The Canadian Women’s Chamber of Commerce (CanWCC) has released an ambitious proposal calling on the federal government to recognize the care economy as essential economic infrastructure and to establish a Canadian National Care Economy Strategy under the Major Projects Office framework.

The report argues that Canada routinely invests billions in physical infrastructure such as roads, bridges, ports, pipelines, and energy systems while overlooking the systems that allow people to participate in the workforce in the first place. Child care, elder care, home care, disability supports, mental health services, and caregiving supports are presented not as social spending but as critical economic infrastructure.

According to the proposal, the care economy is already one of Canada’s largest economic sectors. Healthcare and social services employ approximately one-quarter of Canadian workers, while paid care work contributes an estimated 12 percent of Canada’s GDP. In addition, unpaid caregiving—most of it performed by women—is estimated to be worth between $517 billion and $860 billion annually.

The report highlights several growing pressures facing Canada:

• An aging population, with the number of Canadians aged 85 and older expected to more than triple by 2075.
• Significant workforce shortages across care sectors, including projected shortages of nurses, personal support workers, and other care professionals.
• Ongoing barriers that force many caregivers, particularly women, to reduce working hours, leave the workforce, or accept lower lifetime earnings.

A central argument of the proposal is that investments in care generate economic returns. The report cites evidence that stronger care systems increase labour-force participation, reduce strain on healthcare systems, support productivity, and contribute to long-term economic growth. Using international modelling tools, the proposal estimates that large-scale investments in care could create more than one million jobs while generating substantial tax revenues.

For the child care sector, the report reinforces a message that has become increasingly important: child care is not simply a social program—it is foundational economic infrastructure. In many ways, child care provides the clearest demonstration of the report’s central thesis. Through the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care (CWELCC) system, governments have already shown that investments in affordable child care can increase labour-force participation, particularly among women, while supporting broader economic growth.

However, the report also points to a challenge that is becoming increasingly apparent across Canada. Affordability alone is not enough. The economic benefits of child care depend on families being able to access a licensed space. Despite major progress in reducing fees, many communities continue to face long waiting lists and insufficient licensed capacity. Without significant expansion, many parents remain unable to participate fully in the workforce regardless of affordability.

This highlights what many sector leaders now describe as the next phase of child care reform. Canada has made substantial progress in building an operating funding system through CWELCC. The next challenge is building the infrastructure financing system needed to create enough spaces to meet demand.

Across the country, expansion is often constrained not by operating funding, but by the lack of affordable capital financing for non-profit providers. Child care projects are operationally viable and urgently needed, yet many cannot proceed because providers lack access to the financing tools commonly available in other infrastructure sectors. If child care is economic infrastructure, then Canada must also develop the infrastructure financing tools required to build it.

The report’s call for greater investment in care systems also highlights the importance of workforce development. Expansion depends not only on buildings and spaces, but on the educators and care professionals who deliver services. In child care, ongoing workforce shortages, recruitment challenges, and compensation issues continue to limit growth. Sustainable expansion will require competitive wages, benefits, and equitable compensation systems that recognize the value of care work.

The proposal also challenges the way governments classify care spending. While governments routinely finance major infrastructure projects over decades because of their long-term economic benefits, care investments are often treated as annual operating expenses, making them vulnerable to budget pressures and chronic underinvestment.

To address this imbalance, CanWCC recommends that the federal government formally recognize the care economy as economic infrastructure, designate a National Care Economy Strategy as a nation-building project, and work with provinces and territories to develop long-term implementation plans.

For those working in early learning and child care, the report offers an important reframing of the national conversation. It asks Canadians to view care not as a cost to be managed, but as an investment that makes all other economic activity possible.

For the child care sector, that recognition must be accompanied by practical action: renewed long-term CWELCC agreements, a stable and fairly compensated workforce, and financing tools that allow communities to build the thousands of new spaces families continue to need. The next phase of child care reform is not simply affordability—it is expansion.