TORONTO - Dozens of children and parents rallied at the Ontario legislature Friday to demand the government maintain child-care funding in the upcoming budget.
The tots waved signs and threw inflatable beach balls in the air to send a message to Premier Dalton McGuinty that the ball is "in your court."
Tessa Spoule, a mother of two young children who sits on her daycare's board of directors, said the non-profit centre is facing a "horrible financial crisis" as a result of government underfunding.
"Today our board seriously has to consider whether or not our centre can continue to survive," said Spoule, 36.
"Losing our share of those (subsidized) spaces could very well mean the end of our financial viability."
Activists say one-time federal cash for child-care subsidies is running out after four years and the Ontario Liberals aren't planning to replace it with provincial funds in the March 25 budget.
"These cuts would radically destabilize the existing child-care system," said Andrea Calver of the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care.
"They'd have their toughest impacts on low-income families."
If the province doesn't come up with the $63.5 million a year in federal cash that's been built into Ontario's child-care budget over the last four years, the subsides will be cut back and about 7,600 kids will lose access to daycare, she said.
One report indicates that the loss would increase demand for welfare and eliminate thousands of jobs, Calver said.
At Sproule's daycare in Toronto, there are 23 subsidized spaces and 57 spaces where parents pay full fees.
"It's not that there isn't a need, it's that people in the neighbourhood can't afford the high cost of child care," Calver said.
"So those vacant spaces lead to a desperate spiral of the layoff of staff, raising parent fees, and we believe - if there's cuts to next week's budget - that we will see child-care closures in Ontario over the next few years."
Ontario's move to full-day kindergarten for four-and five-year-olds is aggravating the daycare crisis, Sproule said.
"We fully support the program, yet at the same time, we stand to lose a great number of our school-age spaces when that program moves into transition," she said.
McGuinty promised that full-day learning would free up about 20,000 daycare spaces across the province, but that won't happen, said NDP education critic Rosario Marchese.
Caring for children under the age of four is much more expensive, which puts an additional burden on daycare centres, he said.
"The opposite is true, in fact, because (the government) relied on the money that comes from the four-and five-year-olds," Marchese said.
"When you take that away, the others that are there won't be able to continue functioning without that additional support."
As a result, more parents will have to pay full fees for daycare, which can amount to $1,200 or $1,400 a month, he said.