Canada has made major progress on child care affordability through the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care (CWELCC) system. The next challenge is creating enough spaces to meet growing demand.

Waterloo Region is demonstrating a practical solution. The Region of Waterloo and the Waterloo Region District School Board (WRDSB) are developing two modular child care centres at school sites in Kitchener, creating 176 new licensed spaces. The centres will be located at Howard Robertson Public School and Smithson Public School and operated by non-profit providers, The Healing of the Seven Generations and Rising Oaks Early Learning Ontario. Significantly, the Howard Robertson site will become Waterloo Region’s second Indigenous-led child care centre, offering culturally safe programming for Indigenous children and families.

What makes this initiative noteworthy is its use of modular construction and innovative municipal financing. Built off-site and installed on public land, modular facilities can significantly reduce construction timelines, costs, and disruption while meeting permanent building standards. The Region has committed $4.4 million through a municipal debenture, with construction proceeding through 2026 and the centres expected to open by December 2026.

The project directly addresses one of the greatest barriers to child care expansion: access to affordable, suitable space. In Waterloo Region alone, more than 13,400 children are on waiting lists for licensed child care, including approximately 8,700 families seeking care immediately.

Equally important, the initiative demonstrates the power of partnership. Municipal government, school boards, Indigenous organizations, and non-profit operators are working together to use public land strategically in neighbourhoods where families need services most. By locating centres on school sites, the project supports a more seamless early years system while reducing many of the development challenges that have slowed non-profit expansion.

This is more than a local success story. It offers a scalable model for communities across Ontario and Canada. Public land, school partnerships, modular construction, municipal financing tools, and strong non-profit operators already exist in many communities. The challenge is not inventing new solutions—it is scaling the ones that work.

For thousands of families on waiting lists, faster expansion is not an abstract policy issue. It determines whether parents can return to work and whether children can access early learning opportunities. At the same time, expansion will succeed only if governments address persistent workforce shortages by improving wages and benefits for early childhood educators.

Waterloo Region’s initiative demonstrates that practical solutions to Canada’s child care expansion challenge already exist. The next step is ensuring that governments across the country have the tools and financing needed to replicate them at scale.