Spotlight on public delivery of licensed child care in Canada

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Read the PDF here (ISBN 978-1-0678419-1-1)

Introduction 

The 2021 Federal Budget marked a transformative milestone in Canadian social policy, committing almost $30 billion over five years to establish a Canada-wide Early Learning and Child Care (ELCC) system. This investment enabled the federal government to sign initial five-year bilateral agreements with all 13 provinces and territories1, creating a national framework focused on reducing fees, creating over 250,000 new spaces, and strengthening the early childhood workforce.

The federal-provincial/territorial agreements were intended to transform market-driven ELCC to a system of universal services for all those who want to use it. Notably, the commitments prioritized the expansion of public and not-for-profit child care. The initial focus of five-year action plans prioritized affordability, with a goal of reducing fees for full-day child care to an average of $10 a day by March 31, 2026. By the end of 2025, six provinces and territories had already reduced full-day fees to a capped rate of $10/day (or less) for children 0-5.2,3 

As of December 2025, all 13 provinces and territories had signed agreements to extend the Canada-wide Early Learning and Child Care (CWELCC) funding agreements: 11 provinces4 and territories for five years, from April 1, 2026 to March 31, 2031; and Ontario and Alberta signed a one year extension to March 31, 2027.5 

As the first five-year agreements come to and end, there are still mountains to climb in order to achieve a universal system. 

Expansion of child care infrastructure continues to rely heavily on a market-driven approach, characterized by limited public planning, oversight or direct delivery. Consequently, governments continue to rely on community-based providers to initiate and often finance the development of new facilities. This reliance creates structural inequities. For-profit operators often possess the liquid capital and risk tolerance required to scale rapidly, whereas non-profit providers—who typically deliver higher-quality care and serve more vulnerable populations6—frequently lack the financial capacity to expand. Without intentional public intervention, this market-led approach risks prioritizing commercial viability over equitable access or community need.

Recent data illustrate this imbalance. 

  • In 2025, 53 per cent of full-day licensed centre spaces for 0-5 years olds Canada-wide were in the for-profit sector7, with significant variation across jurisdictions. It ranged from 0 per cent in Nunavut and the Northwest Territories to 73, 72 and 70 per cent in Alberta, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick, respectively.
  • Since 2022, Canada-wide8, two-thirds of newly created licensed spaces for 0-5 years old9 have been in the for-profit sector10

To fulfill the 2021 federal budget’s promise11 of a universal child care system, a fundamental shift in governments’ approach to expansion is required. While public funding—rather than parental fees—now constitutes the primary revenue source for licensed ELCC, the creation of new spaces remains disproportionately driven by the private for-profit sector. The transition to more public delivery is no longer optional; it is essential. International evidence is clear: successful universal systems depend on significant public planning and public delivery. Publicly operated child care plays a central role in ensuring equitable access, consistent quality, workforce stability, and long-term sustainability.

The next phase of child care system building must focus on increasing and managing the expansion of non-profit and public child care spaces. 

About this spotlight report

This Spotlight paper is part of the ‘Growth by Design: Expanding Early Learning and Child Care in Canada’ (2023-2026) project, funded in part by the Government of Canada’s ELCC Data and Research Program. The objectives of the project are to:

  • Identify the barriers and facilitators that impact the capacity of public and not-for-profit providers to expand licensed ELCC
  • Engage the not-for-profit ELCC community, ELCC allies and public stakeholders in innovative thinking and capacity building to expand access to affordable, accessible and high-quality ELCC
  • Identify, describe and assess innovative practices and public policies that have supported the expansion of not-for-profit and public ELCC
  • Increase awareness and enable knowledge transfer about effective mechanisms and innovative practices to support the expansion of quality, affordable, accessible not-for-profit and public ELCC

This spotlight paper examines the role of public delivery in building a universal ELCC system in Canada. Drawing on Canadian data and international experience, it highlights the benefits of public delivery, reviews recent trends across provinces and territories, and identifies policy actions needed to remove barriers and support the expansion of publicly delivered licensed child care.

Roles of government in child care expansion

This section clarifies the distinct roles governments play in child care systems and situates public delivery within that broader governance framework. Doing so is essential to understanding why expansion strategies that rely primarily on third-party operators are insufficient to achieve universal access.

