In a community where one in four children live in low-income families, news of a deal for $10 a day childcare comes with jubilation and a little frustration.
"This is something that should have happened a long time ago," said Unifor Local 444 President Dave Cassidy, detailing his union's fight for over a quarter-century to get affordable childcare for working families.
For Nicole Matchett, it's a game-changer. The entrepreneur, currently on maternity leave with her young son, hopes it will signal to women they don't need to choose between a satisfying career and a big family.
At an estimated $1,000 a month per child, the agreement between Ontario and the federal government could save a family of four $10,000 a year.
"The fact that we're going to be able to really just cut that down, immensely, will, I hope, encourage more people to have children that may be in a situation where maybe their income is preventing them from doing so," said Matchett.
She recounted how she knows women with one or two kids who would like to have more, but the cost of childcare puts that out of reach.
Fees will be cut by a quarter as of April 1, half by 2022, and down to $10 a day by 2025.
"The little bit of a delay for it to be $10 is a little bit frustrating for me, but maybe I will now have four kids," added Matchett.
The announcement has Cassidy thinking more about the former CAW Child Care Centre, which closed over a decade ago.
"Unfortunately, it couldn't sustain itself," he said. "People were not having children, the seniority of our members was going up, and it was just very, very difficult to maintain that."
He wonders if it's time the union revisited providing a childcare centre for its 10,000 members in the region.
"I'm not sure that Stellantis would have the same opinion as me because I know it cost them quite a bit of money on the subsidy side. However, rest assured, that will be an issue moving forward to see if there's something we can do," he said.
Asked if it would impact the Canadian Child Benefit, Windsor-Tecumseh MP Irek Kusmierczyk assured parents it would not.
He called the agreement especially exciting after last week's $5-billion announcement to build a new battery plant in Windsor.
Cassidy agreed, saying child care, while undervalued in the past, is crucial as investment returns after the pandemic.
The federal government first reached a deal with New Brunswick last July, and each province and territory has signed on since. Ontario was the lone holdout, but after two months of negotiations, the federal government has agreed to help create 86,000 new spaces and improve wages for childcare workers.
