Committee review

[AmandaKDT]

Alot of what is being described here is how it is in Manitoba. There is a shortage in spots and it is common to have families split there kids between 2 different daycares. Finding spots for 2 infants, especially in licensed care is very diffficult.

[CrazyEight]

babydom, I don't THINK they will have to issue a warning first. It is my understanding that this Bill makes it much, much easier to shut down daycares and to fine providers for going over in ratio - Liz Sandals has said, for example, that "her" inspectors will no longer need a warrant to enter a home daycare, and that daycare can be shut down immediately if they find grounds to. Also, they have upped the fines to $250,000 - yep, a quarter of a million dollars!! I for one could never take that risk.

[cfred]

They still need a warrant for independent home daycares. For agency care, no warrant necessary. That's my understanding. I seem to recall something being said that they'd need a warrant for unlicensed unless they had caught them red handed....something to that effect. Don't quote me on it and I could be way off base, but I recall something to that effect. And yep....if you're over and they catch you, $250,000. No courts, no lead up....just done.

[bright sparks]

babydom, I don't THINK they will have to issue a warning first. It is my understanding that this Bill makes it much, much easier to shut down daycares and to fine providers for going over in ratio - Liz Sandals has said, for example, that "her" inspectors will no longer need a warrant to enter a home daycare, and that daycare can be shut down immediately if they find grounds to. Also, they have upped the fines to $250,000 - yep, a quarter of a million dollars!! I for one could never take that risk.

This really just reinforces how this bill isn't actually about safety at all. The child who died in Vaughan was at a daycare with how many children? and how many dogs? And how unsanitary was the dwelling? Those kinds of providers wont see this as a deterrent at all. There was already the risk of a child injuring themselves or falling sick regardless of numbers in such an unhygienic childcare setting so if these kinds of providers couldn't give a crap about those basic things prior to opening their doors to every tom dick and harry, this isn't going to bother them either. They clearly didn't give a thought to the liability in their position thinking they were immune to the rules then. You are going to find other providers just like these who think this will never happen and carry on as normal. Without licensing and a database, there is no way to keep track of the actual people making childcare unsafe so no way to find them unless they are reported and even with reporting them there was very little follow up after all the other complaints and perhaps people will just become smarter at covering up and staying hidden in the wake of the new bill?!?! Breaking the rules is breaking the rules even if a provider is over by 1 child, but the children who died in care, which prompted this revamp of the day nurseries act in the first place, died in the care of a provider committing gross misconduct. Not just over ratio but neglect amongst other things no doubt too. Ratios won't mean anything to them even with this hefty fine because they clearly don't care about the wellbeing and safety of children. I can't even rationalize their thought process as it just makes no sense to me why a person not putting child safety and wellbeing first would even go into this kind of business.

[daycaremom9]

A concern among some of us is that they are setting the stage for universal daycare, which NDP and Libs all voted in favour of last week. This will leave all of us out of the loop. I can live with the bill as it is. My children are older and my ages are staggered...we've been through lean times before, and we can certainly do it again. What has many of us in an uproar and wanting to continue fighting is the flat out corruption and collusion that was involved in the making of this bill. It was absolutely set up to leave us out. This was being discussed in 2012 with AGENCIES!!! Agencies were involved in the whole policy writing process AND represented themselves as stakeholders. None of us even knew about this bill. It took 1 hour to get through 2 days worth of review of 90 amendments. Our concerns were never even considered in any meaningful way. It was an absolutely disgusting display of power. And, now the agencies have themselves a nice, shiny new loophole to take advantage of regarding waiving the 2 under 2. You know damned well that it won't just be used in the case of multiples.

I hope everyone in here is furious! You should be! You were all just treated like nothing.....you don't matter in the eyes of your government! We're not done fighting....we'll keep going and I hope everyone will join the cause. I'll let everyone know what the next course of action will be once we all have a chance to regroup.

Wow, this is very scary! I imagine they'll be eventually doing this Canada -wide. There was talk of institutionalizing daycare here in B.C. They claimed they wanted to include family daycares. I think they were going to subsidize daycare and charge parents $10/day.The speaker was very smug and basically told us we would have to sign on or we could give it a go on our own. Very hard to compete for $10/day!

[daycaremom9]

So what are the rules for being unlicensed?

[CrazyEight]

In Ontario? The rules I already laid out. Or are you asking about BC?

[Rachael]

Most providers around here who aren't following the rules don't do so for any of the reasons you cite.

Many are low income stay at home parents who take in a few children because they view it like babysitting and since their teenager doesn't pay tax on babysitting at the weekends, they view it as tax free income.

Some know it should be declared but don't care. Others are just naive. None of these people are opting into this business because they care about children - LOL - that's not why they do it. They do it because they view it as easy money. They sit the kids in front of a TV, let them play with cheap dollar store toys or yard sale crap, and all they actual do is babysit. Because they often don't provide food (parents do) and because their clients are paying them under the table rates, they don't care if they have 6, 10 or 20. It's no extra work for them since all they are doing is providing minimal supervision.

They often don't get reported because they don't move away from the screen long enough to go out. They usually will take kids from 6am until 6pm often opening the door in their PJ's. They don't teach and encourage the kids to so anything other than play quietly.

