How does Bill 10 Affect before and after school care providers?

[cfred]

The reasons Crazy Eight has stated - that is why we've been fighting so hard. Regardless of this bill, even though it is officially law, I still maintain that things can change. Liberals won't be in power forever. Given the mess Wynne and her cronies have already made, I suspect they'll be gone with the next provincial election. Lisa MacLeod had said that if she won leadership of PC party and subsequently won Premiere of Ont in next election, she would have the bill repealed. Sadly, she left the race, but we're still working with PCs. Another aspect to consider is public awareness. There are still so, so many people who don't know about bill 10 or understand it. I'm working on starting a new public awareness campaign with the Montessori sector, but it's in its infancy. The more people who know, the more people will get angry and maybe do something. This issue isn't just going to vanish.

This bill is not about safety at all. It's an absolute farce. They need to look like they're doing their job, putting us 'unregulated daycares' in our place and try to come up with more spaces for the parents who will be screaming for infant spots. With the new ratios in place in centres, you can expect to see more unfortunate incidents in the future.

[Emma H]

This is exactly why I was confused! They imply its for safety when clearly that makes no sense. I don't get why they don't just say it like it is because I find extremely offensive that they think we are stupid enough to believe that. I thought maybe I wasnt understanding but I think I got it now and this is all to get more money out of tax payers.

80% of people choose home daycares for a reason vs. a daycare centre. If people couldn't afford daycare center rates before I'm not too sure why they think they would now. Some people love the home aspect and the low ratios and their kids not getting sick all the time. If they eliminate home daycare spots to open up more daycare centre spots who already have a higher ratio to begin with, how will that help at all? Also in the news when a child tragically dies and gets hurt its all over the media toddler dies at ILLEGAL daycare! What in the hell is an illegal daycare anyway?! BUT when a something happens in a licensed daycare centre the media never ever says "infant injured at licensed daycare" the licensed part is usually taken out and never really talked about. If you google daycare deaths those are majority at daycare centres! Ugh so annoying!!

If they were so concerned about a child's safety why don't they reduce daycare centre costs and reduce more money through subsidy! Daycare centres aren't any better then home daycares. I have worked/did co op while in school and after seeing what parents get in return for what they pay for, I made it my goal to open up a good home daycare to help parents and to educate their children and make time for everyone.

It just makes me so sad because I know my rates are pretty low 35 per day and if I increased it to $40 per day many families would have to leave. I had a part-time family who came 3 days a week and our Christmas party fell under a day where they didn't come. They couldn't afford one extra day and I felt so bad I let them come anyway. Many families out there really struggle with money and forcing people to go to daycare centres isn't going to help if they don't have the money for it!

Another thing is the providers who will continue to run their daycares illegally and will benefit now more then ever because they know people who can't afford it or people who have no time to wait on a waiting list will have no where else to go. So if the are trying to eliminated deaths like Eva Ravikovich they won't it's only going to get worse.

Why is the blame always put on the daycare providers and never the parents??? The parents are just as much to blame....like in the case of Eva Ravikovich that provider had 40 kids in her care and 17 dogs ....REALLY??!!!!! Vaughn is a smaller town so don't tell me no one knew this women had 40 kids and how do you not hear 17 dogs lol...I heard that provider had a pick up and drop off service....that is still no excuse...parents have a responsibility as well and its time they are held liable and not just the provider....that day care also had so many complaints that the government failed to investigate!

[33 Daiseys]

What i want to know is how this will affect summer programs run by the city. Eg, soccer camp. Do they now have to go by he same age restrictions?

