Activists urge freeze on daycare licences

This is creepy stuff. For more info see the[url=http://www.childcareontario.org/]OCBCC site.[/url]

[b]Activists urge freeze on daycare licences[/b]
[i]Moratorium needed to keep multinational firm from buying out Ontario centres, advocates say[/i]

Mar 03, 2008 04:30 AM
Laurie Monsebraaten
Staff Reporter

Queen's Park should impose a short-term moratorium on new child-care licences to prevent a multinational corporation from gobbling up centres across the province, advocates say.

The move would be both lawful and prudent, said lawyer Steven Shrybman of Sack Goldblatt Mitchell LLP, in a legal opinion released this week for the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care.

As reported in the Star last October, dozens of commercial daycare operators in Ontario received letters from an American firm acting on behalf of a "large financial/child care group" asking if they would be interested in selling their centres.

The group, Oakville-based 123 Busy Beavers Learning Centres Inc., is connected to Australia's ABC Learning Centres, the largest publicly traded daycare corporation in the world, often criticized for cutting quality to raise profits.

ABC Learning made headlines in Australia last week amid news of plummeting profits due to its aggressive global expansion. According to reports, public trading in the company has been halted so directors can consider a purchase offer for part of the business.

[url=http://www.thestar.com/article/308808]Full Toronto Star article.[/url][url=http://www.childcareontario.org/]OCBCC site.[/url]