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Dr. Petr Varmuza

Excerpt: "Ontario’s first “Service Plan for Child Care Services” (1992) came into existence as a negotiated response to successive provincial governments’ dislike of Toronto’s long-standing effort to move beyond the administration of the child care subsidy system and equitably manage the provision of services across, what was then, Metropolitan Toronto. Additionally, the provision of municipally operated child care centres was a special target, as it is now, regardless the important function they played in the most disadvantaged communities.

Since then, service plans became a provincially mandated documents usually produced on a five-year cycle consisting of listening to the service providers and soliciting public input primarily from parents searching for child care or child care subsidy. Rarely there is a formal, public review of the accomplishments since the approval of the previous plan, including the full range of successes and failures. Once approved by the municipal authority, they often undergo minimum public scrutiny, ongoing evaluation and review."

Submission to the Government of Canada's Guide on Building a Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care System, August 2024

The Atkinson Centre urges the Government of Canada to ‘get it right from the start’ by enforcing the principles governing the building of the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Child system. Profit has no place in child care. Quality does.

This is the 5th edition of the Early Childhood Education Report (ECER). Established in 2011, the report is released every three years to evaluate provincial/territorial early years services against a 15-point scale. Results are populated from detailed profiles of each province and territory. The ECER scale is organized around 5 categories with 21 benchmarks forming a common set of minimum criteria contributing to the delivery of quality programming. This report captures changes to early years services from March 2020 to March 2023. As such, it is able to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on service provision, as well as the funding and requirements of the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care Agreements (CWELCC) at the half-way mark.

Excerpt: We estimate that in 2008 universal access to low-fee childcare in Quebec induced nearly 70,000 more mothers to hold jobs than if no such program had existed - an increase of 3.8% in women employment. By our calculation, Quebec's domestic income (GDP) was higher by about 1.7% ($5 billion) as a result. We run a simulation of the impact of the childcare program on government own-source revenues and family transfers. We find that the tax-transfer return the federal and Quebec governments get from the program significantly exceeds its costs."

The Building Bridges Handbook is a detailed resource guide developed in order to begin the discussion of what lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) families need in early childhood environments. The handbook briefly outlines LGBTQ terminology and history. The majority of the handbook examines the experiences of children of LGBTQ families in Early Childhood Education (ECE) environments. The handbook contains detailed suggestions for integrating LGBTQ families into ECE curriculum.

Excerpt: "In October 2021, the Atkinson Centre commissioned an evaluation to inform future editions of the ECER in the context of past experiences and in light of the intended development of a Canada -Wide Early Learning and Child Care system. This new policy direction and accompanying increase in public investment will require comprehensive data collection and monitoring to promote children’s equitable access to quality programming and provide accountability for public funding.

Dr. David Philpott, a recently retired professor from Memorial University with an extensive research and publication history, conducted the review. A total of 93 key informants representing four groups participated in the research: government officials in divisions of early learning and child care; academics and advocates; faculty in Early Childhood Education (ECE) training programs; and the ECER’s authors and funders, who provided background information, analytics and suggested key informants."

Posted on The Conversation.

Excerpt: "As Canada emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic, early education is key to the recovery of not just children and families, but of our social economy. Children have endured learning delays and many have seen worsening mental health. The pandemic has also rocked an early childhood sector that was already unstable and uneven. We must do better.

The newly released Early Childhood Education Report 2020 monitors quality and changes in early child education across Canada, and suggests critical issues to consider. The report is produced by the Atkinson Centre, a research centre based at the University of Toronto that uses best available evidence on early child development to inform public policy."

This is the 4th edition of the Early Childhood Education Report (ECER). Established in 2011, the report is released every three years to evaluate provincial/territorial early years services against a 15-point scale. Results are populated from detailed profiles of each province and territory. The ECER is organized around 5-categories with 21 benchmarks forming a common set of minimum criteria contributing to the delivery of quality programming. This report captures changes to early years services from March 2017 to March 2020, as such it is able to assess the impact of the Early Learning and Child Care Bilateral Agreements and serves as a baseline for the pre-pandemic status of ECE in Canada.

Posted on The News Forum.

Andrea Mrozek, Peter Shawn Taylor and Dr. Emis Akbari join Tanya to discuss the Liberal Government’s plan to reduce child care costs for all Canadians.

Posted on The Globe and Mail.

Excerpt: "Surprise! No jurisdiction in Canada is better equipped to create a system of high-quality, accessible early learning and child care; a system that can reduce inequalities in a way comparable to schools and health care. Ontario already provides early learning to a quarter-million – 90 per cent – of four- and five-year-olds in its kindergarten classrooms and requires schools to provide before- and after-school care where parents want it. More than half the province´s schools already have child care, and a billion-dollar capital program is under way to add more. Building on your existing public assets is the secret sauce in bringing high-quality early learning and child care to a neighbourhood near you. Ontario leads that parade."

Posted on The Conversation.

Excerpt: "Today’s Liberals have shown more gumption than in 2005 when they caved in to provincial demands in their rush to get everyone on side before the opposition forced an election. To date, Ottawa has stood firm on its criteria for non-profit delivery, better trained staff and — what they’re banking on as the vote-grabber — marked-down fees for parents. Any provincial proposals coming forward without these pillars get sent back to their respective capitals."

Posted on The Conversation.

Excerpt: "Among the parents we studied, we found that women with a history of early life adversity were the most vulnerable to mental health problems. But men with a history of early life adversity were still at greater risk for mental health problems than men without such early adversity."