While an additional 181 children in Northumberland County will receive licensed child care at four new child care centres in Port Hope, Trent Hills, and Cobourg through a recent expansion, efforts continue to create more spaces for area families to address a growing waitlist.
Provincial and municipal politicians, child care provider partners, and families gathered last Thursday (September 4) at the new Canton YMCA Child Care Centre in Port Hope to mark the expansion, delivered in partnership with the Government of Canada, the Province of Ontario, local municipalities, and child care providers.
With the addition of 181 spaces, along with 10 new spaces in Brighton in 2023 and 35 existing spaces converted to the new funding model, Northumberland County said it is making headway towards achieving a provincially set 2026 target of 245 additional child care spaces funded under the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care (CWELCC) program.
Lesley Patterson, the county’s manager of Early Years services, shared her thoughts and waitlist data with kawarthaNOW following the celebration.
“Northumberland County is committed to fulfilling our Ministry-allotted CWELCC expansion of 245 spaces by 2026,” Patterson said.
“These new spaces will improve child care access for families, especially those in rural communities. We also recognize that significant need for services remains in our community, and we will continue to advocate to the province and work with our partners for additional expansion for Northumberland families.”
Patterson said there are currently 2,167 children on local waitlists for child care. Kids are spending an average of 13.6 months on the waitlist.
The new child care spaces and their locations are listed below.
- 49 spaces at the new Canton YMCA Child Care Centre operated by YMCA Northumberland at 5325 County Road 10 in Port Hope and expected to open by the end of September
- 70 spaces at the Ganaraska Child Care Riverside site, which opened January 2 at the former Ruth Clarke Activity Centre at 81 Mill Street South in Port Hope and is operated by Ganaraska Child Care
- 47 spaces at the Warkworth YMCA Child Care Centre operated by YMCA Northumberland, which opened January 13 at 161 Old Hastings Road in Warkworth
- 15 new child care spaces at the Cobourg East YMCA Child Care Centre, which opened January 20 at the Northumberland Centre for Individual Studies at 780 D’Arcy Street in Cobourg and is operated by YMCA Northumberland.
“This is a significant milestone for Northumberland County in enhancing access to affordable, high-quality child care for local families,” said Northumberland-Peterborough South MPP David Piccini in a media release.
“The addition of 181 new child care spaces reflects our shared commitment, both locally and provincially, to supporting families and Early Years providers. Through investments made under the CWELCC program, we are making meaningful progress toward building a more accessible child care system for all.”
The county said local leadership also played a critical role in making these spaces available.
“In Port Hope, we recognized that one of the best ways to respond to residents’ needs was to look inward at our own municipal facilities,” said Northumberland County Deputy Warden Olena Hankivsky.
“By working with the county and local child care providers to repurpose existing community spaces, we have ensured that families in our municipality have better access to child care. We know that significant need still exists, and more work must be done. This collaboration between municipalities, other levels of government, and providers shows what’s possible when we work together on solutions.”
Ganaraska Child Care said the expansion is welcome news, alleviating a significant concern for some families.
“For many working parents, finding quality child care is one of the biggest stresses they face,” said Ganaraska Child Care board chair Tammie Staples.
“These new spaces will help relieve that pressure, allowing parents to focus on work and family knowing their children are safe, supported, and learning. As both a parent and a member of this community, I know how transformative this access can be and I am grateful to all those who made it possible.”
The initiative builds on Northumberland County’s expansion efforts in 2023 and 2024, and “reflects the strong, ongoing commitment of all partners to ensure more families across Northumberland have access to the child care services they need,” according to the release.
As for the waitlist for child care spaces, Patterson said there were 1,119 children on the waitlist in April 2022, with that number increasing to 1,910 the following April.
Although the number of children on the waitlist went down to 1,581 in April 2024, it jumped to 2,167 as of September — an increase of 586 since April.
Patterson noted this could be due to a reduction in the maximum CWELCC program base fees to $22 per day that started on January 1.
“Care is becoming more affordable with CWELCC, and this is possibly prompting more families to seek licensed care when they otherwise would not have,” she shared.
Patterson said another factor for the increase could be parents returning to work at the office instead of virtually from home. She added that waitlist data is dynamic and can fluctuate on a year-to-year basis.
“Reasons for these annual changes can be difficult to track, as partial contributing factors could be annual changes in family need and/or the timing of centre waitlist cleaning processes relative to the county’s point-in-time data collection,” Patterson explained.
