Press Release
Ontario has filed a regulation to end fees for child care wait lists to improve the accessibility of child care and make life easier for families.
The ban will take effect Sept. 1, 2016, and will prevent licensed child care centres and home child care agencies from charging fees or requiring deposits to join child care wait lists.
The regulatory amendments also require licensed child care providers to:
•Develop a public wait list policy that clearly explains how children on a wait list are offered admission; and
•Ensure wait list status is made available to families, in a manner that protects the confidentiality of their personal information.
The regulation was developed with feedback from public consultations and from the Ontario Regulatory website, with strong support for a ban on wait list fees from parents, child care providers and municipalities.
The consultation period was open from May 17 to July 4, 2016.
“We listened to parents and heard their concerns about wait list fees,” said Minister of Education Mitzie Hunter.
“That’s why we are stopping this unfair practice. No family should have to pay to simply be on a waiting list for child care.
“We will continue working with our partners to build a high-quality and accessible child care and early years system that better serves Ontario’s children and families,” she added.
Ontario is the first province in Canada to ban child care wait list fees.
On May 16, 2016 Arthur Potts, MPP for Beaches–East York introduced a Private Member’s Bill in the Ontario legislature that would restrict licensees to charge non-refundable fees for child care wait lists.
In August 2015 the Child Care and Early Years Act, 2014, was proclaimed to strengthen oversight of the province’s unlicensed child care sector and increase access to licensed child care options, including before and after school programs where there is sufficient demand.
The province announced $120 million over three years in new funding in April 2015 dedicated to building more than 4,000 safe, high-quality, licensed child care spaces in schools across the province.
Since 2003–04, the government has doubled child care funding to more than $1 billion annually, and the number of licensed child care spaces in Ontario has grown to nearly 351,000—an increase of 87 percent.