Governments and other public institutions can and do take on a variety of different roles in the child care system (see Figure 1, below), including delivering, planning, administering, financing, regulating, or leasing space to third party operators.12 This spotlight focuses specifically on public delivery, defined as 

“services operated directly by local or senior government agencies, such as school districts, municipalities, regional districts or public health authorities. The public agency holds the operating license and directly delivers the service to the community. Employees delivering the service are considered public employees. Public delivery contrasts with a non-profit delivery model, whereby the entity to hold the operating license and deliver a service is a non-profit organization. Employees delivering the service are considered employees of the non-profit operator”.13

In Canada, federal and provincial governments share the administration and finance role, while provincial governments are responsible for regulation and planning where services will be located (as agreed in many CWELCC agreements). Beyond these senior levels of government, several other public bodies assume varying levels of responsibility for planning, leasing public spaces to third party operators and, in some instances, directly delivering licensed child care, including:

  • Local governments (municipalities, hamlets, villages and towns)
  • School authorities
  • Indigenous governing bodies
  • Public post secondary institutions

International experience shows us that government involvement in funding, planning and directly delivering child care is integral to building a universal system. Nordic countries are frequently cited as models of strong public governance and delivery of child care and other social services. In Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Iceland over 70 per cent of ECEC services are operated by municipalities.14

In these countries the establishment of a legislated entitlement to ECEC – combined with the delegation of responsibility to municipalities to achieve universal access – establishes accountability for local governments to lead the planning and delivery of child care, with third-party operators stepping in only to fill gaps.15 

This stands in sharp contrast to the current Canadian model- where the majority of the sector relies on private (for-profit and non-profit) operators to find locations, build facilities and operate programs. And public bodies tend to step in to fill gaps in more vulnerable and underserviced areas. 

Drawing on recent collections of work from Canada16,17,18 and internationally19, this spotlight synthesizes key learnings about public delivery, and identifies what can be done to increase public delivery in Canada. It is organized into three sections.

  1. Benefits: Outlines the benefits of public delivery, highlighting evidence from the literature.
  2. Trends: Summarizes the scope and recent trends in public delivery in Canada between 2022 and 2025.
  3. Recommendations: Provides policy recommendations to address the existing barriers to expand public delivery of licensed child care across Canada.

Benefits of public delivery

The benefits of public delivery are experienced by all stakeholders involved in child care: the users (parents and children), staff (educators and other staff), the government (as both funder and operators), and the broader community. 

These advantages have been well documented in both Canadian and international literature20. We can look to local examples within Canada where particular municipalities21 or local governments have chosen to directly deliver services.22 We can also look to international examples where nation states prioritize public delivery.23 

As the Childcare Resource and Research Unit (CRRU) notes, “most of the countries with accessible, quality child care that is responsive to parents’ and children’s needs mostly rely on public services to deliver their child care supply.”24 

Benefits for children and families

Publicly delivered child care provides a consistent high-quality service. A key advantage is that municipalities and school authorities have greater control over operations and can leverage public space to meet specific community needs.

Evidence consistently links public delivery to higher quality. A 2021 review of the City of Toronto’s municipally operated child care centres found that municipally operated programs had a larger number of qualified educators, higher quality scores, fewer licensing infractions compared to for-profit and non-profit centres, and less variability in Assessment for Quality Improvement (AQI) rankings.25

This aligns with international findings. Although a complex field, studies that examine quality differences in public and private early childhood education and care show  “a tendency of indicating higher quality levels for public and non-profit ECEC compared to for-profit operators in numerous Anglo-Saxon countries”.26

Additionally, childcare delivered by public school authorities has an added benefit of helping children transition to school.

Benefits for staff

Public delivery provides staff with more stable and supported employment. ECEs in the public sector are “usually afforded the same decent work standards enjoyed generally by other public sector employees: pensions, benefits, a salary scale, pay equity and transparent human resource policies”.27 Because public sector employees are more likely to be unionized, they usually have better pay, working conditions and job security. 

In addition, there are usually more opportunities for professional learning, career growth and full-time hours, as well as opportunities to work across and gain experience within different services for the municipality. Gatreaux describes this benefit as having “greater integration of ECEs into the public agency” which fosters stronger connections between staff, families and broader community.

