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Quebec Daycare: Prices up for Debate
Source: Montreal Gazette, July 18, 2012
Excerpt: "An election campaign is just around the corner in Quebec, and the biggest issue will be tuition fees for post-secondary students…. If the provincial government can’t afford to keep tuition fees at current levels and invest more in the quality of higher education, the same could be said of child care, where costs are rising and demand for service is growing. Economists have debated Quebec’s subsidized daycare plan at length; some have concluded the program is of net benefit to the government because it allows more parents into the workforce and generates more income tax revenue. Even so, there is pressure to contain costs and raise the contributions paid by parents. The question is how to do so equitably."
Edleun Successfully Transforms Acquired Kelowna Building into Modern Child Care Centre in Underserved Market
Source: Canada Newswire, July 9, 2012 (news release)
Excerpt: "Edleun Group, Inc. …announced today the opening of its new child care centre in Kelowna, British Columbia. Having acquired a strategically located former church, Edleun completely retrofitted and repurposed the building expressly for use as a child care facility with 140 licensed spaces… The new Kelowna facility has received a favorable reception with 88 children in attendance during the first day of operation. Initial occupancy reflects the staging of occupancy during the summer season with September enrolment expected to increase as a result of strong community interest in this new, high quality child care centre. Edleun expects development initiatives like this centre to make a strong contribution to the Company's future profitability and cash flow. In addition, as this centre was completed with the Company's available cash and credit facilities, it is anticipated to be accretive to the Company's near term cash flow."
Statistics Canada Cuts Compromise the Tools Used to Understand the State
Source: Toronto Star, July 10, 2012
Excerpt: "We have now halted the collection and analysis of our most informative longitudinal information on our labour force, on the workplace, on health and health care, and on child well-being. Add to this our universal census of the population. How might Canada expect to meet the policy challenges of the future when we no longer have the ability to understand where we are today?"
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Europe’s Other crisis: Recession is Bringing Europe’s Brief Fertility Rally to a Shuddering Halt
Source: The Economist, June 30, 2012
Excerpt: "Europe's crisis is worse than it looks. As if the continent’s troubled financial markets and economy were not a big enough burden, a decade-long (and largely unnoticed) improvement in its fertility rate seems to have come to an abrupt end.... But whether countries have high fertility rates, like Britain, or low ones, like Hungary, the trend is similar: a ten-year fertility rise stopped around 2008 as the economic crisis hit, and started to slide in 2011..."
No Help for Parents in Toronto’s Latest Daycare Report
Source: Toronto Star, July 5, 2012
Excerpt: "A year ago the city set up a task force to find ways to help fund Toronto’s cash-strapped daycare system. There are more than 21,000 children whose parents can’t afford regulated child care — even if they could find a space — so the problems are severe. That’s why it’s so disappointing that the man who chaired the task force, Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti, split from the 11 other members and announced that the solution to the funding crisis is to quit providing the service. The city should somehow get the province to take over running daycare, he says. By going rogue with this buck-passing plan, Mammoliti has undermined his task force’s ability to get any action at all. If the city can’t put forward a united front on what needs to be done, the province won’t feel the slightest bit of pressure to help."
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ON: Toronto Task Force Split on Future of Daycare
Source: Globe and Mail, July 5, 2012
Excerpt: " Nearly a year after Toronto Mayor Rob Ford appointed a task force to find “alternative sources of funding” for the city’s cash-strapped daycares, the committee is limping across the finish line with a slim report, recycled recommendations and a major disagreement over whether the city should get out of the child-care business."
Why Universal Childcare is Essential for a More Equal Canada
Source: Child Care Resource and Research Unit, July 3, 2012
Excerpt: " If anything positive has emerged from Canada's growing inequality, it is that a conversation about "the Canada we want" has begun, as pundits and ordinary Canadians have begun to make the connections between health and wealth, public services and social justice, economics and democracy, taxes, inequality and social programs. Over the past year, public forums, blogs, conferences, and the media have explored these issues that came to full public attention when the Occupy Movement shone a spotlight on inequality. As this debate has gained strength, the idea that a national childcare program is a key piece of a more equal Canada has become part of the discourse."
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Today's Modern Parent: Daycare Poor, With Little to Save
Source: Globe and Mail, July 2, 2012
Excerpt: "Statistics Canada reported in March that couples with children carry one-half of all household debt. On average, they owed $144,600 per household--26 per cent higher than the overall household average of $114,400. In an effort to weather these expensive years and mitigate the debt load, some parents are thinking outside the box, or leaning on family to help."
BC: Vernon Council Backs Early Learning Focus
Source: Vernon Morning Star, July 1, 2012
Excerpt: "The City of Vernon wants more focus on early childhood education. Council has supported a public system of integrated early care and learning in B.C. as promoted by the Coalition of Child Care Advocates. “The idea is there will be more co-ordination between the Ministry of Education and early childhood education,” said Coun. Juliette Cunningham."
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Ontario Planning Daycare Overhaul
Source: Toronto Star, June 27, 2012
Excerpt: "Ontario is moving to rescue its teetering child-care sector. The chronically under-funded sector has been on the verge of collapse due to the loss of 4- and 5-year-olds to all-day kindergarten. In a discussion paper released Wednesday, Education Minister Laurel Broten suggests $242 million in previously announced provincial funding over three years will be used to maintain and improve existing daycare services."
ON: Not Expanding Access to Child Care for Years Will Hurt Ontario Families and the Economy
Source: CUPE, June 27, 2012 (news release)
Excerpt: "With tens of thousands of families province-wide waiting for accessible, licensed child care, Ontario's Liberal government today announced that it does not intend to expand access to child care while it undertakes a three-year "modernization" initiative of the province's piecemeal child care system…. Equally of concern is that at a time when for-profit, corporate-style child care is expanding at a record pace in Ontario, there is no discussion offered on whether continuing to fund and license for-profit child care is good public policy, says Poole-Cotnam."
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