Response to the Government of Ontario on proposed changes to the Child Care and Early Years Act (2014) and the Education Act: Phase 2 Regulations

Summary

This response is concerned with selected regulation changes—those listed in B1 (authorized recreation and skill building programs); D, D1 (tiered licensing, term of licensing): E1 (home child care); E2 (age groupings, ratios, maximum group size)—in the Ministry of Education’s February 1 2016 Phase 2 regulation posting. 

CRRU also has concerns about the policy development and consultation processes that produced these proposed changes. 

We are very disappointed that—rather than engaging with the child care community to collaborate on building the excellent, high quality, equitable ECEC system that would make Ontario a leader in Canada— the province’s activities have united the community  to defend quality and access. We would have hoped that by 2016, the conversation would have been different.      

We urge the Ontario government to abandon these changes and begin to put in place a comprehensive evidence-based policy process with the explicit aim of developing a full plan for a high quality, integrated, equitable, universal early childhood education and care system.