Crucially, these benefits flow to children and families in the form of higher quality care and lower staff turnover. There is also evidence that increased wages and benefits in the public sector have indirectly helped increase wages in the not-for-profit and private sectors.28 Innovative approaches and best practices also tend to flow to other parts of the sector.29

Benefits for government as operators

The benefits to staff also benefit public operators, as improved benefits and working conditions lead to improved recruitment and retention (less turnover), resulting in greater stability and higher quality child care services. With increased public delivery these benefits are more likely to flow indirectly to the broader ELCC sector. 

Other benefits to public operators include control over their own facilities, and greater autonomy over the design, planning and implementation of programs. For example, a municipality30 with available space has the autonomy and flexibility to use spaces for multiple purposes, while school authorities can integrate child care physical spaces and staffing arrangements within the broader school environment. 

Financially, public centres located in public buildings often avoid market rent. These savings can provide financial benefits to the operator (and therefore government). With  set parent fees across several provinces and territories, and the introduction of wage grids in six jurisdictions, these operational savings can be reinvested directly into quality enhancement – such as improving physical spaces, offering professional development opportunities for staff, and increasing centres’ capacity to provide additional learning supports and inclusion resources for all children. 

Benefits to community

Public responsibility for service delivery makes spending more predictable and sustainable. International examples demonstrate that when public institutions are responsible for ensuring children have access to child care there is more intention to plan and deliver services to meet community needs. As Gatreaux summarizes:

“Direct delivery facilitates the public agency’s ability to be more involved in the programs delivered in their facility. For example, they can leverage space and adapt programming when needed, thereby allowing for greater ability to meet the community’s needs.” 31 

Martin Korpi commented that, in Sweden, publicly delivered child care brought benefits to municipalities, as the “availability of quality child care strengthened the attractiveness of places to live for families.”32 Additionally, Urban and Mathias, in their report on the trends toward privatization of ECEC services, draw on case study evidence from a number of countries to demonstrate that public delivery is higher quality, and more accessible and inclusive for children and families living in lower socioeconomic neighbourhoods.33 

What public delivery in Canada looks like

Across Canada there are a variety of public institutions that operate licensed child care, including local governments, school authorities, Indigenous governing bodies, and public post-secondary institutions.34 

In all provinces and territories, there is some amount of public delivery. Although some jurisdictions have seen a decline in municipally operated spaces, recent data are showing there has been a recent increase in public delivery in several provinces and territories.35

Using data from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives’ (CCPA) Childcare Licensing and Accessibility by Region (CLAR) database36, the section below summarizes the type and quantity of public delivery for 0 to 12 year olds across the provinces. 

It is important to interpret the CLAR data within the following context: 

  • The database includes all licensed child care spaces, not only those funded by CWELCC. 
  • It includes spaces for school-aged children, which in many provinces includes licensed spaces for children younger than 6 years who are in school.37 
  • It does not include unlicensed spaces, even those that are publicly funded or delivered, such as those operated by school authorities in Quebec, by non-profit organizations operating the Before and After program (BAP) in Nova Scotia, and through extended day and approved recreational providers in Ontario. 
  • The data includes both full-day and part-day spaces, such as school-age spaces and part-day preschool spaces, which are particularly prevalent in Alberta and British Columbia.
  • It includes the ten provinces and does not include licensed public spaces in the three territories.38 
  • The CLAR includes data about private (non-profit and for-profit) delivery as well, but this report focuses on public delivery.

Table 1 shows that, across all provinces, there was a net increase of 33 new public operators (licensees) and 188 new publicly operated centres between December 2022 (Q4) and September 2025 (Q3). An operator is a single entity that operates one or multiple centres.

Figure 2 shows that in total there was an increase of 12 municipal centres, 153 centres operated by school boards/authorities, 20 centres owned by Indigenous organizations, and an increase of 1 centre operated by a public post secondary.  

Publicly operated licensed centres are concentrated in three provinces – Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia (Table 1). Combined, the publicly operated centres in these three provinces represented 94% of all licensed39 publicly operated centres in Canada in 2025. There was an increase of 13 publicly operated centres in Alberta, 56 in Ontario, and 108 in British Columbia between 2022 and 2025.

