Up to a year after most other provinces, Ontario has finally agreed to accept the $10.2 billion offered by the federal government for a subsidized childcare system.
Premier Doug Ford has repeatedly said that the money offered was not enough to bring Ontario's childcare down to the magic number $10 per day, Ontario having by far the most expensive childcare costs in the country. (Median monthly fees in Ontario run at $1,578, compared to $1,165 in Vancouver and $853 in Halifax.) The Conservative Ontario government did not want to be left stumping up money for the balance because, well, spending money is not what Conservatives do best.
But, months of "hard bargaining" later, Ford has jus accepted the original, unchanged federal offer of $10.2 billion over 5 years (with the addition of $3 billion for the 6th year which, as Trudeau pointed out, is not part of the core agreement, and which would have happened anyway). No doubt Ford will try and spin it as a famous victory for the provincial government - especially given that a provincial election is edging ever closer - but in reality, all that has happened is that Ontario is now several months behind the rest of Canada in its implementation of the 5-year childcare deal.
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