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

WEB PUBLICATION OF THE CANADA-WIDE EARLY LEARNING AND CHILD CARE BILATERAL AGREEMENTS

• Ensuring families have access to early learning and child care is not just a social issue—it is an urgent economic issue. The pandemic has exposed what parents have long known. Without access to affordable child care, parents, most often mothers, can’t work. This is a universal issue that is resonating across sectors, regions, and income brackets.
• A Canada-wide early learning and child care system will ensure that all families have access to high-quality, affordable, flexible, and inclusive early learning and child care no matter where they live.
• Investing in early learning and child care offers a jobs-and-growth hat trick: it provides jobs for workers, the majority of whom are women; it enables parents, particularly mothers, to reach their full economic potential; and it creates a generation of engaged and well prepared young learners.
• 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.
• This investment allows governments to work together towards achieving an average parent fee of $10 a day by 2025–2026 for all regulated child care spaces, starting with a 50 percent reduction in average fees for regulated early learning and child care spaces by the end of 2022.
• Since we introduced our plan for early learning and child care in April, we have worked tirelessly to conclude agreements with eight provinces and one territory, covering roughly 60 percent of children in Canada, to deliver a 50% cut in child care fees next year, and deliver an average of $10 a day care in five years or less. Canada has signed an asymmetrical agreement with Quebec, where prices are already affordable through its well-established system.
• The federal government is committed to transparency. As with previous early learning and child care bilateral agreements, the federal government will be posting all signed agreements on the Web.
• Before making the agreements available on the Web, the federal government must satisfy publication requirements. This includes translation to ensure documents are available in both official languages, as well as formatting their entire content to make them accessible for the Web. The signed agreements are being finalized at this time and will be available on the Employment and Social Development Canada website when ready.
• The Government of Canada is committed to the well-being of parents and children, and will continue discussions with remaining jurisdictions to advance the implementation of a Canada-wide child care system.

The publication of the Canada-wide ELCC bilateral agreements is receiving some media attention, particularly in Manitoba. On December 1 2021, an article in the Winnipeg Free Press criticised the federal government for not yet having published the agreements that were signed with provinces and territories. The article quoted a professor from the University of Manitoba, Susan Prentice who stated that the federal government’s “failure to produce these should be troubling for everybody who wants to see clear and transparent government and reporting”.

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 Government of Canada is making a transformative investment to build a Canada-wide early learning and child care system in partnership with provincial, territorial and Indigenous partners. 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.

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.

As of mid-November, Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care Agreements were reached with British Columbia, Nova Scotia, Yukon, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador, Québec, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta.

• Building on investments announced in the 2020 Fall Economic Statement, Budget 2021 committed to investments of over $27 billion over five years 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 Government of Canada is making a transformative investment to build a Canada-wide early learning and child care system in partnership with provincial, territorial and Indigenous partners. The goal is to bring fees for regulated child care down to $10 per day on average by the end of March 2026. 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.
• The federal government is working with provinces and territories and Indigenous partners to build a Canada-wide early learning and child care system. New agreements with provinces and territories are providing significant funding to support substantial reductions to families for the cost of regulated child care spaces. Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care Agreements have been reached with eight provinces and one territory (British Columbia, Nova Scotia, Yukon, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador, Québec, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta).
• The federal government is committed to transparency. As with previous early learning and child care bilateral agreements, the federal government will be posting all signed agreements on the Web.
• The Government of Canada is committed to the well-being of parents and children, and will continue discussions with remaining jurisdictions to advance the implementation of a Canada-wide child care system.