Table 2 shows the total number of publicly operated spaces in each of the provinces in 2022 and 2025. The total number of publicly operated spaces increased from 57,721 to 66,742 during this period, for a net gain of  9,021 spaces. The largest increase occurred in Ontario, followed by British Columbia. Consistent with the changes in public operators and centres noted above (Table 1), the most significant growth  in public spaces was driven by school authorities in  Ontario. These new spaces alone (4,884) represent 54% of the total net increase in publicly operated spaces across all provinces. (Table 3).

Table 3 presents the data from Figure 1 and Table 2 in a slightly different way, by showing the number of net new licensed public spaces, broken down by auspice type and province between 2022 and 2025. It highlights that the majority of public spaces were created in Ontario and British Columbia and by school authorities. The number of spaces operated by school authorities increased by 7,597 spaces, representing the large majority (83%) of growth in publicly operated spaces.

*Canada-wide does not include the territories40

Figure 3 presents a Canada-wide breakdown of publicly operated child care spaces by type of operator. In 2025, the majority of publicly operated spaces were delivered by school authorities (35,985 or 54%), followed by municipalities and /local governments (15,806 or 23.6%), Indigenous governing bodies (10,268 or 15.4%) and public post secondary institutions (4,683 or 7%).

Given that school boards/authorities have been the primary drivers of new public space creation, it is not surprising that the most growth has occurred in school-age spaces. As Figure 4 shows, the large majority (7,853 of the total 9,021, or 87%) of the new public spaces between 2022 and 2025 are school age spaces, a figure that includes kindergarten spaces in Ontario. In 2025, over 65% of all licensed publicly delivered spaces were for school age children.

It is important to note that the majority of school age spaces are not funded under CWELCC, With the exception of spaces for kindergarten age children in most provinces and territories41, school age spaces fall outside the scope of the  CWELCC agreements.

*Preschool age includes full-day preschool spaces, part-day preschool spaces, plus Multi-age Flex and Other spaces. In 2022 there were 648 Flex Age and 194 Other spaces. In 2025 there were 558 Flex Age spaces and 158 Other spaces.

The data above demonstrate that, while there is net growth in publicly delivered child care spaces across Canada as a whole, this expansion is uneven. It is concentrated in a minority of provinces, heavily focused on school-aged care, operated by school boards/authorities.

Meanwhile, a competing trend is evident: in most provinces and territories, for-profit child care is growing faster than both public and not-for-profit child care.42

The next section discusses the specific policy measures needed to address these disparities and support the broader expansion of public delivery in Canada. 

Addressing barriers to public delivery

To realize the benefits of public child care outlined earlier in the report – and to make meaningful progress toward the objective of universal child care – governments must implement structural changes that actively prioritize and facilitate the expansion of publicly delivered child care. Drawing on international literature, the Growth by Design project case studies, and various provincial roadmaps, the following three policy priorities are essential.43,4445,46,47

1. Remove legislative barriers and enact enabling frameworks for public delivery

Provincial and municipal governments must remove legislative and policy barriers that currently prohibit or deter public bodies from directly delivering licensed child care. In several jurisdictions, existing frameworks explicitly or implicitly position public delivery as a last resort rather than as a core component of system expansion.

For example, the number of municipally operated centres in Ontario have been in decline since the late 1990s and, most recently following a 2024 provincial directive requiring municipalities  to  conduct value-for-money audits to assess if third-party providers could operate more “efficiently”48. Additionally, Ontario’s Directed Growth Plans, allows municipalities to operate new centres only where there are no other operators available. Together, these policies create strong disincentives for public delivery.

Other jurisdictions demonstrate that different approaches are possible. In Newfoundland and Labrador the Towns and Local Service Districts Act (TLSD Act)(2025) replaced the former Municipalities Act (1990), now allowing municipalities to directly deliver services, including child care.49 Municipalities are now encouraged and supported to operate licensed child care centres as part of local service provision.50

Provincial governments can also mandate a role and framework for school boards/authorities to operate child care. For example, in British Columbia, Bill 19: School Amendment Act, 2025. enables school districts to provide licensed child care to children of all ages, including infants and toddlers, removing a long-standing legislative barrier to school-based expansion.51

Another policy lever is to enact legislation that gives the municipal government the right of first refusal before any for-profit child care centre is sold, as recommended in Nova Scotia’s recent roadmap.52

Public bodies already have access to infrastructure financing mechanisms that can and should be leveraged for child care expansion. Municipalities can also facilitate publicly delivered services through lower licensing fees, or concessions to public entities requiring renovations to meet regulatory requirements. Provincial and municipal governments can support public expansion through a dedicated stream of infrastructure funding for public entities wishing to build and operate licensed child care.

