Social Services

Since the introduction of the Social Assistance Management System (SAMS) at Ontario Works, CUPE members and leaders have been working hard to resolve the appalling pressures that the system has produced in our workplaces.

Child care regulation changes threaten program quality

While Ontario’s Liberal government touts its commitment to child care program quality, changes they intend to make to regulations will – say early childhood education experts – threaten program quality, considerably.

Parents, child care activists and CUPE Ontario are opposed to these regulatory changes, which unfortunately can be made without any real public hearings or the agreement of MPPs in the Ontario Legislature.

Click here to visit the Save Child Care in Ontario page.

Throughout the pandemic, many parents have had to leave their jobs or significantly reduce their hours of work because of school and child care centre closures. COVID-19 has shown us all just how important accessible, quality early learning and child care is for families, our communities, and our entire country. Simply put, parents, the majority of whom are women, cannot fully participate in our economy without child care.

Watch the new video on our three big ideas on what’s needed to make universal child care a reality.

Ontario needs an early learning and child care system that:

• Is affordable for families, including a parent fee cap of $10 per day per family and options for lower-income families
• Provides decent work standards that respects educators, including a new salary scale starting at $25.00 per hour and adequate paid sick leave
• Halts the expansion of for-profit care and strengthen the not-for-profit sectors’ ability to scale up

Background

In April 2021, the federal government announced a budget containing what advocates have been calling on for decades—a plan to make child care universally accessible and affordable for families across the country. This plan hinges on stabilizing and reducing parent fees, bringing fess down to an average of $10 per day over the next five years and cutting fees by half by the end of 2022. The plan also outlines a commitment to increase the number of child care spaces and acknowledges that the early learning and child care workforce is predominantly women who earn a median wage of about $19.20 per hour.

What’s next for universal child care in Canada?

Each province and territory is working with the Federal government to structure bilateral child care and early learning agreements that meet the unique needs of families in each region.

Learn more about what the Ontario government needs to do in order create a universal system of child care in the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care (OCBCC) and Association of Early Childhood Educators Ontario (AECEO)’s Roadmap to Universal Child Care in Ontario.

Every day, CUPE members work hard to make our communities stronger, healthier and more inclusive. Many of our members know there is a fine line between making ends meet – and seeing the ends start to fray.

Dalton McGuinty has kept social assistance rates low, causing poverty to rise to unprecedented levels. Since the days of the cuts by the Mike Harris government, people receiving assistance through Ontario Works and the Ontario Disability Support Program have seen their income levels drop by almost 60 percent.

Click Here to visit the Raise the Rates page