For parents lucky (and patient) enough to win one, they are something close to a miracle.

The relief and comfort of finding a daycare spot in the same school your children attend — sometimes after years of waiting — cannot be overstated.

For the kids, the safety and simplicity of remaining all day in the same facility, with the same friends, can add enormously to social growth and the learning experience.

For their parents, the one-stop drop-offs and pickups, and the peace of mind that comes with that, are bliss.

But the price of that little bit of daily magic may be going up by some $300 a year per child for thousands of parents in Toronto if a city staff proposal to cut subsidizing grants is allowed to stand.

With child-care costs already making life unaffordable for many middle-class families, this is unacceptable.

The proposal, which was submitted to a council committee last week, would affect some 18,000 children in 349 centres at schools across the city.

But the cuts, totalling about $6 million and affecting parents currently paying full daycare fees, were put on hold after Councillor Joe Cressy (Ward 10 Spadina-Fort York) moved to halt the plan.

The funding, which would have ended Jan. 1 in the staff proposal, is paid by the city to school boards in what is known as occupancy grants to subsidize rents and lower operating costs.

It’s been at risk since 2017 when Mayor John Tory proposed to end it as part of balancing the city budget. After an outcry by parents and daycare proponents, however, the proposed cuts were abandoned.

Since then, the city has been picking up the costs through a “bridging strategy” that takes money from reserve funds.

Requests for the province to cover the subsidy have been met with silence. But Cressy’s move could mean a funding extension from Jan. 1 through next year’s budget process, when the issue would be debated again.

Council will consider Cressy’s stop-gap plan in July.

“Under no circumstances am I prepared to tell the 18,000 kids and their families that effective Jan. 1 their child-care fees are going up because this city terminated an agreement,” says Cressy. “Child care should be affordable. That’s it.”

Toronto parents already pay the highest median daycare fees in the country; care for infants runs about $1,685 a month or $20,220 a year.

That compares with $1,490 a month in Hamilton and Mississauga and just $1,400 monthly in Vancouver, according to a report by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

Spots for preschoolers age 2 1/2 to 4 — which account for more more than half the country’s 717,000 licensed daycare spots — are also more expensive in Toronto than anywhere else in Canada.

Median fees in the city are $1,150 a month, compared to about $1,000 in many surrounding municipalities.

More than half the provinces use fee caps to keep daycare costs affordable. Ontario does not do this, although the province did announce in June it would raise its annual contribution to licensed centres by a modest $20 million to about $1.7 billion a year.

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But the city staff proposal, which was tabled before the economic and community development committee, would make even that meagre move meaningless for many middle-class parents struggling to make it in Toronto.

And while the cuts would not impact parents who are receiving subsidies, the increased costs to those who pay full freight can only be seen as punitive.

Daycare costs are already too great a burden in Toronto. As it did in 2017, council should abandon this proposal.