[cfred]

They DID know, Emma. They perhaps didn't know exactly how many kids, but there were 4 complaints lodged with the ministry against that particular business. The ministry went once, told them what needed fixing....and never returned for follow up. This is 100% an oversight issue. I'm not sure if you've been following this whole thing. But, the AG report shows that the licensed sector had a much, much higher incident rate than the unregulated sector. 29,000 serious injuries, fires, cases of abuse, neglect and 6 deaths. What constitutes a serious injury is outlined in the AG report. Liz Sandals stated in a meeting that these serious occurrences were 'scraped knees and elbows' and 'burnt toast setting off the smoke alarm'. By reading the AG report, we know that this is a flat out lie. Concussions, broken bones, cuts.....not bandaid material. One could argue, perhaps with validity, that not as many incidents are reported in the unlicensed sector. Fair enough...but you can't hide an infant/child death. They have SIX!!! Unregulated had six as well. But....we have 78% of the market....they have 22%. Let that comparison sink in a bit......Liz chalked all the licensed deaths up to SIDS. Ok....who's to say they ALL weren't SIDS??? The coroner's office doesn't release that information. Aside from that, only 1 death on the unregulated side occurred with a provider following the current rules (DNA)...and was ruled accidental. The simple fact is that our business have been proven to be safer than licensed. The issue is not with legislation, it's with the Ministry and their severe lack of oversight. They HAD to push this bill through quickly, BEFORE the AG report came out because it pointed the blame squarely at them.

We did suggest offering us independent licensing because that way, we could take subsidy cases and actually eliminate the subsidy wait list. Nope. They want us in with Agencies. The agencies are the policy writers....they formed the bill. There isn't one thing about this whole schmozzle that's legitimate or even honest. And now, to rub salt in the wounds, they've begun a public awareness campaign. It doesn't come right out and SAY that we're the root of all these problems, but everything out there certainly insinuates it clearly. It's absolutely disgusting.

[Fun&care]

What i want to know is how this will affect summer programs run by the city. Eg, soccer camp. Do they now have to go by he same age restrictions?

They better be the same darn ratios. If their idea of keeping kids safe means smaller ratios then it would absolutely make no sense if they didn't cap summer camps as well. I think it's too bad because I don't necessarily agree that they should be capped, but like I said it wouldn't make much sense and I would be livid if certain programs were "exempt" from the newer tighter ratios. It's basically saying that certain programs can be exempt from SAFETY since that was the whole point of this stupid campaign.

[33 Daiseys]

They better be the same darn ratios. If their idea of keeping kids safe means smaller ratios then it would absolutely make no sense if they didn't cap summer camps as well. I think it's too bad because I don't necessarily agree that they should be capped, but like I said it wouldn't make much sense and I would be livid if certain programs were "exempt" from the newer tighter ratios. It's basically saying that certain programs can be exempt from SAFETY since that was the whole point of this stupid campaign.

The reason I ask is that i just signed my kids ages 5 and 8 up for martial arts. Looked into summer camp for the oldest to find out that so far, there are 26 kids in his age range so 6 - 10, with one adult, and one teen. At his place they have four different groups according to age, and for children ages 3 - 6 the have one adult instructor one teen and can have up to 20 kids.
When I mentioned Bill 10, they had no idea what I was talking about. The ymca has similar group sizes for their summer camps. How is this for children's safety?

[CrazyEight]

As far as I know, summer camps are still exempt because they only run for a short time frame. I believe if it is less than 10 weeks, then they do not fall under Bill 10, which is for "continuous care." It's ridiculous - they are still allowed to cram a gazillion kids into a camp with one instructor, and we can't have more than 5, including our own.

[Emma H]

