Most licensed childcare centres in Grey County opted-in to the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Childcare system ahead of the province’s deadline on Tuesday.
Grey County’s Manager of Early Learning and Childcare Tara Cockerill says in a email 90 per cent of licensed operators in Grey County have enlisted. In all, Grey County has more than 40 licensed childcare sites.
Eligible families with children five years or younger in child care centres enrolled in the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Childcare system will receive 25 per cent rebates of their fees retroactive to April 1, 2022 — the same rate fees would decline for the rest of this year.
“We are in the process of working with operators to flow funds out to eligible families for rebates, and funds have been released to 75 per cent of sites with more in progress,” Cockerill says.
Cockerill did not provide specifics in response to a question about some of the concerns of operators who opted-out of the new fee reduction scheme. Some childcare centres choosing to opt-out in larger city centres had concerns about their long-term revenue due to uncertainty of future funding amounts past 2023, media reports say.
“Each operator has their own reasons for opting in or out of the CWELCC system and we continue to work with all licensed programs to support the early learning sector,” Cockerill says.
Moving forward, the previous plan communicated by the Ontario government for enlisted centres was to move to a 50 per cent fee reduction by Jan. 1, 2023.
Cockerill says: “We continue to receive updates from the Ministry of Education about implementation of further reductions by January 1. We will communicate more details to families and operators as details are finalized.”
She notes the Ministry of Education confirmed 2023 guidelines are expected to come this month.
