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New report shows much more to be done to meet the promise of universal child care  

The Childcare Resource and Research Unit has released a new, information-packed report on Canadian child care. The report shows the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care (CWELCC) program, launched in 2021, is yielding positive results with respect to affordability, availability of licensed programs, and working conditions and compensation for the child care workforce. 

However, Early childhood education and care in Canada 2024/2025 also points to some missteps by governments over the last five years and identifies problem areas that must be addressed to achieve CWELCC’s goal of making high quality child care programs accessible to all who need them.   

The report found:

  • All provinces and territories have substantially dropped parent fees—but not all will achieve the goal of an average fee of $10 a day by March 31, 2026.
  • Alberta eliminated fee subsidies to assist individual low-income families when the province set fees at an average of $15.00 a day. As a result, many of the families previously eligible for subsidies experienced an increase in their fees.
  • Parents in several provinces are being charged additional fees for “extras” such as meals, wait listing or outings.  
  • The number of child care centres has increased substantially under CWELCC, as have active licensed family child care homes, which had been declining for a decade.  However, the system has not expanded sufficiently to meet demand.
  • Contrary to governments’ commitments to build a primarily not-for-profit system of early learning and child care, CWELCC has increased the provision of for-profit child care. 
  • In seven jurisdictions, new and expanded for-profits receive new operating funding and receive capital funding in three. For-profit spaces represented more than 40% of net full-day growth in seven jurisdictions. 
  • Multiple provincial/territorial initiatives have been put in place to address the shortage of qualified early childhood educators.  Eight provincial and territorial governments have put in place wage grids, six have contributed to the funding of pension and benefit plans.  
  • Full-school day four and five year old kindergarten has become part of Canada’s child care landscape, with full-day kindergarten offered to all five year olds in eight jurisdictions and all four year olds in two. The use and provision patterns of regulated child care are significantly impacted by how kindergarten is provided.  

The federal government announced the Canada-wide Early Learning and Child Care plan (CWELCC, or $10 a day child care) in the April 2021 budget. Provinces and territories, which are responsible for delivering social programs in Canada, “signed-on” to a first round of five year agreements, along with substantial ongoing federal funding in 2021 and 2022.  New five year agreements with all jurisdictions but Ontario and Alberta, which have new one year agreements, begin April 1 2026. 

ECEC in Canada 2024/2025 is the Childcare Resource and Research Unit’s 15th Canada-wide report on early childhood education and care. 

Read the report here.