Question Period Note: WEB PUBLICATION OF THE CANADA-WIDE EARLY LEARNING AND CHILD CARE BILATERAL AGREEMENTS

Has the federal government published online the Canada-wide bilateral agreements that were signed with provinces and territories?

• The federal government is committed to transparency and will be posting all signed agreements on the Web.
• Documents published online by the federal government must be made available in both official languages and formatted to meet web accessibility standards.
• All Canada-wide agreements have been published online.

The Government of Canada made a transformative investment of over $27 billion over five years, as part of Budget 2021 to build a Canada-wide early learning and Child Care system with provinces and territories. Combined with other investments including in Indigenous Early Learning and Child Care, up to $30 billion over five years will be provided in support of early learning and child care. Adding previous investments announced since 2015, this means that as of 2025-2026, a minimum of $9.2 billion will be provided every year – permanently – for Early Learning and Child Care and Indigenous Early Learning and Child Care.

The goal is to bring fees for regulated child care down to $10-a-day on average within five years. By the end of 2022, the Government is aiming to reduce average fees for regulated early learning and child care by 50 per cent to make it more affordable for families. These targets would apply everywhere outside of Quebec, where prices are already affordable through its well-established system.

In total, the Government of Canada is aiming to create approximately 250,000 new child care spaces through Canada-wide agreements with provinces and territories, and already achieved its goal of creating 40,000 more affordable child care spaces before 2020 through the 2017-18 and 2019-20 Early Learning and Child Care Agreements. These new licensed spaces will be predominantly among not-for-profit, public, and family-based child care providers.

The Government of Canada has signed agreements with every province and territory to deliver on its promise to build a Canada-wide affordable, inclusive, and high-quality early learning and child care system.

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