My question is to the Minister of Education.

A staffing crisis driven by low wages is threatening the accessibility of child care for families. Programs are limiting capacity, and expansion targets are at risk.

The minister was overwhelmingly told by stakeholders in their consultations that they need to properly compensate child care workers. In spite of years of raising these concerns, the province’s contribution to the child care budget remains flat. Staff have described this current wage floor as an insult.

Will the minister implement recommendations from the experts in the field to keep Ontario’s $10-a-day program on track?

Will the minister commit today to increasing ECE wages immediately, instead of waiting for yet another report?

Interjections.

I want to thank the member opposite for the question. As we conclude the session, we can reflect back on this past year as one of progress when it comes to affordability.

Putting party interests aside, this Parliament enacted a bill and a budget that has allowed us to cut child care fees by 50% for the families we represent—$8,000 to $10,000 in savings per year—and we will go further.

Of course, we need qualified ECEs. We need to recruit them and to retain the ones who work with our kids. It’s why in the program we signed with the federal government an additional dollar per hour has been committed per year—a commitment to install a wage floor for the first time and a clear commitment by the government to go even further.

Mr. Speaker, in addition to increasing access to the ECEs, increasing affordable child care options, we’re building 86,000 spaces. This is a monumental step forward for financial relief for the people of Ontario.

We’ll continue to work with the sector, with our workforce and our operators to make life more affordable for families across—

We’ve also committed to expand access to 86,000 spaces by announcing a $213-million start-up grant, where we literally help incentivize the marketplace—more spaces and therefore more workers in the communities that have a disproportionately under-represented amount of child care spaces to their population.

We’re going to get this right. We’re going to work together. We are going to make life affordable for moms and dads across this province.