Overall, provinces and territories should review legislation, policies and local by-laws that may limit, intentionally or unintentionally, the provision of publicly operated child care, and, where possible, establish policy and establish policy and funding mechanisms that actively enable it.

2. Strengthen government and public understanding of the benefits of public delivery

A second priority is to generate broader recognition among policy makers and the public of the long-term benefits of public delivery. This can be achieved through federal and provincial governments providing sufficient funding to lower levels of government to adequately support public expansion. 

Governments must recognize that the higher costs of public delivery are outweighed by the long-term benefits of providing higher quality and more sustainable services. While publicly delivered child care often entails higher costs, primarily due to higher staff wages, evidence consistently shows that these costs are offset by improved quality, greater workforce stability and more sustainable provision over time.53

Achieving this shift  requires a shared commitment across all levels of government to recognize access to child care  for all children 0 to 5 years as an entitlement. Countries where access to child care is a legal entitlement all have a significant supply of publicly delivered child care.

For example, in Denmark, the Act on Day Care Facilities obliges municipalities to ensure ECEC provision for all children from the age of 26 weeks to the start of primary school. Municipalities are responsible for planning services based on local needs and allocating places accordingly.54

Similarly, Sweden’s public-led system gives responsibility to municipalities to plan and deliver child care services. This makes municipalities accountable for ensuring there is an adequate supply of child care that meets local needs. During the major expansion of Sweden’s ECEC system in the 1970s and 1980s, municipalities were funded through earmarked state grants linked to performance.55 Where gaps remained, non-government organizations (namely parent cooperatives) played a complementary role.56 This stands in sharp contrast to Canada and other liberal countries where the market builds the system and public institutions fill the gaps, often for the most vulnerable families and children.

These international examples highlight that public delivery is not merely a service option, but a governance strategy that enables intentional planning, accountability, and equity.

3. Harmonizing wages and benefits across all types of operators

A third priority for governments is to remove financial disincentives that discourage public bodies from directly delivering child care, by harmonizing wages and benefits across all operators. In Ontario, for example, the high cost of the wage bill creates a disincentive for municipalities to directly deliver child care. The provincial starting wage for a RECE is $24.86 in 2025, compared with starting wages of between $30 and $40 per hour in municipally run centres in Ontario.57

These  higher wage costs reinforce the province’s directive to have municipalities undertake value-for-money audits and only directly deliver services at a last resort. Implementing a  sector wide wage grid and standardized benefits would reduce these disparities and eliminate a key barrier to public delivery. Wage harmonization would also support recruitment and retention across the sector, reduce workforce instability, and strengthen quality in the non-profit sector.

Conclusion

Canada is at a pivotal moment in the development of its national early learning and child care system. While the expansion of licensed spaces is underway, the pace remains insufficient to meet rising demand. Of even greater concern is the continued pace of  for-profit expansion, which in many jurisdictions is outpacing growth in the public and not-for-profit sectors. Left unaddressed, this trend threatens the long-term sustainability, equity and coherence of a universal system. 

A market-led approach to expansion is incompatible with the objectives of a universal child care system. To ensure equitable access and consistent quality, governments must take deliberate action to strengthen public delivery. This requires actively enabling public bodies – local governments, school authorities, Indigenous governing bodies and public post-secondary institutions – to plan, build and operate high quality, inclusive child care services. 

To fulfill the promise of  a truly universal early learning and child care system, all levels of government must strengthen their role in funding, planning and delivering licensed child care. They need to take an active leadership role by facilitating the direct delivery of services through public bodies, including municipalities, school authorities, Indigenous governing organizations, and post-secondary institutions. Expanding public and not-for-profit delivery is not a short-term fix, but a long-term system-building strategy. While this transition will take time, continued reliance on for-profit expansion will only entrench inequities and undermine public accountability.

