Our city is slowly returning to normal after the spectacle of car-burnings and police confrontations that, at least for Torontonians, is now permanently associated with the G8/G20.  But many, important questions remain – and they need to be answered.  

First, why did the summits cost so much?  This question has been asked and asked again, but so far there hasn’t been a satisfactory answer.  And until we have one, we need to keep asking.  The facts are both clear and deeply confusing.  The twin summits in Toronto and Muskoka cost $1.2 billion, with $930 million allocated for security.  The summit security costs in London (UK) cost just over $30 million and the security in Pittsburgh cost a paltry $13 million. Toronto’s $930 million security bill is almost seventy-two times higher than Pittsburgh’s. That is an astonishing discrepancy. Where is the accountability in all of this?

The first all-day kindergartens are set to open this fall in selected schools, as the first phase of a five-year roll-out of all-day kindergarten in Ontario. 

Parents have been snapping up the all-day learning spots, and teachers and early childhood educators are busy preparing the new curriculum. Meanwhile, child care centres, which are set to lose four- and five-year-olds, are starting the transition to a new business model in which the majority of children in their care are three years and under.

During the spring session of legislature, I did a fair bit of advocacy with childcare centres and teachers’ federations to ensure that the transition to all-day learning would be done in a smooth way.  Our combined work over a number of months resulted in the provincial government agreeing to cover $63.5 million dollars in daycare funding that would have been lost otherwise.  Our advocacy also resulted in the government finding transition money to help stabilize daycares.  My thanks go out to the parents and daycare operators who joined with me to put pressure on the government.