Child-care centres across Ontario allowed to open June 12, but with restrictions

Even though only some regions in Ontario will be moving to the next stage of reopening on Friday, all child-care centres across the province will be allowed to open their doors on that day "with some restrictions," Premier Doug Ford announced on Tuesday.

"As a father I know there’s nothing more important than the safety of our children; parents returning to work need to know that someone they trust will be there to care for their child in a safe and healthy environment," Ford said. "There will be limits on the amount of children in the centre, there will be more screening and more cleaning, and child-care centres will be able to reopen once they meet these guidelines."

Education Minister Stephen Lecce said the rules would be similar to guidelines that were in place for emergency child care that was first offered in March, but would go a bit further. The government first announced that it would be providing emergency child-care services for frontline workers — doctors, nurses, paramedics, firefighters, police, and correctional officers — on March 22, five days after ordering all daycares to close. The list of eligible workers has expanded since then, with grocery store and pharmacy workers, truck drivers, retirement home staff and food processing workers among others being added at the end of April.

"We’re scaling that up, but we’re actually enhancing the protocols, we’re enhancing the penalties, we’re enhancing the requirements imposed on our staff, we’re requiring now the service managers to have to conduct in conjunction with the local health officer training to ensure in this new world that these staff are set up to succeed and that their kids are safe," said Lecce.

The rules outlined by the government include:

• cohorting of children and staff in groups of 10 or less

• having a plan to respond to a child, parent or staff member being exposed to COVID-19

• screening staff and children and ensuring anyone who is unwell stays at home

• keeping daily attendance records to support contact tracing

• cleaning the centre before opening and during the day

• not allowing visitors into the centre

• having drop-off and pick-up protocols that allow for physical distancing.

Child-care operators are also facing heftier fines for not following the guidelines. Emphasizing a "zero-tolerance approach to non-compliance," Lecce said fines will increase by $1,000 to total $3,000 per day per child. He said the government would also increase inspections.

Lecce defended the government's move to allow centres to open province-wide even though some areas, including Toronto, won't be entering stage two on June 12.

"Parents across the province have said to us that they want to have an option…when it comes to their ability to work, and so we believe this is important from an economic imperative to enable parents to return to work in the current phase or in phase two and beyond," he said, adding that even though centres can technically reopen, some will need more time.

Lecce noted that the government developed the plan based on advice from Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. David Williams and medical experts including at SickKids hospital. Williams believes the cohorting of children can be done "responsibly," said Lecce, adding that measures that were in place previously have informed the reopening plan for child-care centres.

"The emergency child-care program we unveiled with the strictest protocols to ensure safety has largely worked and it’s worked province-wide in all regions of Ontario," he said.

Emergency child care, which was being provided to frontline workers at no cost, will end on June 26. Workers eligible for emergency child care will get "first preference" for a spot under the new plan, said Lecce.

"We’ll ensure that our first responders and our emergency workers continue to receive that support in a post-emergency-child-care world," said Lecce.

He added, however, that he thinks there will be enough capacity even with the restriction on group sizes.

"One of the assumptions we’re making based on feedback [is that] not all parents will send their children to child-care centres, so we believe we’ll have sufficient capacity to enable parents to utilize child care should they need it given if they’re returning to work as part of the stage two reopening," Lecce said.

Parents who decide not to send their children back to a child-care centre during this time will not lose their spot or be charged, Lecce stressed.

While the premier suggested that a child-care centre would be closed with a single case of COVID-19, the education ministry later clarified this wouldn't be the case.

An official pointed to the cohorting decision, saying if an individual in one group tests positive for COVID-19, the entire group would likely get tested and be told to stay home for 14 days or follow whatever protocols have been established at the centre.

Centres are expected to work closely with local medical officers of health, both in terms of training and getting approval of their reopening plan. A medical officer of health could decide to close the whole centre if necessary, the official said.

As for testing if there is a positive case at a centre, Ford said it would be up to parents.

"They’re going to have to say if they want them tested or not tested, we can’t force anyone to test their children, I’d never do that anyways," he said.

Health Minister Christine Elliott noted that after an outbreak at the Jesse Ketchum Early Learning and Child Care Centre, both staff and children were tested, but that specialized workers are needed when testing children.

"We will continue to do that, we’re going to continue to monitor and we’re going to continue to test," Elliott said. "If there’s someone who comes down with COVID-19...it will be important to test everyone with parents’ permission."

Asked about additional funding for child-care centres, Lecce pointed to the federal government's wage subsidy program, joint federal-provincial rent assistance and previously announced supports for things like rent or insurance.

"So our program is flexible, it enables the government to provide support on a needs basis within our funding authority, to help these operators get through the difficulty," said Lecce. "That includes additional supports, for example, for deep cleaning or for PPE when required...the funding framework, the stabilization plan we unveiled, continues to be relevant today and continues to provide support."

The Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care took to Twitter to share their thoughts on the announcement, saying that prior to COVID-19, "child-care centres needed full enrolment and high parent fees to keep the doors open."

Now, we know that we need to reduce group sizes to keep children and educators safe, but without additional public funding either a) parents will have to pay more, or b) child care centres will not be able to afford to reopen.

— OCBCC (@ChildCareON) June 9, 2020

"Now, we know that we need to reduce group sizes to keep children and educators safe, but without additional public funding either a) parents will have to pay more, or b) child-care centres will not be able to afford to reopen," the group said.