Ontario parents hoping for $10-a-day child care had better keep their fingers crossed. The $695 million in new federal money recently announced by Ontario Education Minister Paul Calandra will keep the child-care program in Ontario afloat at its current average daily rate of $19 until the end of next year, but it’s not nearly enough to expand capacity or reduce prices.

As Calandra told reporters at Queen’s Park, “I don’t think, frankly, that we will be in a position to meet the $10-a-day program as set up by the federal government unless they are willing to step up to the plate and add the money that is required to get us to $10 a day.”

The shortfall is hardly a shock. When then prime minister Justin Trudeau announced the $10-a-day plan in 2021, you didn’t need to be clairvoyant to predi

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