More parents in Guelph and Wellington County are playing the waiting game.
Since the announcement of the $10-a-day child care program in Ontario in March 2022, the number of applications for child care centres operated by the County of Wellington has more than doubled, going up 119 per cent, according to the county's director of children's early years.
“The demand for child care has grown significantly,” said Mandy Koroniak.
She wasn’t able to provide an exact figure for the wait list community-wide because there is no community-wide wait list locally.
Koroniak did note for other child care centres not owned by the county, the message she’s been hearing is much the same.
“We have been hearing across the system the demand for child care has grown significantly,” she said.
The county is launching a centralized application and wait list in April. The county said it will be able to manage applications for multiple licensed programs, allow families to explore options and more.
Across the province, the wait lists have risen significantly.
In the Region of Waterloo, the wait list has grown 115 per cent since $10-a-day was announced. Niagara Region has seen a wait list jump of 76 per cent.
Ontario has promised to create 86,000 child-care spaces by 2026, which includes the 41,000 spots added since 2019.
The province has set a growth target of 1,721 childcare spaces for Guelph and Wellington County between 2022 and 2026.
Currently, there are 2,406 full-day, full-time licensed childcare spaces for infants, toddlers and preschool in Guelph and Wellington County.
However, government officials have warned the province could be short 8,500 ECE’s by that time. Koroniak said staffing remains a significant concern in all of this.
“We hear that programs may have trouble maintaining an adequate staffing complement,” she said. “This certainly makes it more difficult to grow the system.”
In June 2023, the county’s social services manager Luisa Artuso stated it’s tough to attract an early childhood educator workforce at a $19 an hour wage.
“We’re literally competing against Walmart,” she said.
Since then, the province has announced a wage increase, pushing the starting wage of registered ECEs working for a facility that opted into the CWELCC system to $23.86 an hour, as of Jan. 1.
The pay increase applied to both new hires and current workers making less than the amount.
The province has also stated the starting wages will go up by a dollar an hour each year through to 2026.
Koroniak said accessing capital funding, adequately staffing the programs and recognizing fair wages for ECEs is what is required to grow the system.