DOCUMENTS

An urgent message from the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care Tories Out to Destroy Child Care! Details contained in a leaked Ministry report indicate that the government is poised too to slash the child care budget (see attached press release and backgrounder). What Does This Mean? For early childhood workers – Wage grants are completely eliminated under all 3 options. This will result in an immediate 20% wage cut for staff. For services – Regulated child care cannot be sustained without public funding. The obliteration of public funding means child care programs, regulated family day care, nursery schools and family resource centres will collapse. For parents –Parents will be forced out of the paid labour force. For those able to find and pay for it, unregulated care – not early childhood education – will be the only option. For children – Research has re-peatedly shown that regulated early childhood education and care sets the foundation for life-long learning. Under the pro-posed options, this learning and nurturing environment will be-come unavailable to Ontario’s children. For employers – Reliable child care, which supports participation in the paid labour force, education and training, will not be available for your employees. For Ontario society – The enormous and varied possibilities offered by high quality early childhood education and care will be lost. At the same time, the considerable funds and other resources contributed throughout last forty years by government, by community groups, by em-ployers and by parents will be lost. Act Now: 1. Write or call the Minister of Community and Social Services and tell him he must kill this plan. Honourable John Baird Minister of Community and Social Services 80 Grosvenor Street, 6th floor Hepburn Block, Queen’s Park Toronto, ON M7A 1E9 Tel: 416-325-5225 Fax: 416-325-5221 2. Call your own MPP and send them a copy of your letter. If you need help finding the number or identifying your MPP call us and we will help. 3. Copy your letter to the two opposition Children’s Critics: Liberal MPP Leona Dombrowsky Queen’s Park, Toronto ON M7A 1A4 Fax: 416 325-6170 NDP MPP Shelley Martel Queen’s Park, Toronto ON M7A 1A5 Fax: 416-325-9556 4. Call or write to your MP and tell them to halt any further payments under the ECDI agreement until this plan is off the table and the Minister has given his personal assurance that the child care budget is secure. 5. Contact your local media – Newspapers, television and radio. Encourage them to do a story on the impact on your community. 6. Tell your staff, parents, friends, family, employees, employers, business associates about this alarming issue and ask them to add their voice of support by sending a letter or making a call. 7. Come to Queen’s Park on Monday, November 19th and watch as the Minister faces questions in the House for the first time. Queen’s Park Public Gallery Monday November 19th. 1:30 p.m. TIPS If we want to make sure this plan is stopped in its tracks we have to respond now and respond BIG! The OCBCC is making the following two demands: We want the Minister’s personal assurance that the child care budget is secure and this plan is dead or we want his resignation. We want the Federal government to halt any further payments under the ECDI agreeent until this plan is off the table When you write a letter or make a call, endorse the OCBCC demands and personalize the issue. Talk about the impact this would have on your program, your family, and your community. Use the information con-tained in our backgrounder as a guide. Share the information as broadly as you can. Photocopy material and distribute to all your networks, forward e-mails to your contacts, discuss it at every meeting and with every friend. What is the government saying? Ministry officials are claiming that the report is preliminary and has not gone to the Minister’s office. Take no comfort in this statement. Ministry staff do not work on reports like this unless the Minister has directed them to do so. Note: When a Ministry spokes-person was asked if the child care budget was secure they stated, “ I don’t want to speculate on what could happen.” Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care

 

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Last updated December 22, 2001

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