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City council must place hundreds of children on a waiting list for subsidized day care while it lobbies Queen's Park to come up with cash local taxpayers can't afford, a city committee recommended yesterday.
While city staff predict the wait list will grow to as many as 650 by year's end, neither they nor politicians in the city's community and protective services believe Londoners can afford to spend $3 million on a provincial program whose funding hasn't kept pace with its mandate.
"This is an urgent matter and the province needs to find the funding to go along with the commitment it made," Coun. Susan Eagle said.
Last year, Ontario's Liberal government changed the eligibility rules for subsidized day care, making it easier for parents to qualify. But without funds to match, waiting lists bulged, reaching 153 in London, leading council to commit up to $1 million while staff lobbied Queen's Park for more cash.
While the lobbying led the province to give London $1 million, that money will soon be gone and council will have to decide next week whether to create a new waiting list March 4 -- something that appears inevitable when even leading poverty activists such as Eagle see no alternative.
Those placed on the waiting list may still be there at year's end, she said. There are now 3,100 children with subsidized child care but that number must be whittled down to 2,800 this year and 2,600 next year for the city to stay within its budget. Until those new targets are reached as parents take kids out of the program, those on the waiting list are stuck, she said.
The new waiting list would be governed by rules different than those created last fall. While parents earning as much as $70,000 qualify for a limited subsidy, those earning less than $30,000 will get priority on the waiting list. So, too, will families whose children are referred to the child-care program because of developmental issues.
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Staff will plead their case with Charles Pascal, who advises Premier Dalton McGuinty on children's issues and will be in London today. The politicians have their turn in a March 28 meeting with area MPPs, including Youth and Children's Services Minister Deb Matthews.
The subsidy program pays all costs for families earning less than $20,000 and a diminishing amount as income rises, bottoming out at $1.75 a day for a family earning $70,000.
- reprinted from The London Free Press