Media Release: Canada’s national child care advocacy association says protest by for-profit child care operators is attempting to reverse significant progress made by $10aDay child care plan

OTTAWA, 24 OCTOBER 2024 – Child Care Now, Canada’s national child care advocacy association, distanced itself from the protests this week staged by a minority of for-profit child care operators who are attempting to stop and reverse Canada’s new $10aDay child care plan.

“The licensed child care businesses participating in the protest want to go back to the days before 2021 when they could charge parents very high fees and when relatively few parents qualified for government support through a subsidy that was often insufficient,” said Morna Ballantyne, Executive Director of Child Care Now. 

“Those days are thankfully behind us thanks to the $10aDay program that has as its objective the building over time of a high quality system of early childhood education for all children,” Ballantyne said.

Ballantyne said the views of this week’s for-profit business protesters are not shared by the vast majority of child care providers who have welcomed the $10aDay program’s big fee reductions coupled with a large increase in public funding for early learning and child care under the $10aDay plan. 

“The majority of operators understand that public funding must advance the public good and that it comes with financial accountability,” Ballantyne added. “They think it makes sense that public funding for early learning and child care should be properly spent on the provision of services and be used to make programs inclusive of all children regardless of their parents’ ability to pay fees.”

Ballantyne said many large and small child care operators in Ontario where the protest has captured media attention have written to their families to reassure them that they are not participating in the lock-out of children and are instead working hard to make $10-a-day child care a success. The YMCA of Greater Toronto, Treetop Children’s Centre in Toronto, Milton Community Resource Centre in Halton, Rising Oaks Early Learning in Waterloo Region, and Andrew Fleck Children’s Services in Ottawa are among those who have issued communications. 

“There is strong widespread support for the $10aDay plan because it has produced important positive results in a very short time that go well beyond lower parent fees,” said Ballantyne. “We have seen a sharp increase in the number of spaces for children under 6 in licensed child care centres, wages have gone up for early childhood educators, and the increase in public funding which has gone to both for-profit and not-for-profit operators has helped stabilize service delivery after the turmoil of the pandemic.”

Child Care Now and other child care organizations are calling for further improvements to the $10aDay Child Care Plan including higher levels of direct public funding so that all operators can  cover the rising cost of operating high quality programs and expand their services in order to better meet the needs of all children regardless of their circumstances. 

Also, Child Care Now is pressing for federal, provincial and territorial governments to develop and implement a salary scale for the sector and pensions and benefits, that would equitably and properly compensate those who work in child care, the majority of whom are women. 

“Of course, we also need governments to build and support more child care facilities and programs so that there is enough supply to eliminate wait lists,” Ballantyne said.  “$10aDay child care is extremely popular so we need a lot more of it, not less as has been proposed by the protesting for-profit operators.”

For more information, contact:

Morna Ballantyne, Executive Director, Child Care Now 

613.791.3411

morna.ballantyne@childcarenow.ca 

About Child Care Now

Child Care Now (formerly Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada) is dedicated to advocating for a publicly funded, inclusive, quality, non-profit child care system. Our organization is non-profit, membership-based and regionally representative.

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