They aren't going into this business with any consideration of child welfare or safety, they are going into it as a means to make cash income from home. Even if they undercut the local market and charge $25 a day, that $200 on top of anything else they get, which is a grand a week. No expenses because they don't provide anything.

These are the people who make this business dangerous.

Sure, there are providers who do run as a business and go one or two over from time to time and although I don't condone that, it's the above which is the issue and it's the above which the regs aim to weed about and to do that, firm limits have to be set even if it hurts the good providers. The line has to be drawn somewhere, and the limits set, and where ever those limits happen to be, good carers will get caught up in the mix.

All in home providers here, registered or not, are the responsibility of Community Services. They may come into any day home, unaccounted, and close down instantly. For a registered/approved provider of course there are more regulations to abide by but an unregistered can equally be visited and closed.

Parents will be called to collect their children, fines applied and CRA informed so a full audit happens. It's not unusual here for fraud charges to be filed too if income is being hidden.

Will this get rid of all the bad/risky providers - no - but for the most part, unregistered homes follow the rules because the risks of not doing so are high.

For those individuals who cram the kids in and just take the cash - those personalities won't ever understand or care why the rules exisit but educating the public in terms of what they should be getting, and that it's not really cheap care when those in real financial difficulty get government help, or paying the going rate includes food, does help to make these dodgy providers more open to being reported.

[bright sparks]

Most providers around here who aren't following the rules don't do so for any of the reasons you cite.

Many are low income stay at home parents who take in a few children because they view it like babysitting and since their teenager doesn't pay tax on babysitting at the weekends, they view it as tax free income.

Some know it should be declared but don't care. Others are just naive. None of these people are opting into this business because they care about children - LOL - that's not why they do it. They do it because they view it as easy money. They sit the kids in front of a TV, let them play with cheap dollar store toys or yard sale crap, and all they actual do is babysit. Because they often don't provide food (parents do) and because their clients are paying them under the table rates, they don't care if they have 6, 10 or 20. It's no extra work for them since all they are doing is providing minimal supervision.

They often don't get reported because they don't move away from the screen long enough to go out. They usually will take kids from 6am until 6pm often opening the door in their PJ's. They don't teach and encourage the kids to so anything other than play quietly.

They aren't going into this business with any consideration of child welfare or safety, they are going into it as a means to make cash income from home. Even if they undercut the local market and charge $25 a day, that $200 on top of anything else they get, which is a grand a week. No expenses because they don't provide anything.

These are the people who make this business dangerous.

Sure, there are providers who do run as a business and go one or two over from time to time and although I don't condone that, it's the above which is the issue and it's the above which the regs aim to weed about and to do that, firm limits have to be set even if it hurts the good providers. The line has to be drawn somewhere, and the limits set, and where ever those limits happen to be, good carers will get caught up in the mix.

All in home providers here, registered or not, are the responsibility of Community Services. They may come into any day home, unaccounted, and close down instantly. For a registered/approved provider of course there are more regulations to abide by but an unregistered can equally be visited and closed.

Parents will be called to collect their children, fines applied and CRA informed so a full audit happens. It's not unusual here for fraud charges to be filed too if income is being hidden.

Will this get rid of all the bad/risky providers - no - but for the most part, unregistered homes follow the rules because the risks of not doing so are high.

For those individuals who cram the kids in and just take the cash - those personalities won't ever understand or care why the rules exisit but educating the public in terms of what they should be getting, and that it's not really cheap care when those in real financial difficulty get government help, or paying the going rate includes food, does help to make these dodgy providers more open to being reported.

I'm assuming you are replying to my post as I'm the only one talking specifically about what you are referring to.

I don't assume to know why a provider goes over on their limits but like you, I would hazard a guess that it is for the reasons you listed. I however was not referring to those particular providers. I was specifically referring to those individuals like in the Vaughan death case and others in Ontario who were already hugely liable, far beyond a 250K fine as they were putting the children in serious harm. That is what I'm referring to when I say no thought about safety and wellbeing. Disregard would require some thought and had those providers given it any thought, even without such a monitory fine, it would have been quite clear that at those numbers and conditions, it was high risk for a child to get ill or die. That particular daycare was reported numerous times with nobody following up. Numerous others that have made headlines and were running illegally on numerous levels were never reported to my knowledge. Without a database, so licensing to some degree, there is no way of keeping track. Unfortunately the deaths that have occurred have not occurred in homes of those merely operating over ratio by one or two occasionally, but through gross misconduct as I said. With mandatory licensing, anyone operating without a displayed license in a front window for example would be much more easily noticed and therefore reported. A provider behind closed doors with over 20 kids went largely unnoticed in the neighbourhood, so those who are over ratio but running a generally good program aside from that would largely go unnoticed to the GP who at large do not know the rules. I don't pretend to have a hard fast solution for this, but yes this is what happens when a few extreme cases hit the media and tragedy occurs. We all get painted with the same brush. It is also really irritates me that so many providers actually don't think its a big deal to be over by 1 occasionally in exceptional circumstances. Fact is that at those moments of being over ratio, the providers insurance, if they have any at all in the first place, are nil and void. There were numerous providers at day of action totally okay with it if it meant they could maximize their earnings. That's not me presuming to know what other providers grounds are for doing it. They are words right out of their mouths to my face!

[Busy ECE mommy]

Do we know for sure that it will be Jan 2016 before it takes effect? I thought there was talk of Sept 2015? Please clarify. Thanks.