MINTO – Council here has voiced support for a resolution calling on the provincial government to increase pay and benefits for early child care educators and child care staff working for licensed providers in order to combat a labour shortage.
A resolution from the Municipality of East Ferris, supported by Minto council on Oct. 17, states recruitment and retention of qualified Registered Early Childhood Educators (RECEs) and child care staff “has been a challenge that has been exasperated by the COVID-19 pandemic.”
The resolution further notes a “workforce crisis” in the early years and child care sector “has been further exasperated by the significant wage disparity between the compensation paid to RECEs employed by school boards and those employed in licensed child care centres due to lack of funding, which has created an inequity for workers with equal qualifications.”
The Ontario government has committed to a minimum wage of $18/hour for RECEs with $1 annual increases until reaching $25/hour, under an agreement with the federal government aimed at eventually reducing child care fees to an average of $10 per day.
However the resolution states the $18 minimum wage “does not provide an immediate response to attracting and retaining child care staff and will take many years to correct the wage disparity.”
In addition to increasing the $18/hour minimum wage and enhancing benefits to staff in licensed child care centres “to an equitable level” compared to those employed by schools, the resolution calls on the province to “launch and financially support an accelerated Early Childhood Education program, to be completed within 14 to 16 months, similar to the program launched in March 2022 for Personal Support Workers (PSWs).”
“They’re getting like $18, so they can’t get anybody to work,” observed councillor Ron Elliott.
“They want to get it up to $25 to kind of equal to what their peers get in schools.”
“We’re saying that that they’re underpaid and that’s the reason we can’t get any (workers),” added Mayor George Bridge.
He noted the proposed changes would not impact private child care providers that don’t receive government funding.
“The province, in their negotiations for the $10 a day daycare, has allocated (funds) to the licensed childcare providers based on wages of $18 an hour, eventually to get up to $25,” explained economic and community development director Belinda Wick-Graham.
“But the situation right now is that you don’t have people coming into the field to work for $18 an hour.”
Wick-Graham said the issue has been on the radar of economic development organizations around the province “for the last few months.
“They’re advocating to get that increased sooner than later, because there’s a huge workforce shortage. We need to get people back to work and a big part of that is childcare,” she added.
“We’ve got the same thing with PSWs. They’ve got to get paid more or nobody’s going to go into it,” said Bridge.
Streamlining regulations
Council also supported a resolution calling for streamlining of regulations to facilitate the attraction of health care providers to small communities.
The resolution, from the municipality of Huron Shores, asks the province to provide funding and change legislation to allow the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) to implement the following changes:
- exempt foreign-trained professionals from the regulatory requirement to have Canadian experience (re-do residency) where all other requirements are met; and
- implement Practice Ready Assessment (PRA) programs similar to those in use in other provinces.
PRA programs are offered in seven provinces across Canada as a route to licensure for international physicians who have already completed their residency and practiced independently abroad.
The programs offer a clinical field assessment over a period of 12 weeks. After completion, successful candidates must complete a period of service in a rural area.
The resolution also calls on the province to develop a similar tuition assistance program to attract family doctors to underserved areas of Ontario.
Bridge noted the timing of two resolutions matches the local council’s agenda.
“We’ve been discussing both these concerns,” he said.
