New rules are coming into effect next year for Ontario child-care operators aimed at preventing the rare but horrific deaths of children in hot cars.
As of January 1st, licensed home daycares and child-care centres will need to develop a policy setting out the steps they will take when a child doesn't arrive as expected.
It's a policy the parents of Everett Smith support and believe will save lives.
Everett was just three weeks shy of his 2nd birthday when he died in late June 2022 in the back seat of a car in Bancroft, Ontario.
A family emergency changed his family's morning routine and his mom forgot he hadn't been dropped off at his daycare when she headed into work.
Researchers from the University of Toronto and the Hospital for Sick Children who studied incidents of children dying unattended in hot cars found that under certain circumstances, forgetting a child in the back seat of a car could happen to anyone.
Education Minister Stephen Lecce says it is an obvious step to take if it has the potential of saving even one life.