Province expands emergency child care amid outbreak at a facility in Toronto

Ontario Premier Doug Ford has announced the expansion of the emergency child care benefit today, listing more frontline workers eligible for free child care.

The expanded emergency benefit will now be available for people working in the food supply chain, retirement homes, grocery stores, pharmacies, other federal employees, and the military.

And to accommodate more children, the government also confirmed that there will be 37 additional approved child care centres scheduled to reopen soon. All reopened centres are required to follow a protocol in any event where a staff, a child, or a parent, has tested or has been exposed to COVID-19.

As for Jesse Ketchum Early Learning and Child Care Centre in Toronto where four staff members and a child tested positive, the centre will remain shut down for two weeks where it will undergo a ‘deep cleaning’. The facility will only reopen once approved by Toronto Public Health.

Here is the list of emergency child care centres across the province.