By prioritizing public delivery as a core pillar of system design, Canada can ensure equitable access, strengthen quality and workforce stability, and firmly establish early learning and child care not as a market commodity, but an essential public service for children, families and communities. 

Acknowledgements

The data used in this report is from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives proprietary Childcare licensing  and Accessibility by Region (CLAR) database. We thank David Macdonald for his work calculations to produce this data.

For more information about the methodology used in the CLAR please see Cash Cow: Assessing child care space creation progress. Available at: https://www.policyalternatives.ca/news-research/cash-cow-assessing-child-care-space-creation-progress/  

Any mistakes in the tables and graphs are those of Child Care Now.

The ideas, views and opinions in this publication belong to the authors. They may not reflect those of the Government of Canada.

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Friendly, M., Cleveland, G., Colley, S., Vickerson, R., Ferns, C., Holt, C., … & Neufeld, S. (2024) The Municipal Role in Child Care. Institute on Municipal Finance and Governance. https://imfg.org/report/the-municipal-role-in-child-care/#document

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Footnotes

  1. Quebec signed an asymmetrical agreement, which allows the province to continue to develop its own ELCC system without a negotiated action plan, while receiving its share of CWELCC funding. ↩︎
  2. MacDonald and Friendly (2025) The price is not right (yet): $10-a-day child care falling short of target. Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives ↩︎
  3. Friendly et al (2026) Early Childhood Education and Care in Canada 2024/25. Childcare Resource and Research Unit. ↩︎
  4. Quebec extended its asymmetrical funding agreement allowing the province to fund its own priorities. ↩︎
  5. Government of Canada, 2025. Canada and Alberta agree to one-year extension of early learning and child care. ↩︎
  6. Macdonald and Friendly (2023) Not done yet: $10-a-day child care requires addressing Canada’s child care deserts. Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. ↩︎
  7. Friendly et al (2026) ↩︎
  8. This calculation is based on the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives proprietary Childcare licensing  and Accessibility by Region (CLAR) database, and therefore does not include the three territories. ↩︎
  9. This includes full- and part-day licensed child care spaces for children who are not in school. It does not include licensed spaces for 4 and 5 year olds are in school aged spaces. ↩︎
  10. Calculated using the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives proprietary Childcare licensing  and Accessibility by Region (CLAR) database. ↩︎
  11. Government of Canada (2020). Federal Budget 2021: A recovery plan for jobs, growth and resilience, https://budget.canada.ca/2021/home-accueil-en.html [accessed 9 October 2025] ↩︎
  12. Friendly et al (2024) The municipal role in child care, Institute on Municipal Finance & Governance. ↩︎
  13. Gatreaux, M (2019) Public Childcare Delivery: Learning from BC Local Government Agencies. City of Vancouver. p3. ↩︎
  14. Trætteberg et al. (2023) Privatization of Early childhood education and care in Nordic countries, Springer Nature: Switzerland, p82. ↩︎
  15. Ibid, 2023 ↩︎
  16. Gatreaux, M (2019)  ↩︎
  17. Friendly et al (2022) How publicly delivered child care services contribute to accessibility.  Chapter 4 in: Moving from private to public processes. Childcare Resource and Research Unit. ↩︎
  18. Friendly et al (2024) ↩︎
  19. Trætteberg et al. (2023)  ↩︎
  20. See Footnotes 15, 16, 17, 18 and 21 ↩︎
  21. Municipalities also includes other local governments, such as hamlets, villages and towns ↩︎
  22. Friendly et al (2024)  ↩︎
  23. Trætteberg et al. (2023) ↩︎
  24. Friendly et al (2022) p10. ↩︎
  25. Cited in Vickerson and Ferns (2024), p18. ↩︎
  26. Trætteberg et al. (2023), p150. ↩︎
  27. Vickerson and Ferns (2024) How Municipal Child Care System Management and Operation Can Help Solve the Child Care Workforce Crisis, in The Municipal Role in Child Care. IMFG. ↩︎
