Toronto - When Ontario signed a deal with the federal government to provide child care for $10 a day, the province said parents would start seeing discounts in May – but with the program still in its early stages, the sector says that is unlikely to happen now.

Municipalities were tasked with processing applications from child care operators and allocating funding in their areas, but money has only recently flowed to them and they are still in the process of setting their own guidelines.

Spokespeople for the Ontario government have repeatedly declined to respond on the number of workers registered so far. When asked if the number was zero, they did not respond directly.

In a written statement attributed to Stephen Lecce, who struck the deal as Minister of Education in late March, it said, "We are putting money back into the pockets of hardworking parents across the province with a 50 percent reduction in child care fees this year, to an average of $10 a day on average by September 2025."

But in the City of Toronto, the number is already zero. A city spokeswoman said officials are still reviewing the province’s guidelines and drafting a way to operate."

Caroline Vernez, public policy and government relations coordinator at the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care, said it will take time.

She said: "It’s probably really frustrating for parents, who were told, really when Premier Ford signed the agreement, that these discounts would start flowing in May."

"But that was never a realistic timeline and maybe they should have known that."

Ontario was the last province to sign on to the federal plan to cut child care fees for children five and under to an average of $10 a day by 2025. The government said at the time initial fee cuts of up to 25 percent would begin in May, retroactive to April 1.

Parents are set to see a further cost cut in December, when fees will be reduced on average by 50 percent, ahead of the $10 target.

The government recently said operators have had program details "for weeks" and it’s up to them now to apply.

But they have a deadline until September to apply, and some operators may not feel able to make a decision until closer to the deadline.

Regional guidelines on how the program will work were issued in April and contain 74 pages of rules. Some child care operators say they are struggling to analyze the bureaucratic language and need many questions answered before they can apply.

The process is likely to be easiest for municipally run daycare centers, and much less so for independent centers, which do not have existing funding agreements with municipalities.

Sharon Ciribo, director of the Ontario Association of Independent Child Care Centres, said the language in the regional guidelines saying municipal service managers will have "discretion" to determine eligible expenses and financial viability raises concerns.

The government says municipal service managers are now using these guidelines to develop local registration processes and the timing of funding flow to operators to reduce fees, but that is expected to happen between May and December.

Editing: Dima Abu Khair