Child care in Canada

Primary responsibility for early learning, preschool and child care in Canada rests with the 13 provincial and territorial governments. The federal role is governed by the Canada Early Learning and Child Care Act, and involves a national scheme of transfer payments to those governments, who in turn use it to fund low-cost regulated spaces. To this end, the Act requires the federal government to enter into bilateral agreements with the provinces and territories, which form the backbone of the Canada-wide Early Learning and Child Care (CWELCC) system. The goal of the scheme is to provide universal, high-quality care to the Canadian population of children, while facilitating the social mobility of parents.

Since 1984, advocates had engaged in a number of unsuccessful attempts to establish a national child care system. By 2019, about 60% of children who were 0 to 5 years-old participated in day care arrangements. Of these, 52% were in formal day care settings and 26% were cared for by a relative in an informal setting. About 40% of parents had difficulty finding child care arrangements.^[1] As of 2016, 30% of child care operations in Canada were for-profit, which includes large single-owner corporate chains. Some federal, provincial, territorial, and municipal public funding of child care is limited to not-for-profit child care operations.

In the spring of 2021, the federal government announced the creation of a national child-care system, with $30 billion over five years in federal funds to "cut child-care fees to an average of $10 per day" across Canada.^[2] All ten provinces and three territories have signed onto this national child care program.^[3] Contemporary issues relating to child-care in Canadian politics include lack of sufficient early childhood education workers, driven by low wages, lack of benefits, and high stress, as well as controversies about the role of the government in child-care, and the status of for-profit operators.^[4][5][6][7]