$10aDay Child Care Plan must grow to make affordable early learning and child care programs available and inclusive of all
The following statement represents the conclusions of the Summit on $10aDay Child Care held in Ottawa, November 28 and 29, 2024. The meeting brought together organizations that represent a broad cross-section of Canada’s Early Learning and Child Care (ELCC) sector (outside of Quebec), policy experts and child care advocates to assess the implementation of the $10 a Day Child Care Plan and identify what governments must do to make high-quality early learning and child care programs more available and accessible now, and make the system more secure for the future.
Significant early progress
In 2021, with the Covid-19 pandemic’s social and economic impacts still fresh, the Government of Canada committed to creating a Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care (CWELCC) system, known as the $10aDay Child Care Plan. Since then, the $10aDay Plan has already made significant progress in just four years on long-standing issues that had not been addressed in the last four decades of child care policy.
At the time of the 2021 Budget, the federal government’s goal was primarily, but not exclusively, economic. Budget 2021 stated, “The pandemic has made access to early learning and child care a universal issue that is resonating across sectors, regions, and income brackets…. Without access to child care, parents cannot fully participate in our economy. This is an economic issue as much as it is a social issue. Child care is essential social infrastructure. It is the care work that is the backbone of our economy. Just as roads and transit support our economic growth, so too does child care.”
Like the goal, the $10aDay Plan’s initial objectives have also been primarily, but not exclusively, economic. One of the federal government’s primary objectives has been to lower child care fees for families to an average of $10-per-day by 2026. On this measure, the $10aDay system has made the most progress. The federal funding agreements with all Canada’s provinces and territories, save Quebec, set specific fee reduction targets. Because of the $10aDay plan, close to one million families across the country now have access to more affordable licensed child care programs.
The success of fee-reduction measures has rightly been described as a gamechanger for families – especially for those who have directly benefited from the full reduction to $10aDay. At a time when every other household expense is going up, affordable child care is providing needed financial relief to families. We’ve
heard first hand from people finally able to start a family, and from families able to pay off debt, afford healthy food, save for a home, or have another child. We’ve heard from mothers who are able to restart their careers or go back to school – and in doing so support both their families’ economic security and their own dreams.
It is not only families with young children who are benefitting from more affordable child care. A new report by the Centre for Future Work noted that “$32 billion in additional GDP was generated in 2024 from the combination of increased direct ELCC production, indirect (upstream and downstream) spin-off jobs, and increased female labour supply. The expansion of ELCC services likely prevented Canada from experiencing a ‘technical recession’ in the second half of 2023.”
All this progress is significant and it should be celebrated. And it is progress that every family deserves to feel. It is progress that every community deserves to experience. That is why it is essential that the $10aDay system be strengthened and expanded to leave no one behind.
In March 2024, Parliament unanimously passed C-35: An Act Respecting Early Learning and Child Care in Canada. This federal legislation – Canada’s first federal child care legislation – made clear that the $10aDay system is more than an economic measure. The preamble states: “Whereas the Government of Canada, recognizing the beneficial impact of early learning and child care on child development, on the well-being of children and of families, on gender equality, on the rights of women and their economic participation and prosperity and on Canada’s economy and social infrastructure, is committed to supporting the establishment and maintenance of a Canada-wide early learning and child care system, including before- and after-school care.”
We applaud the legislation, as it cements a commitment to ELCC system-building that holds transformative potential for children and families across Canada. However, to ensure all children, families and communities receive the beneficial impacts of good early learning and child care, a more concerted and collaborative effort by governments is needed to increase the supply of not-for-profit and public spaces, to strengthen system building, and to ensure a well-supported workforce of qualified Early Childhood Educators and child care staff.
Challenges
In many parts of the country, the $10aDay child care system has already delivered wage increases and improved benefits to address problems of recruitment and retention of Early Childhood Educators and child care staff. Eight provinces and territories now have wage grids and a few provinces have introduced benefits and pension plans. But in some provinces and territories, there has been little progress on decent work and pay for educators, and as a result there has been little progress on addressing the workforce shortage that impedes the growth of early learning and child care programs and the success in reaching access targets.
Similarly, there has been insufficient ambition, planning and funding by governments to increase the number of licensed early learning and child care programs and to ensure equitable distribution of spaces for children of all age groups across all neighbourhoods and rural communities. Campaign 2000’s recent report card on child and family poverty in Canada describes that nearly 1.4 million children were living in poverty in 2022, and that “child and family poverty disproportionately affects marginalized communities due to historic and present colonialism, systemic racism and other systemic inequities”. Although there has been a net increase in the number of licensed reduced fee spaces, demand for licensed early learning and child care continues to exceed supply. Expansion plans have mostly done little to ensure equitable coverage in low income, high need and less densely populated communities.
A third important concern is inadequate levels of public funding for licensed programs in most jurisdictions. Affordability for families under the $10aDay child care system is being achieved, for the most part, by replacing part of the parent fee portion of child care programs’ revenue with public funding.1 But the previous funding approach, based on a patchwork of parent fees, grants and payments, was insufficient. Many child care programs’ budgets were on a knife’s edge. So, despite important steps to moving towards a fully publicly funded system of early learning and child care, simply replicating the old funding approach at more affordable rates means that many programs remain in financial difficulty. Few provincial and territorial governments have introduced public funding formulas that properly determine and cover the actual cost of operating high quality programs and compensating staff properly.
Priorities
Addressing these three challenges must be a priority of the federal, provincial and territorial governments. For the $10aDay system to be successful in achieving the benefits to child development, child and family well-being, gender equality, economic participation, and prosperity, as laid out in the federal legislation, governments must commit to addressing these challenges head-on. The federal, provincial and territorial governments should commit to solving the workforce shortage through workforce strategies, including wage grids, benefits and pension, that significantly improve the compensation and working conditions of early learning and child care
1 Most provincial/territorial governments are meeting the federal plan’s target of an average of $10aDay by March 31, 2026 through a combination of publicly funded operational funding to centres or family home child care providers and income-related parent fee subsidies.
educators and other staff. This will have a direct impact on both access for families and quality of programs. The shortage of spaces should be addressed through public planning and a capital funding program to increase the supply of not-for-profit and public early learning and child care programs. This could include supporting new high quality modular builds. Every province and territory needs cost-based funding formulas that provide full and sufficient public funding based on the real and full cost of operating high quality and inclusive programs.
We call on governments to act without delay to sustain and strengthen the $10aDay Child Care system. Specifically, we urge that they fast-track the negotiation and signing of the next five-year federal/provincial/territorial funding agreements, and that these agreements include provisions supported by sufficient funding from both levels of government:
- to significantly increase the supply of not-for-profit and public early learning and child care through government-led, financed and planned expansion initiatives;
- to develop and implement, in consultation with the early learning and child care sector, measures to support the early learning and child care workforce, including wage grids, benefits and pension plans;
- to develop and put in place cost-based operational funding formulas to finance high quality and inclusive early learning and child care, and that allow for parent fees to be a maximum of $10aDay.
Finally it is essential that the remarkable progress that has been made on early learning and child care be better understood and celebrated by the public. Governments should undertake public-facing campaigns that share both the economic and human impacts of the $10aDay system on Canadian families and communities.