[QUOTE=cfred;73586]They DID know, Emma. They perhaps didn't know exactly how many kids, but there were 4 complaints lodged with the ministry against that particular business. The ministry went once, told them what needed fixing....and never returned for follow up. This is 100% an oversight issue. I'm not sure if you've been following this whole thing. But, the AG report shows that the licensed sector had a much, much higher incident rate than the unregulated sector. 29,000 serious injuries, fires, cases of abuse, neglect and 6 deaths. What constitutes a serious injury is outlined in the AG report. Liz Sandals stated in a meeting that these serious occurrences were 'scraped knees and elbows' and 'burnt toast setting off the smoke alarm'. By reading the AG report, we know that this is a flat out lie. Concussions, broken bones, cuts.....not bandaid material. One could argue, perhaps with validity, that not as many incidents are reported in the unlicensed sector. Fair enough...but you can't hide an infant/child death. They have SIX!!! Unregulated had six as well. But....we have 78% of the market....they have 22%. Let that comparison sink in a bit......Liz chalked all the licensed deaths up to SIDS. Ok....who's to say they ALL weren't SIDS??? The coroner's office doesn't release that information. Aside from that, only 1 death on the unregulated side occurred with a provider following the current rules (DNA)...and was ruled accidental. The simple fact is that our business have been proven to be safer than licensed. The issue is not with legislation, it's with the Ministry and their severe lack of oversight. They HAD to push this bill through quickly, BEFORE the AG report came out because it pointed the blame squarely at them.

We did suggest offering us independent licensing because that way, we could take subsidy cases and actually eliminate the subsidy wait list. Nope. They want us in with Agencies. The agencies are the policy writers....they formed the bill. There isn't one thing about this whole schmozzle that's legitimate or even honest. And now, to rub salt in the wounds, they've begun a public awareness campaign. It doesn't come right out and SAY that we're the root of all these problems, but everything out there certainly insinuates it clearly. It's absolutely disgusting.[/QUOTE

That's even more upsetting and confusing! I'm only 24 and to be honest I just started paying attention to politics and voting. How could they not follow up!!?? Once again the blame was put on the provider, not the parents or even the government. I am not defending the provider, she was in the wrong and what she did was disgusting but those parents and the government need to take responsibility for what they did wrong instead of bashing all home daycare providers. That poor child was failed by more people then the daycare provider!

29, 000 serious injuries

How can they even make up excuses for that! What do you think will happen when these families can't find a spot at a home daycare or can't afford daycare centre prices?

[cfred]

29,000 serious occurrences including serious injuries, abuse, neglect, lost children and deaths. In a meeting between 2 CICPO Team Leads and Liz Sandals, Liz stated that the injuries were mainly scraped knees and elbows, the fires were things like the smoke alarm going off because of burnt toast and the deaths were SIDS. This is, of course, not to mention that many, many daycare centres were running on long expired licenses and had not even been inspected on time. The Ministry has been so back logged that even THAT part of their due diligence wasn't even being met. It's disgraceful.

They can't really offer up any valid excuses for what's in the AG report. What they CAN do and have been doing, with significant success, is to redirect the blame....to us. The new public awareness campaign continues to point to us. The HCCA, in a recent article, brings up the AG report and that in answer to it, they are calling on all home daycares to become regulated. If that doesn't suggest that the AG report was about us, then I must be overly sensitive.

I met with a town council member who is also a prominent member of our community and ran for PC MPP in the last election. She is going to bring this up to her Riding Association and see what they can help me do to start up a grass roots public awareness campaign to directly rebut what the Ministry and HCCA are putting out there. In addition, it will be a good opportunity to make providers and families aware of what's really going on and allow them a chance to have input into the regulations as their posted for public input throughout the regulatory process. I'm hopeful, that if I can get legs under this thing, that it will go from constituency to constituency via local events similar to the meet and greet I held for part of Lisa MacLeod's campaign tour. If this is something you or anyone else would be interested in participating in, let me know and I'll keep you posted on progress.

You're not the only one who never followed politics. I've never really been bothered with it...till now. Now it's pretty much all I think about.....until I go on vacation in 2 weeks and leave it behind. Who am I kidding? I'll still be thinking about it.....lol....

[cfred]

Another thing to consider.......the next Federal Election is in the fall. If PCs don't win then there's a solid chance that UCC will come into play (Universal Child Care). If that happens, and we're all still unlicensed, your options are pretty clear: Close your doors (who can compete with $15/day) or join an agency (and learn to love making less than minimum wage). If you're not active, you might want to get active. If this goes to a federal level, we'll have much bigger problems than we do now.