Relief for the certainty that a four year extension provides is the major response by ELCC operators to the recently announced Ontario and the federal government Canada-wide Early Learning and Child Care (CWELCC) program extension. B2c2’s recent survey of operators found that uncertainty about future funding is a major barrier to expansion. 

Through the extension, Ontario will receive nearly $12 billion in federal funding over the next four years, from March 31, 2027 to March 31, 2031. The provincial government has not yet announced how much it will contribute over this four-year period.

The new agreement will maintain current child care fees until June 30, 2027. Fees are currently an average of $19 per day, with a maximum of $22 per day. Ontario will also continue working toward its target of creating 86,000 new affordable child care spaces. Minister of Education Paul Calandra has said that the province is now aiming to meet this target by March 31, 2027.

While the extension provides some funding certainty for families and child care operators, there are still questions about whether Ontario will be able to create enough spaces, and whether families who need child care will actually be able to access them.

The Auditor General of Ontario’s 2025 report on CWELCC identified a number of challenges with access to child care. While Ontario had created approximately 75% of the spaces it had targeted by the end of 2024, the Auditor General found that 37 of Ontario’s 47 regions had child care access rates below the provincial average. The province has also struggled to create spaces quickly enough to meet its targets.

There is also a significant gap between the number of spaces available and the number of families looking for care. The Auditor General found that approximately 69,000 Ontario families reported not using child care because of a shortage of spaces in 2023, compared with approximately 22,000 families in 2019. At the same time, approximately 80,500 CWELCC spaces were vacant or not operational as of December 2023.

Access is an even greater concern for families receiving child care fee subsidies. The Auditor General found that enrolment among children receiving full or partial fee subsidies decreased by 31% between 2019 and 2023. As the cost of CWELCC spaces has decreased, demand for spaces has increased, making it more difficult for families receiving subsidies to find a space.

The availability of staff is another challenge. Ontario’s child care workforce has grown, but the province was still below its target of having RECEs make up 60% of the workforce. Based on recent workforce trends, the Auditor General estimated that Ontario could need up to an additional 10,000 RECEs by December 2026. Staffing shortages are already affecting the number of spaces that centres are able to operate. Child care advocates have noted that the new extension does not come with any new wage improvements for early childhood educators.

These issues will need to be considered as Ontario moves into the next four years of CWELCC. The extension provides significant federal funding, but funding alone will not solve the challenges facing the child care system. Ontario needs to make sure that new spaces are being created in communities where they are needed, and that operators have the staff and resources they need to maintain and expand their programs.