Question Period Note: UNLICENSED CHILD CARE OPERATORS AND THE CANADA-WIDE EARLY LEARNING AND CHILD CARE SYSTEM

What does the national child-care deal mean for unlicensed operators?

• The federal government is working with the provinces and territories to support the growth of quality child care spaces across the country, while ensuring that families in all existing licensed spaces benefit from more affordable child care.
• Consistent with existing bilateral agreements with provinces and territories, federal funding supports regulated child care across Canada as it meets the standards set out by provinces and territories.
• Unlicensed operators are encouraged to work within their jurisdictions to join the licensed system to ensure that all families in Canada benefit from more affordable care.

IF PRESSED

• Participation in quality early learning and child care programs can contribute significantly to the healthy development and learning readiness of all young children.
• Licenced and regulated early learning and child care is one of the key elements that supports the provision of quality programs and services.

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 per day on average within the next 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.

Federal funding in all Canada-wide agreements will be exclusively used to support regulated child care delivery by licensed providers. Provinces and territories such as Saskatchewan are committed to bringing more unlicensed child care providers into the licensed system, so they too can benefit from Canada-wide funding, meet higher standards in areas such as quality, and provide parents with more affordable child care.

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