Question Period Note: EARLY LEARNING AND CHILD CARE

What is the federal government doing to support early learning and child care?

The Government of Canada made a transformative investment of close to $27 billion over five years to build a Canada-wide early learning and child care system with provinces and territories, ensuring all families have access to regulated child care for an average cost of $10-a-day by March 2026.

We have signed agreements with all provinces and territories, and are already seeing results.

Nearly half of Canada’s provinces and territories will soon be delivering child care for an average of $10-a-day, or less, and the others have reduced parent fees by at least 50%.

If prompted

Canada has signed an asymmetrical agreement with Quebec, which has its own well-established and long-standing affordable system.

If pressed on child care centres destroyed by wild fires

The Government of Canada will continue to work with provincial and territorial governments to help citizens who have been affected by wildfires and other natural disasters.

The 2020 Fall Economic Statement announced key early investments to lay the groundwork for a Canada-wide child care system, in partnership with provinces, territories and Indigenous peoples. This includes investments to establish a federal secretariat on early learning and child care; supporting the existing federal Indigenous Early Learning and Child Care Secretariat; making the early learning and child care funding announced in Budget 2017 permanent at 2027-2028 levels; providing $420 million in 2021-2022 for the provinces and territories to support the attraction and retention of early childhood educators; and an additional $75 million in 2021-2022 to improve the quality and accessibility of Indigenous child care programs.

Building on investments announced in the 2020 Fall Economic Statement, 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 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.

To make immediate progress for children with disabilities and children needing enhanced or individual supports, the Government is providing $29.2 million over two years, starting in 2021–22, to Employment and Social Development Canada through the Enabling Accessibility Fund to support child care centres as they improve their physical accessibility.

Canada-wide Early Learning and Child Care Agreements have been signed with all provinces and territories, including an asymmetrical agreement with Quebec, where prices are already affordable through its well-established system. Fee reductions have already been announced in every jurisdiction outside of Quebec. Nunavut lowered fees to $10-a-day on December 1, 2022. This is in addition to the $10-a-day care already available in Yukon and Quebec.

Province/Territory

Fee reductions to date

(as of June 5, 2023)

Space creation commitments in Canada-wide ELCC agreements by end of 2025-2026

Spaces announced to date

(as of June 5, 2023)

Newfoundland and Labrador

$10-a-day

5,895

600

Prince Edward Island*

50%

452

230

Nova Scotia

50%

9,500

1,500

New Brunswick

50%

3,400

1,422

Quebec

n/a

30,000

n/a

Ontario

50%

76,700 from 2019 levels**

33,000**

Manitoba

$10-a-day

23,000

2,809

Saskatchewan

$10-a-day

28,000

4,000

Alberta

50%

68,700

5,500

British Columbia

50%

30,000

3,587

Yukon

$10-a-day

110

200

Northwest Territories

60%

300

67

Nunavut

$10-a-day

238

30

Total

n/a

276,295 new spaces

52,945

*PEI’s targets factor in part-time space creation. Numbers were rounded for this table.

**Includes Ontario’s 15,000 spaces created between 2019 and 2021.

Since the outset of the Canada-wide agreements, the following investments have been provided to provinces and territories, by jurisdiction as of March 20, 2023.

Newfoundland and Labrador: $17,658,992.50

Nova Scotia: $119,868,783

Prince Edward Island: $23,604,313, plus $3,575,181 in workforce funding

New Brunswick: $98,054,616

Quebec: $1,659,953,574

Ontario: $2,780,768.546

Manitoba: $227,186,971

Saskatchewan: $286,650,584

Alberta: $1,014,030,285

British Columbia: $890,638,326

Yukon: $12,912,740

Northwest Territories: $10,663,739

Nunavut: $19,354,330

This represents a total of $7,164,920,980.50 to date.

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