Parents in Ontario town scramble after only locally-licensed daycare set to close

In the Haliburton Highlands, about two hours northeast of Toronto, is a tiny pocket of paradise.

Minden, Ont., is a town with its own veterinarian, dental office, handful of locally owned shops and restaurants and a single licensed daycare.

“It’s a huge part of my village,” said Christine Kemp, a single mother of four.

Kemp travels an hour and a half to attend Georgian College in Orillia, where she’s working toward her degree in social work.

She depends on full-time daycare at The Children’s Learning Centre for her four-year-old son, plus before and after care at the facility for her other three children.

So you can imagine her shock when she learned, in a one-page letter, sent home last Friday, that the daycare is slated to close on Friday.

“This totally blind-sighted us all. This could limit my ability to work,” she said.

“Hell hath no fury like a small town scorned.”

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Ever since the letter was handed to the 52 families with children enrolled at the centre, the community has banded together to plead its case for childcare.

The reason is simple.

Baricz is aware that closing The Children’s Learning Centre would send parents scrambling, and cost ten employees, including herself, their jobs.

“I haven’t been sleeping since Friday,” she said, adding the clients are like family.

The daycare is operated by the Ontario Early Years Centre.

The reasons it gave families for the closure are noted in the letter as “ongoing concerns over funding, coupled with the growing administrative burden.”

The board of directors was in the process of negotiating to transfer daycare services to another provider in town, and terminated the agreement it had with the City of Kawartha Lakes for services. Unfortunately the negotiations failed to materialize.

Mayor Brent Devolin is as concerned as the citizens of Minden.

“Not only can we not have interruption of the services that are currently provided but they were going to roll out an expansion of that so it definitely comes as a huge shock,” he said.

Devolin, in collaboration with the City of Kawartha Lakes, has been working around the clock to help find childcare options for working parents.

A difficult task considering the next nearest licensed facility is a town away, and it’s also full.

“Certainly we need the ministry to have a lot more realistic model for rural Ontario because it doesn’t work very well and my community has had enough,” he said.

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A community that is feeling the effects of this abrupt closure.

Dental hygienists Lindsay Hughes and Cori Burden-Kelly have kids who attend The Children’s Learning Centre.

Both acknowledge they will need to take time off work if the daycare closes.

“There’s two of us that may have to leave to take care of our children,” said Burden-Kelly, adding the daycare has meant “everything” to her.

Jennifer Morrow owns the Minden Animal Clinic, and has a daughter at the daycare as well.

“Short term I will probably rely on family to look after her and try to juggle a schedule, but as a single working mom, a business owner in town, it’s very difficult,” she explained.

Dad Patrick Porzuczek told Global News he may need to take on a second job so his wife can stay home with their children.

“It would be devastating, honestly, it would have a big impact on us and on the community,” he said.

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There is still a glimmer of hope for parents and children.

A spokesperson for the City of Kawartha Lakes sent Global News an email ahead of a meeting planned for Wednesday evening noting it “believes that an agreement in principle has been reached … if finalized and approved by the Ontario Early Years Centre Haliburton Victoria Brock Inc. and Compass Early Learning and Care, will enable Compass to assume use of the existing building.”

This would mean daycare service would not be interrupted and would continue Monday morning in the same building, by a different childcare provider.

But nothing is certain at this point and parents are scrambling to make alternate plans in a town with limited options.

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