The provincial government is removing an annual wage increase that early childhood educators working in childcare centres have received since 2024.
New provincial guidelines will also keep the minimum pay at $25.64 an hour.
Carolyn Ferns of the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care calls the move heartless and foolish.
“The federal government is providing over $12 billion in funding to support childcare in Ontario, yet Premier Ford and Minister Paul Calandra are failing to pull their weight or invest the provincial dollars needed to sustain our workforce,” says Ferns.
Amber Straker, the executive director with the Association of Early Childhood Educators Ontario, views the decision as amounting to a wage cut.
“Without these increases, ECEs are going to experience what is effectively a wage cut, where everything else gets more expensive as wages stay the same,” says Straker.
“In the middle of both an affordability crisis and a horrific workforce crisis, freezing wages for our lowest-paid educators will only exacerbate these problems. Early childhood educators are worth more than this.”
Advocates also see it as furthering the difficulties childcare agencies face in recruiting and retaining staff and expanding programs.
