Making Room for More Child Care in Mississauga

If you're a young parent in Mississauga, you know just how difficult it can be to find child care.

Families are spending months, sometimes years, on waitlists. Some parents are driving across the city just to drop their kids off before heading to work. Others are forced to make the difficult decision between advancing their careers and staying home to care for their children.

I’ve been there. When Rebecca and I had our 3 kids, I remember having the conversation about whether one of us should stay home. It felt like our backs were against the wall. 

And things have only gotten harder for young families - so much so that if you're planning to have a child, you practically need to get on a waitlist before you’re even ready to start that chapter of your life.

This is the new normal, but it doesn’t need to be.

I understand how challenging it can be to balance work and family. Between dance classes, travelling for sports tournaments, school, and other activities, my wife Rebecca and I spend a lot of our time together staring at a calendar. 

And as working parents with unusual job hours, knowing where our kids are is a constant activity. 

Times are hard for everyone, so the last thing today’s parents need is another obstacle just to make sure their children are taken care of while they're at work. But with so few childcare spaces available, competition is high and parents have very little choice in where their kids end up. 

And that’s where I know we can do better.

Right now, opening a new child care centre in Mississauga - even a small service operating out of a home - means navigating a complicated maze of municipal bureaucratic zoning requirements. Some of these rules overlap, conflict with one another, and most have absolutely nothing to do with providing safe, high-quality child care. Worse, they drive up the costs associated with the service, which parents are stuck footing the bill for. 

These unnecessary barriers and costs make it harder for child care providers to expand or offer new options to respond to growing demand. 

Child care services are a necessary part of any modern community, and Mississauga is making it harder for families to access them. 

As Mayor, I will eliminate unnecessary zoning restrictions and streamline the process of opening new child care locations across Mississauga so that parents have more choice about which option is best for their family. 

If it seems like a no-brainer, it’s because it is. Outdated, out of touch leadership has completely missed this growing issue and has forced people into difficult family planning decisions. 

The City of Mississauga shouldn’t be the deciding factor in whether you’re ready to start a family or whether you can pursue a career. And City Hall shouldn’t be an indifferent player in the challenges our young residents are facing.

We should be making it easier for qualified operators to establish facilities in our neighbourhoods, not putting unnecessary obstacles in their way.

And here's what I find especially frustrating.

Carolyn Parrish and Bonnie Crombie have spent years in positions of leadership at City Hall, yet these common-sense solutions have been overlooked.

While young families struggle to find child care, what are their priorities?

To raise property taxes to pay for their splashy campaign promises for subways and convention centres. Projects that the city can’t afford, and which won’t be built until our children are having kids of their own. 

It’s an example of how out of touch our city's political establishment has become with the everyday challenges facing young families.

Sometimes, solutions are simple. Doing the basic policy work to unlock more options for families with children doesn’t make an exciting photo-op, but it does change lives. 

Mississauga should be a city where young families can build a future, not a city that makes it harder at every turn.

On October 26, we have an opportunity to change that.

Let's build a Mississauga that works for families like ours.