Securing Equitable Wages in the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care System in Ontario
Ontario’s licensed child care system has been fundamentally restructured. With the rollout of the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care (CWELCC) system, child care has become a publicly funded public service. Parent fees are no longer the primary source of revenue, and governments now play the central role in determining whether the system can deliver on its promise of quality, accessibility, and stability.
Child care educators and staff are the foundation of quality, yet their work continues to be chronically undervalued and underpaid. Under CWELCC, provincial funding decisions now determine whether wages in licensed child care can meet the requirements of Ontario’s Pay Equity Act.
Child Care Is Essential Social Infrastructure
Child care is not a peripheral service; it is the core social infrastructure. It underpins Ontario’s economy and supports family well-being. Approximately 98% of early childhood educators identify as women, and many are racialized. The Pay Equity Act was enacted to address systemic gender-based wage discrimination in sectors with these characteristics.
Despite this, the sector continues to face severe recruitment and retention challenges. They are rooted in long-standing funding approaches and assumptions about child care work that have persisted even as education requirements, regulatory oversight, and job responsibilities have increased.
Pay Equity Is the Law
Pay equity is not optional. In Ontario, it is a human right. The Pay Equity Act requires equal pay for work of equal value and was explicitly designed to address systemic discrimination in female-dominated sectors like child care. Because most child care centres do not have male job classes for comparison, the legislation mandates the use of a proxy comparator: municipal child care employees. Municipal child care employees earn substantially higher wages than employees in community-based licensed child care settings. Across Ontario, municipal RECE wages typically start in the mid-$30s per hour and rise to the high $30s or mid-$40s.
At the same time, the majority of RECEs in Ontario earn between $25.01 and $28.58 per hour according to Ontario’s Early Years and Child Care Annual Report 2025. This wage gap demonstrates that pay equity has not been achieved or maintained across
Ontario’s licensed child care sector
Ontario’s current CWELCC cost-based funding model makes compliance with the Pay Equity Act effectively impossible. The province’s benchmark wages are not pay-equity-compliant, and operators are forced into a position of legal non compliance through no fault of their own.
What Needs to Change
Meeting pay equity obligations in licensed child care requires the following actions:
- Fully fund pay-equity-compliant compensation immediately.
Ontario must adjust its funding guidelines to close the historical and ongoing wage gaps affecting all child care employees. Funding must explicitly support pay-equity-compliant wages across the entire 0–12 system. - Increase compensation for all child care employees following a pay equity analysis.
Wages must be raised immediately to match the legally required comparator — municipal child care employees performing work of comparable value. - Implement a fully funded, pay-equity-compliant wage grid.
Ontario should establish and fund a province-wide wage grid covering RECEs, non-RECE program staff, and all support staff, with annual progression steps to promote retention and workforce stability. - Revise Funding Guidelines to support pay equity compliance and maintenance.
Funding guidelines for both CWELCC and non-CWELCC programs must explicitly support the establishment and ongoing maintenance of pay equity. Requests for pay-equity-compliant funding must not be refused. - Provide sector-wide education on pay equity.
The Ontario Pay Equity Commissioner should deliver province-wide training for operators, CMSMs/DSSABs, and sector organizations to ensure understanding and compliance with the Act, including maintenance obligations.
By implementing these recommendations, Ontario can finally value the work of child care employees, remedy decades of wage discrimination, and build the stable, equitable workforce required for a high-quality, accessible, publicly funded child care system.
Learn More
Building Blocks for Child Care (B2C2), the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care (OCBCC), the Association of Early Childhood Educators of Ontario (AECEO), and the Ontario Equal Pay Coalition (EPC), have prepared a detailed analysis of pay equity in
Ontario’s licensed child care sector.
To learn more about this issue, you can read the full paper here:
Justice for Child Care Employees: Securing Equitable Wages in the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care System in Ontario
B2C2 and its partners also hosted a webinar on pay equity in child care. A recording
of the webinar is available here:
Webinar recording – “Unequal Pay For Child Care Employees Is The Government
Ignoring The Law?”