Children's backpacks and shoes are seen at a daycare franchise, in Langley, B.C. A report released this week from the Childcare Resource and Research Unit assesses the federal Early Learning and Child Care program, saying there were about 635,000 regulated full-day child-care spaces for children 0 to 5 years old across Canada as of 2023, an increase of about 45,000 since 2021.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press
The federal government’s national child-care plan has significantly cut costs across the country and created tens of thousands of new spaces, but there are still only enough spots for fewer than a third of children, and much of that added capacity is from for-profit operators, according to a new report from a non-profit research group.
The Childcare Resource and Research Unit released a report this week that assesses the federal Early Learning and Child Care program as of 2023. Ottawa launched the $27-billion program in 2021 with a goal of bringing daycare costs to $10 a day.
However, the program has seen mixed success across the country and has faced criticism for a slow and uneven rollout that has been hampered by a shortage of available spaces. The federal government has also clashed with provincial governments, notably Alberta and Ontario, over the role of private, for-profit operators.
Ottawa set a target of reducing fees by 50 per cent by the end of 2022 and an average cost of $10 a day by 2026. Last year, the government established a $625-million fund to help provinces and territories create child-care spaces in communities that currently do not have enough.
Martha Friendly, executive director of the research unit, said the full impact of this funding has not yet been felt. She said while the federal daycare program has cut fees dramatically in most provinces and created additional spaces, she was critical of the expansion of for-profit child care.
“There has been expansion, and we need more expansion that is equitably distributed,” Ms. Friendly said.
The group’s report says there were about 635,000 regulated full-day child-care spaces for children 0 to 5 years old across Canada as of 2023, an increase of about 45,000 since 2021. Those figures do not include part-time spaces, before- and after-school spaces and other types of services such as in-home care.
The largest percentage change among the provinces was in Alberta, where there were 10,593, an increase of 16 per cent in two years, followed by Nova Scotia, which had 1,689 new spaces, a change of about 15 per cent. The lowest was in PEI, which had just 132 new spaces, or 0.3 per cent, followed by Newfoundland at 694 new spaces, an increase of 1.5 per cent.
The report says there are enough spaces for 31 per cent of children across the country, up from 28 per cent in 2021.
Genevieve Lemaire, press secretary to the federal Minister of Families, Children and Social Development, Jenna Sudds, said while building this kind of system “does not happen overnight,” the report shows that the country’s investments and vision are working.
Ms. Lemaire said the Minister is committed to working with the provinces and territories to reach the target of an average of $10 a day by 2026. “We welcome the report and look forward to exploring its findings,” she said.
The Childcare Resource and Research Unit points to an increase in for-profit centres, which account for 40 per cent of the growth across the country.
Alberta has the highest proportion of for-profit centres. The report says for-profit providers account for 75 per cent of the province’s full-day centre spaces for children up to the age of five. Two-thirds of new spaces were for-profit, the report says.
Alberta has previously clashed with the federal government over the role of for-profit providers and how much profit they can earn while still qualifying for public funding. The province and Ottawa signed an agreement last year allowing providers to generate a “reasonable profit” but also requiring that surplus earnings be directed toward improving child-care services.
Matt Jones, Alberta’s Minister of Jobs, Economy and Trade in Alberta, said in an e-mailed statement that the province has reduced fees for parents to an average of $15 a day in the past 12 months. He added that since November, 2021, Alberta has increased the number of regulated spaces for children from the age of zero to kindergarten by 25,000.
“Our government remains committed to safe, high quality, affordable and inclusive child care that empowers parents to pursue their careers, training and post-secondary opportunities that help drive Alberta’s economy forward,” Mr. Jones said.
In an e-mail to The Globe, Esme Mills, spokeswoman for British Columbia’s Ministry of Education and Child Care, said the province has funded the creation of more than 39,000 new child-care spaces with more to come, including spaces on school grounds and has eliminated waiting-list fees and increased wages for early childhood educators.
“While we know cutting the cost of child care in half is helping families, we know families still need more support with the cost of child care,” Ms. Mills said.
Ontario has also pushed back at the federal government’s preference for non-profit providers. The two governments announced a deal last month to cap fees at $22 a day and allow for-profit providers to earn a profit of eight per cent.
Edyta McKay, spokesperson for the Minister of Education in Ontario, said in a statement that the federal government must provide more funding and lift the cap on for-profit providers.
Krystal Churcher, chair for the Association of Alberta Childcare Entrepreneurs, said she believes there needs to be less government involvement in child care. Ms. Churcher, who has owned and operated her own child-care centres for over a decade, said the $10-a-day program doesn’t represent the needs of families across the provinces and fails to respect the work of private child-care spaces like hers across the country that have been depended on by families and governments for decades.
“It cuts them right out and just disregards that investment, and it’s really forcing a one-size-fits-all,” Ms. Churcher said.
She said while she appreciates the data in the Childcare Resource and Research Unit’s report and has relied on the group’s statistics in the past, she doesn’t think it accurately presents all experiences in child care.
“There’s very little representation of our perspective of working in child care,” she said, adding there is a lot of debate about non-profit versus for-profit child care and which is better. Regardless of business model, she said all child care follows the same standards and regulations for quality, safety and health.