Survey finds overwhelming support for affordable child care in Canada
Findings from a survey released earlier this month show that there is overwhelming public support for government investments in affordable, high quality, affordable child care. The survey was conducted by the Environics Institute in partnership with YMCA Canada and YWCA Canada.
Conducted in early 2025, the survey finds that 83% of Canadians agree with the idea that “Canada should be a country where affordable and high-quality child care for young children is available to all parents who need it.”
Wide support for CWELCC expansion
Overall, the findings highlight the importance of the Canada-wide Early Learning and Child Care (CWELCC) program, and broader public funding for child care to benefit Canadian society as a whole.
Notably, the number of Canadians who would like to see more spending on child care outnumbers those that would like to see less by a margin of two-to-one.
Forty-six per cent of both parents and non-parents (those without children) strongly agreed that “Canada should be a country where affordable and high-quality child care for young children is available to all parents who need it”. Similarly, three-quarters of both parents and non-parents believe that children benefit from attending child care outside the home.
Affordable and high quality child care is still hard to find
Despite widespread belief that access to affordable, high quality child care is important, it is still hard to find.
Just over half (52%) of those surveyed indicated that it is hard or very hard for parents to find affordable and high quality child care in their community. Parents – both those who use and don’t use child care programs – were more likely to respond that it’s hard to find affordable, high quality child care, than non-parents.
Worryingly, 70% of parents who are income insecure (those that described their household income as “not enough”) responded it was hard to find affordable and high-quality child care in their community.
Support differs across demographic groups
Public support for child care is a higher priority for younger people (under 45 years) than older people (45 years and older) – with older people prioritizing government support for health care and social services.
Although there were some differences in the level of support for governments to help pay for the cost of child care – with higher support (70%) among parents who currently use child care programs – more than half (55%) of all respondents, regardless of parental status or use of child care, agreed that governments should help pay for the cost of child care.
Asked about the reasons why governments should provide funding for child care, an overwhelming majority of those surveyed believed that it is important:
- To ensure that women can return to work after they have children (86%)
- To make life more affordable for parents (83%)
- To give children more opportunities to to start learning and to get ready for school at an early age (83%)
- To encourage young couples to have more children (54%)
Canadians prefer government subsidies over tax cuts
Funding for child care and reduced rate of income tax attracted similar levels of public support. However, when asked to choose, Canadians surveyed responded that they prefer the option of maintaining government subsidies (61%) for child care centres over that of withdrawing the subsidies in order to finance tax cuts (26%).
This support aligns with the advocacy mission of Child Care Now and, importantly, aligns with evidence that shows the benefits of funding the supply side of child care services (the operators), opposed to funding service users, or parents, through the tax system.
The majority (68%) of Canadians (those with and without children) support the CWELCC program.
Read the full report here
Find the Data Tables here