Starting in 2020, every child between age two and a half and kindergarten will be able to toddle into a licensed child care centre for free, part of a $2.2-billion push over three years to expand affordable access, Premier Kathleen Wynne announced Tuesday, one day before the budget.

The Liberal pledge – a key plank in an election platform rife with freshly unveiled social spending – would save families $17,000 per child on average, the government estimates.

“When child care falls out of reach for a family, it is most often the women, the mothers, who end up struggling with that tough call to either go back to work or to stay home,” Wynne said at an elementary school in Toronto’s Regent Park neighbourhood.

Wynne told a cheering audience dotted with young mothers that affordable child care is key to close the “stark” wage gap and work toward gender equality.

A February report by Gord Cleveland, a University of Toronto economics professor emeritus, found that, on average, families would have to spend nearly one-quarter of their after-tax income to access child care for a son or daughter up to age four.

“Child care affordability is a huge problem for Ontario families,” Cleveland said, calling it a “punishing financial burden.”

About one in five families with one child can afford licensed care in the province, his study found. Only very wealthy parents with two or more children can dig up enough cash for care.

Cleveland expressed hope the government would extend funding to increase affordability for infants and younger toddlers down the line, with staffing and licensed capacity “a real constraint” to that expansion at the moment.

By 2023-24, more than 125,000 children will have access to a free preschool space, according to the education ministry. That would bring the total number of children up to the age of four in licensed child care to more than 283,000.

Ontario would be the only jurisdiction in Canada with free child care for preschool-aged children, she said, adding that preschool care comes free of charge in many European countries.

Progressive Conservative MPP Lisa MacLeod said child care has remained “inaccessible” throughout the Liberals’ 15-year tenure, with little movement under Wynne. “She’s made it worse, and an 11th-hour, Hail Mary announcement today with money that she doesn’t have – she’s going to run at least an $8-billion deficit – is going to be a problem.

“She is pretending to be Oprah without the money Oprah has,” MacLeod said.

Oprah. https://t.co/t8jSJgJWBI

— Lisa MacLeod (@MacLeodLisa) March 27, 2018

During his one term as a Toronto city councillor, PC Leader Doug Ford, voted against the city using $3.8 million in provincial money to fund 264 child care spaces in 2013. “I’m not aware of that,” MacLeod said.

She expressed concern that independent child care providers “will be put out of business” or forced to raise prices for parents with infants and young toddlers.

“What I’m hearing is that this is potentially a job killer, and it may make child care more expensive for those who are younger than two-and-a-half years old,” MacLeod said.

Finance Minister Charles Sousa responded that the move is an “economic imperative as much as it is a societal imperative.” He said employment will rise as a result, with more women free to rejoin the workforce and the province poised to hire more early childhood education providers and personal support workers.

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath questioned the pre-election timing of the Liberal announcement and said the plan is pocked with “gaps” – particularly for those with children under age two and a half.

“You wonder about what the motivation is here,” she told reporters. “If it takes the Liberals 15 years to finally come up with something, I’m not going to complain about it. I’m just saying it’s unfortunate that they chose this path where a number of families are being left behind.”

Horwath said New Democrats will unveil a “comprehensive child-care plan … that covers everybody” along with its platform in the coming weeks.

“I can’t wait to see what Doug Ford’s going to have to say about child care,” she added.

While the number of licensed child care spaces in Ontario has grown 38 per cent to more than 406,000 since 2012-13, licensed care in Toronto exceeds $21,000 a year on average for an infant, the highest in Canada, according to a national survey last fall.

The province plans to create a provincial wage grid for child care staff by April 2020 that will attempt to align their wages with early childhood educators who work in kindergarten.

The government’s “historic” proposal is part of its 2016 plan to roll out 100,000 licensed child care spots for children under age four within five years.

The announcement is the latest in a string of pre-budget day funding unveils in the run-up to the election campaign. Over the past two weeks, Wynne has worked to woo voters with billions in social spending announcements, including for hospital operations and infrastructure, mental health and medication coverage for seniors — all in line with the key word of the Grit campaign: "care."

Preschoolers to get free child care, premier announces

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