New report shows an increase in licensed child care under federal program
A new report by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) shows that the number of licensed child care spaces across the provinces is increasing. However, the pace of growth is not fast enough to reach targets set by the the federal government’s Canada-wide early learning and child care plan.
Across Canada, the provinces promised to create 210,604 new full-time spaces with federal money, but they are short 57,030 spaces.
CCPA’s analysis uses data collected from its new database, the Childcare Licensing and Accessibility by Region (CLAR).
A handful of provinces have reached or surpassed their space creation goals
- New Brunswick has created 47 per cent more spaces than it committed to and has already surpassed its 2025-26 target.
- British Columbia has created more than 25,000 new spaces, exceeding its April 2025 target
- Ontario and P.E.I. are close to meeting their April 2025 target
Other provinces have a long way to go
- Alberta is approximately 60 per cent of its way to its March 2025 target and less than half way to its March 2026 target.
- Manitoba and Saskatchewan have only achieved a fraction of their target growth
- Nova Scotia created less than half the spaces they promised to put in place by March 2025
- Newfoundland and Labrador created approximately two-thirds of the spaces set as the province’s March 2025 target, but only one-third of the way to its March 2026 target.
- Quebec created almost 28,000 spaces, compared with their 37,000 target for March 2025
Accessibility varies by demographic and geographic locations
The CCPA report does more than count the number of new spaces. It also looks at population data to measure coverage rates across provinces and local areas, which can be a more useful way to identify gaps in availability.
Quebec and P.E.I. are the only provinces that have achieved a coverage rate of at least 59%, or 5.9 spaces per 10 children under school-age. However, even in these provinces there are areas that have ‘child care deserts’, defined as less than 3 licensed child care spaces per 10 children.
Importantly, the authors found no significant difference in coverage rates by income level.
Concerning that most new spaces are in the for-profit sector
Child Care Now is concerned about the report’s finding that the majority of new licensed child care spaces for non-school age children have been in the for-profit sector. The author, David Macdonald, explains that for-profit providers have taken full advantage of the big increase in federal funding for child care to expand their operations.
For-profit expansion is more prevalent in some provinces than others. In Alberta, British Columbia, New Brunswick and PEI the expansion of new spaces since 2022 was almost entirely for-profit.
Child Care Now is concerned about this trend, especially given the federal-provincial agreements stipulate that new spaces should be primarily delivered by non-profit or public providers such as municipalities or school boards.
“Child Care Now’s recent submission to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance also raised the alarm about the significant growth of the commercial child care sector which is being fueled by public funds and calls on the federal government to make expansion of not-for-profit and public child care its main focus as it continues to strengthen the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care program,” says Morna Ballantyne, Child Care Now Executive Director.
More government dollars and public planning needed
The prevalence of for-profit child care, as well as findings about inequitable coverage rates across regions, demonstrate the need for a stronger role at all levels of government to take responsibility for planning and creating the supply of new child care spaces.
As Macdonald asserts, “Now is the time to have the provinces get specific and task lower-level authorities with specific space creation goals. Those lower-level authorities could be city governments, Indigenous governing bodies, school boards, health authorities or other public planning authorities. We should have those lower-level authorities explicitly sign up the exact providers that will receive new licenses, ensuring those providers are non-profit or public.”
Read the full report here.
Read Child Care Now’s submission to the federal pre-budget consultation here.