Education Minister Stephen Lecce is refusing to say whether Ontario parents stand to lose out on retroactive rebates of thousands of dollars should the province fail to reach a childcare deal with the Trudeau government by the end of the fiscal year on March 31.
The federal government has offered Ontario $10.2 billion in funding to reduce the average cost of child care by 50 per cent by the end of 2022 en route to lowering it further to $10 a day by 2026.
During a news conference on Tuesday morning Lecce was asked multiple times whether the window was closing for parents to receive rebates for a portion of fees paid since Jan. 1, as has been the case in a number of other jurisdictions. So far most other provinces have already begun putting the federal money towards reducing childcare fees, with a number of them slated to issue retroactive rebates to parents in the coming weeks.
However, he said that the province needs “more investment” to eventually lower the cost of childcare to an average of $10 a day.