The federal government is giving provinces and territories an additional $5.4 billion over two years for the national $10-a-day child-care program, money the minister is framing as stabilizing the program.
The program that started rolling out across the country in 2021 set ambitious targets for reducing the fees parents pay and creating hundreds of thousands of new spaces by this year, but those targets have not yet been met in many jurisdictions.
Jobs and Families Minister Patty Hajdu said Friday in an interview that she has heard the provinces’ calls for more federal money, as many struggle to reduce fees, add spaces and recruit and retain enough early childhood educators in the face of rising costs and demand.
“Certainly, money has been part of the challenge,” Hajdu said ahead of a meeting with provincial and territorial ministers.
“We’ve already invested $58 billion to affordable child care across the country. This additional $5.4 billion is to reflect the additional cost pressures that provinces have been indicating, and that money that will be injected is flexible, so they can use it in the ways that will address their own specific pressures.”
While many provinces and territories have lowered the child-care fees parents pay to an average of $10 a day, five have not, and Ontario alone, where fees are at an average of $19 a day, has said it would need an additional $2 billion per year to get to $10.
Ontario Education Minister Paul Calandra said he is reserving judgment on whether the new funding will meet Ontario’s needs until he sees the specific provincial allocations.
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“Ontario has long been clear that current funding levels are not sufficient to support the long-term sustainability of the child care program,” he wrote in a statement.
“It is critical that the federal government provide an appropriate funding package by September in order to sustain the federal child care program in Ontario.”
Alberta Education and Childcare Minister Demetrios Nicolaides said he is encouraged by the funding, but is also awaiting specific details.
“Alberta’s government will continue working to secure a long-term agreement that reflects Alberta’s needs while keeping fees predictable and affordable for families,” he wrote in a statement.
Universal child-care advocates were disappointed earlier this year when the government’s spring economic update did not show any new investments, saying that without more funding the program would be at risk.
Gordon Cleveland, an Ontario-based child care policy expert and supporter of universal child care, said the new money sends a strong signal about the current government’s view of $10-a-day child care.
“It reflects, from my point of view, a commitment finally to the future of the program, and that was a little bit in doubt,” he said.
“The Carney government inherited this program from the previous government and nobody quite knew what does Mark Carney really think about this … so this is, I think, the first very strong commitment, which says, ‘OK, we, the new federal government, are in this for the long haul.’”
Advocacy group the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care said it was cautiously optimistic about the new funding.
“This is a short-term increase,” policy co-ordinator Carolyn Ferns wrote in a statement. “It does not solve the long-term stability of (the program). We cannot build a system that lasts for generations on two year instalments with the threat of a funding cliff.”
Hajdu said the government recognizes affordable child care as a driver of the economy, and the new money is about ensuring progress that has already been made, such as on lowered fees, and access to new spaces is not lost.
“It is definitely about the protection of what we’ve gained, and what we’ve gained is very significant,” she said. “On average, families are saving about $11,000 per year, per child. That’s a giant savings across the country.”
The lowered fees have been driving up demand and therefore wait lists in many regions. The initial set of agreements aimed to create 250,000 new spaces by this past March and the current number of new spaces is about 173,500, the government said.
Many provinces signed on to five-year extensions to the child-care agreements ahead of last year’s federal election, but some including Alberta and Ontario agreed to one-year extensions, and the new funding may help bolster those negotiations.
The new money will come with some terms of additional data sharing, Hajdu said, to help better understand where the gaps remain.
“I think that data is critical in terms of understanding what those specific barriers are, what the fee structures look like, what the access looks like, what the operational realities are all across the country,” she said.
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