Toronto opening eighth child-care centre for kids of essential and critical workers

Thestar.com
May 28, 2020
David Rider

The City of Toronto is opening an eighth child-care centre for children of essential and critical workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mayor John Tory announced Wednesday the immediate opening of the provincially funded centre, staffed by city workers in the Blake Street early learning and child-care centre in East York.

Service at the centres are free for children younger than age 12 but only available to workers deemed essential or critical by the provincial government. The safest option is for kids to stay home, Tory said, noting that is not possible for many families.

The new centre will let the city expand the number of kids beyond the current roughly 340, Tory said, adding that physical distancing and infection control techniques being used there will provide a “road map” on how to provide child care generally once the city is fully reopen.

Tory also announced that city staff will on Thursday put circles on the grass of Trinity Bellwoods Park to promote physical distancing. The park was crowded last Saturday, with many people breaking distancing rules.

The circles, used in other cities to help tell people how to use parks while keeping infection rates low, will “ensure compliance in a place that we absolutely have to do better,” the mayor said.

Tory also said that, as part of a gradual reopening of city services, Torontonians will now be able to exchange damaged or wrongly sized waste bins by calling 311, and most of the city’s drop-off waste depots are returning to normal hours.