that are often underpaid, overworked and abused.
These proposed changes to the Child Care and Early Years Act, 2014, would remove restrictions on home-based child care providers to allow additional children. The impact of such a change would increase the number and ages of children that home-based child care providers care for. This reinforces the historical and ongoing privatization of child care in Ontario and Canada to the individual family/household. Governments have historically burdened individual families with the cost and responsibility of child care and these changes will only make it more difficult for home-based child care providers to manage multiple children in their care at once.
Not only will these changes impact the working conditions of existing home-based child care providers, but these changes will also impact the quality of care received by these children. By increasing the amount of allowable children to be under the supervision of one home-based caregiver, this decreases the capacity for attention to each individual child in one’s care that is needed for the safety and well-being of these children. At this time, the Child Care and Early Years Act 2014, allows licensed home-based child care providers to care for a maximum of 6 children under the age of 13. For a caregiver who is already working for 6 children, adding additional patrons to their care will increase their workload significantly. Additional children could increase stress levels related to the increased responsibility and workload of more children in one’s care. This proposed change does not address whether or not there will be increased compensation for the additional workload. Even if compensation is increased with additional children, this proposed change does not address the overall lack of decent and affordable child care in Ontario and Canada for the working class. For home-based child care providers working under Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program, the stress of additional children in one’s care is compounded with the precarity of temporary legal status, limited rights, unmonitored and unregulated workers’ benefits, and low wages. The lack of action from the government to address childcare needs continues to put the burden of child care to individual child care workers instead of a public child care program.
The issue of universal child care is once again set aside in favour of private home care that ultimately continues to lay the burden of child care on parents and working class families. The proposed change to the Child Care and Early Years Act, 2014, under the proposed Restoring Ontario’s Competitiveness Act, 2018 is another example of regressive government actions that counters progress towards genuine national childcare. The Philippine Womens Centre demands universal child care that is affordable and accessible for all in Canada.
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For more information, contact:
Victoria Partosa