Recently, Ontario has been looking to add spaces to its undersized, publicly-funded daycare program. But Ottawa has been pushing back, despite long waitlists. It’s reason? The additional spaces would come from for-profit centres.
In a recent interview, Minister of Families, Children and Social Development Jenna Sudds explained that Ottawa is keen to prevent the emergence of a “two-tier” child-care system.
“We’ve seen how private health care operations have gone, we’ve seen how long-term care that was privatized has gone in this province, and I think it is in the best interest of our province and of parents and children to build this public system,” said Sudds, who is a federal minister representing the Ontario riding of Kanata-Carleton.
Sudds’ statements reflect deep confusion about the real public policy concerns at play in the matter of child-care delivery and access — and the government’s role in mitigating them.
The minister is right that we should care about a two-tier system. But the tiers that should concern us are the tier of parents who have secured coveted subsidized spots and the tier who have not.
This latter tier of parents — who are frequently low-income — are funding the subsidized program with their taxes, while also paying full price for alternative child-care arrangements out-of-pocket. It is deeply unfair.
Sadly, this situation was entirely foreseeable. With the cost of care dramatically reduced, demand for the subsidized program naturally skyrocketed. To meet this demand equitably, the government needed to prioritize increasing supply.
Specifically, it should have incentivized as many child-care operators as possible to join the program. And it should have encouraged operators to open new centres or expand existing operations.
The government’s actions have done the opposite.
Ottawa has arbitrarily capped the number of for-profit operators that can participate in the program at 30 per cent. This cap has forced some municipalities to turn away for-profit centres that are interested in participating.
And as Canadian Affairs’ reporting has shown, poor administration of the subsidized program has discouraged entrepreneurialism. Faced with increasing costs and capped revenue, operators have been cutting services, deferring expansion plans, laying-off staff and staring down bankruptcy.
Minister Sudds’ opposition to a “two-tier” system seems to rest on two foundations: one relates to quality of care, and the other to for-profit operators profiting in a publicly-funded system.
It is worth unpacking both of these concerns.
In her interview, Sudds claimed research shows for-profit centres provide poorer quality of care than non-profit centres. If this is true, why is the government permitting any for-profit centres to participate? Any program that provides substandard care should be excluded from the program.
Moreover, why is the government simultaneously rolling out a national dental-care program that is entirely delivered by for-profit dental-care providers?
Quality of care should be a paramount concern in any publicly-funded program. But there are better ways of assessing quality than looking at a provider’s articles of incorporation or share structure.
Sudds’ alarm that operators in the subsidized program would profit from their work is also puzzling. The program already caps the amount of profit that any operator can earn.
Data also show child-care operators are overwhelmingly small-business owners and predominantly female. The government says it supports small business ownership and female entrepreneurship. And yet, when presented with the opportunity to do so in practice, its reflex is to be opposed.
This opposition speaks to a broader anti-business reflex that frequently manifests itself in the Trudeau government. This is perplexing. Companies create jobs and — unlike non-profit entities — pay taxes. Taxes fund social programs, including child care and dental care, to name a couple that come to mind.
This paper is not convinced that a nationally subsidized program is the best way to deliver child care. The current program best serves (frequently white-collar) parents who work standard, 9-5 weekday hours. It poorly serves (frequently blue-collar) parents who work evenings, weekends or shifts. It also privileges out-of-home care over private, flexible options, such as nannies or care by relatives.
But if it is set on this path, the government must urgently fix the problems it has created: a two-tier system that arbitrarily excludes thousands of parents.
Point about dental service providers was exactly what I was thinking. Additionally, there are day care rules and regulations governing their operation. If the government licensed a daycare and inspections are carried out, there can be no reason not to have every child eligible in the program. Another example of Liberal muddle head thinking.