  28. Gatreaux, M (2019) ↩︎
  29. Vickerson and Ferns (2024) ↩︎
  30. Child Care Now (2025) Spotlight on Kinkora’s municipally run child care in Prince Edward Island. Child Care Now. ↩︎
  31. Gatreaux, M (2019) p15. ↩︎
  32. Cited in CRRU (2022) How publicly delivered child care services contribute to accessibility. Moving from private to public processes: A series on creating child care in Canada. CRRU, p4 ↩︎
  33. Urban and Rubiano (2014) Privatisation in Early Childhood Education (PECE): An explorative study on impacts and implications, University of Roehampton. ↩︎
  34. From publicly available information there are no regional health institutions in Canada that deliver licensed child care. ↩︎
  35. Friendly et al (2022) p6. ↩︎
  36.  For more information about the methodology used in the CLAR please see Cash Cow: Assessing child care space creation progress. ↩︎
  37. School age spaces for children under 6 are funded by CWELCC, with the exception of PEI and New Brunswick. ↩︎
  38. Administrative data from ECEC in Canada 2026 shows us that, proportionately, the territories have fairly high levels of publicly delivered child care services. In 2025, the Yukon had 378 publicly delivered spaces (16.1% of all licensed centre-based spaces), the Northwest Territories 703 spaces (43% of all licensed centre-based spaces), and Nunavut 281 (22% of all licensed centre-based spaces). ↩︎
  39. As noted above, this does not include centres operated by school authorities in Quebec that are not licensed, unlicensed after school programs in Ontario, or unlicensed programs in Nova Scotia such as the Before and After Program (BAP). ↩︎
  40. Data from ECEC in Canada (2026) shows that the Yukon has 378 publicly delivered spaces (16.1% of all licensed centre-based spaces), the Northwest Territories 703 spaces (43% of all licensed centre-based spaces), and Nunavut 281 (22% of all licensed centre-based spaces) ↩︎
  41. School age spaces for children under 6 are funded by CWELCC, with the exception of PEI and New Brunswick. ↩︎
  42. Macdonald (2026) The last mile: provincial child care expansion at the five year deadline. Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. ↩︎
  43. Thompson, K., Findlay, T., Saulnier, C., and Richard, M. 2025. The Roadmap is Clear, Detours are Risky: Nova Scotia’s Child Care System at a Crossroads. Halifax: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives-Nova Scotia. Available at: https://www.policyalternatives.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Child-care-report-2025.pdf ↩︎
  44. Beach (2021) Roadmap to a Quality Early Learning and Child Care System in Saskatchewan. Canadian Child Care Federation, Child Care Now, Saskatchewan Early Childhood Association and The Muttart Foundation. ↩︎
  45. Child Care Now (2021)Canada’s Roadmap to Affordable Child Care for All. Child Care Now: Ottawa. ↩︎
  46. Trætteberg et al. (2023) ↩︎
  47. Urban and Rubiano (2014) ↩︎
  48. Ministry of Education, 2024.Ontario Child Care and EarlyON Child and Family Centres Service Management and Funding Guidelines. ↩︎
  49. Aylward, N. 2023. Making Space: Roadmap on Early Learning and Child Care. St. John’s: Jimmy Pratt Foundation, 2023. ↩︎
  50. Newfoundland and Labrador Government, 2025. Municipalities and Child Care. ↩︎
  51. Ministry of Education and Child Care, 2025.Province to remove barriers, make way for more child care at schools. ↩︎
  52. Thompson, K., Findlay, T., Saulnier, C., and Richard, M. 2025. The Roadmap is Clear, Detours are Risky: Nova Scotia’s Child Care System at a Crossroads. Halifax: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives-Nova Scotia. ↩︎
  53. See Vickerson and Ferns (2024), p18; Trætteberg et al. (2023) p150. ↩︎
  54. Eurydice, 2025. Denmark: Early childhood education and care. [accessed 9 September 2025] ↩︎
  55. Trætteberg et al. (2023) ↩︎
  56. Trætteberg et al. (2023) p58. ↩︎
  57. AECEO, B2C2, OCBCC, EPC. 2025. Justice for child care employees: Securing equitable wages in the Canada-wide Early Learning and Child Care system in Ontario. Available at: https://b2c2.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/pay-equity-childcare-paper-1.pdf ↩︎

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