Major development: Alberta brings in $15-a-day child care

February 13 2025

Child care advocates welcome the Government of Alberta’s decision to put in place a province-wide fee of $15-a-day per child for licensed early learning and child care centres and family home child care effective April 1, 2025. The set fee will be reduced to $10-a-day by March 31, 2026.

The government’s announced “Affordability Funding” approach requires operators who join Alberta’s version of the  Canada-wide Early Learning and Child Care program to set their fees at $326.25 per month for children enrolled full-time, and $230 per month for those enrolled part-time.  Parents with children enrolled in Alberta’s preschools, which offer part-time programs for children aged 19 months to five years, will receive a reduction of up to $100 a month. 

“Finally Alberta is joining the majority of provinces and territories in Canada and introducing a provincially set fee,” said Susan Cake, Chair of Child Care Now Alberta.

“It means that the cost of what the Government of Alberta deems to be core child care services will be the same regardless of where you live in the province,” said Susan Cake, Chair of Child Care Now Alberta.”

However, with the good news comes bad news. The Government of Alberta also announced the elimination of the province’s child care subsidy program which means low-income parents who are paying less than $15-a-day per child will see significant fee creases.

“It is disappointing that the most vulnerable and lowest income families are having access to early learning and child care taken away while we are in a cost of living crisis. We should be working towards serving all families with both a fee cap and sliding scale subsidy,” Cake said.

Further, the Government of Alberta’s “affordability funding” approach will allow licensed operators to charge parents supplementary fees for services that fall outside of the so-called “core services” that will be funded with public money. Examples of supplementary services include food,  transportation, field trips, cultural activities, diapers, and extended care. 

The Government of Alberta says supplementary fees cannot be imposed on parents but their children will go without services that are not paid. Cake points out that there is no clear regulation governing how these fees can be set, when they can be brought in, or how parents will be protected from losing access to programs if they cannot afford to pay the supplementary fees or choose not to pay them. 

“With one hand, the province has put in place a province-wide fee of $15.00-a-day, and with the other it is allowing centres to charge different and higher fees,” said Cake. “We want to see a maximum fee of $15.00-a-day today and $10-a-day by March 31, 2026 and want that maximum fee adjusted downwards for low-income households according to a sliding fee scale, and we want all parents who pay their fees to have access to high-quality programs including nutritious food, field trips, extended hours and other elements of a child care without having to pay sur-charges.”

Read our Backgrounder for more information about Alberta’s affordability approach.