When Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government took power in 2006, the government ended a national daycare strategy and instead began giving parents $100 per month for every child under age six.

Ontario lost $1.9 billion in child-care funding each year, said an Association of Municipalities of Ontario policy backgrounder. That translated into $63.5 million less each year - enough to fund 8,470 licensed daycare spots. A provincial plan to increase the number of licensed spots was cancelled.

Ontario, however, is providing $18 million in 2010-11 to help municipalities maintain existing child-care spots - but that's all the cash is accomplishing, said Simcoe County's social services general manager, Terry Talon.

"This bridge funding will help us ... (but) we don't know if it will be enough to carry all the children we have" said Talon. "We won't be able to decrease our waiting list."

Currently, 386 children are on the county's wait list for licensed daycare.

Demand for licensed child care in the region is up; the area's population continues to grow, as young families migrate north out of the Greater Toronto Area for affordable homes.

lwatt@simcoe.com