Budget 2026: Child Care Now calls for increased federal investments in CWELCC to help build Canada
Child Care Now is asking the House of Commons Finance Committee (FINA) to recommend a larger investment in the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care program as part of the federal government’s plan to make Canada strong, and to provide sufficient funding to implement the Indigenous Early Learning and Child Care Frameworks.
Child Care Now’s submission calls for the federal transfer to provinces and territories to be boosted to $54.5 billion over five years (2026-27 to 2030-31) to help finance CWELCC’s operational costs. Additionally, the submission recommends the renewal and expansion of the federal Early Learning and Child Care (ELCC) Infrastructure Fund to provide provinces and territories $15.2 billion in capital funding over the same five-year period.
Child Care Now says that provinces and territories should be required to submit a comprehensive growth plan to be eligible for capital funds from the ELCC Infrastructure Fund, and be required to add $25 of their funds for every $75 received from the federal government.
Child Care Now says conditions should also be put on federal operational funding. Specifically, provinces and territories should be required to:
- reach and maintain a $10 daily parent fee cap;
- ensure that there are provisions for lower than $10aDay fees for lower-income families, and no fees for families living in poverty;
- finance effective workforce strategies to expand the size of the qualified child care workforce including:
- competitive salary schedules for the ELCC workforce, and policies to ensure that employees are compensated for all hours worked, including program preparation time,
- province-wide benefit and pension plans equivalent to those in place in publicly funded sectors such as public education, health care, and municipal services.
Operational and capital fund transfers to Quebec would not be subject to the same conditions given the Government of Canada’s asymmetrical funding arrangements with the province of Quebec.
Child Care Now argues in its brief to FINA that increasing operational funding every year over the next five years, and injecting significant capital funding to build new facilities, are both necessary to meet the demand for high quality, affordable and reliable licensed child care programs”
CWELCC is necessary infrastructure to support other Team Canada Strong programs, such as the recent federal initiative to spend $6 billion to recruit, train and hire up to 100,000 new skilled trades workers.
Investing in child care to expand the availability of reliable child care services would ease access to skilled trades work, and it would provide an essential bridge to construction work for women who make up only 7.3 per cent of trades workers.
Additionally, investment in child care would directly benefit the growing child care workforce – that is over 95% women.