Province prepared to act on daycare wait list fees, Sandals says
Toronto-area parents say one-third to one-half of daycares charge wait list fees.

Thestar.com
April 1, 2016
By Laurie Monsebraaten

In the wake of parent anger over having to pay non-refundable fees to put their names on daycare wait lists, Ontario Education Minister Liz Sandals says she is prepared to act.

“I share parents’ concern over fees,” she said in a statement late Friday. “We are always listening to parents from across the province and will be looking into how we can regulate or prohibit child care wait list fees.”

As reported in the Star earlier in the day, the scarcity of licensed child care across the province - in Toronto there are spaces for fewer than one in four children - means parents are forced to put their names on multiple wait lists where fees can range from $10 to more than $100.

Although there has been no research on the prevalence of wait list fees, Toronto-area parents say one-third to one-half of daycares charge them.

Toronto City Council voted last summer to ban the practice starting January 2017.

But Toronto mother and lawyer Nadine Blum, who paid a total of $150 in fees to put her name on between 20 to 30 wait lists, wants them gone province-wide.

She and colleague Kelly Doctor, lawyers with Goldblatt LLP, have started a petition to ban non-refundable wait list fees in Ontario.

“We’re pleased the minister is prepared to act,” said Doctor. “But we don’t want to see any wait list fees. Even charging a modest amount in combination with the scarcity of spots and the necessity to go on multiple wait lists, still results in an undue burden on parents.”

The lawyers also want the government to address the issue of wait list transparency and how they are administered.

“We hope this will also prompt the government to look at the underlying problems with our childcare system that have allowed these kinds of unfair fees to flourish,” said Blum. “We have to start approaching daycare as a public good and not a market commodity.”

Blum’s local MPP Arthur Potts, a Liberal who represents Beaches-East York, is planning to present the lawyers’ petition to the legislature later this month.