‘This is going to give long-term certainty to families on what their parent fees are going to look like for the foreseeable future,’ says county official
Simcoe County will be getting almost $945,000 in extra provincial funding for early learning and child care in 2026, as the province continues its Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care (CWELCC) agreement through March 2031.
On Tuesday, county council learned that this new funding will help stabilize Early ON services, back the CWELCC system, and improve access to child-care services. However, the province hasn’t announced additional funding for further expansion yet, which means the county lacks resources to include some newly created spaces into the $10-a-day program.
Samantha Zuercher, who directs early learning and child care system management for the county, mentioned that staff were informed of the four-year extension from the province last week, highlighting stability across the sector as a priority.
“This is going to give long-term certainty to families on what their parent fees are going to look like for the foreseeable future, and for our service providers providing that child care,” Zuercher said.
The staff are requesting council’s approval for allocating $944,411 in new funding based on updated guidelines released by Ontario’s Ministry of Education in July. This amount adds to $650,810 in child-care infrastructure funding announced earlier this year.
The largest portion of this funding, $483,667, will support Early ON Child and Family Centres. This will help stabilize services while ensuring continued access to programs for children and families. An additional $386,348 will go towards supporting the CWELCC system by expanding affordable licensed child-care spaces throughout Simcoe County.
The province is also providing $74,396 aimed at digital modernization. This will aid both the county and service providers in preparing for a new provincial online system that covers Early ON services along with child-care applications, fee subsidies, case management and financial reporting.
This extra CWELCC funding acknowledges 64 new child-care spaces already approved within Simcoe County. By late 2026, it’s expected that there will be 12,993 affordable licensed spaces available for children under six years old.
Zuercher noted that Ontario is aiming for 86,000 new spaces by March 2027. Simcoe County anticipates adding 4,840 more spaces by December’s end.
However creating these spaces doesn’t automatically mean they can offer reduced fees via CWELCC right away. She explained this situation further.
“Spaces are continuing to be created but the challenge is we don’t have the funding to provide them in order for them to be able to give the parents the lower parent fee,” Zuercher said.
The next federal-provincial funding agreement will play an essential role in determining how much more growth can happen within this system moving forward.
“While they have announced they’ve extended the program, they’ve not announced any growth,” Zuercher said. “Our hope is that additional growth is part of that so we can continue to increase the number of spaces across the county.”
Collingwood Deputy Mayor Tim Fryer stated that councillors frequently hear about how well-received this program has been at municipal levels but agreed that having annualized funding would ensure better stability over time.
“With the announcement of the extra four years I just wonder if this is a moment when we should be making it clear as a political body that they need to annualize this funding so it has more stability?” he asked.
Mina Fayez-Bahgat from social and community services shared that Early ON operating dollars come year after year while operators have faced capped administrative burdens over several years now. He added that while they’ve received one-time funds for two consecutive years it’s “nowhere near enough” considering rising costs-especially those related to labor expenses.
“The base funding is always there; it’s just not increasing,” Fayez-Bahgat stated while mentioning ongoing discussions with Ontario’s Association of Municipalities regarding these matters.
The initial phases of CWELCC focused largely on issues like pay equity or space allocations; however those matters have been mostly resolved he remarked before pointing out current challenges involve lump sum payments from provinces forcing managers dividing among various services while operating costs keep climbing higher each year too fast.
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