Canada’s $10-a-day Childcare Program
“Childcare is not just a social policy—it is an economic policy, too. Affordable, high-quality childcare will grow our economy, allow more women to enter the workforce, and help give every Canadian child the best start in life.” This is what the Canadian government’s FY 2022 budget stated when introducing an “historic and transformative investment” of $30 billion ($24 billion in USD 2023) over five years, $9.2 billion of which would be invested in childcare. The federal government reached an agreement with all thirteen provinces and territories, so that by the end of 2022, Canadian families would see their childcare fees reduced an average of 50 percent. A total of 250,000 new low-cost spaces are to be created, principally in nonprofit or public daycare centers, and family-based providers. By 2025-2026, the average childcare fee in Canada would be $10-a-day ($7.60 in USD 2023) for all regulated childcare spaces throughout the country. In several of the provinces, plans to implement a $10-a-day program were already moving faster than the federal government required.
There were earlier attempts at universal childcare within the provinces, but with mixed results. An analysis of Quebec’s 1990s universal and highly subsidized childcare came in for significant criticism. Three economists writing in the National Bureau of Economic Research stated that they had found “striking evidence that children are worse off in a variety of behavioral and health dimensions, ranging from aggression to motor-social skills to illness.”
Nonetheless, the new nationwide program is based on the Quebec model. In Quebec, nearly 90 percent of women are in the workforce, the largest percentage of any of the Canadian provinces. Further, the childcare program has strengthened the provincial economy. According to Pierre Fortin, emeritus professor of economics at the Université du Québec à Montréal, Quebec’s GDP is 1.5 percent higher than it would have been without the childcare program.
One of the major hurdles, however, is the program’s popularity. In Toronto, for example, childcare centers serve 270 children; but there is month’s long waiting list to enroll children. It is exacerbated by the lack of qualified staff and the prospect of relatively low pay for those workers. The federal government is optimistic:
High-quality, affordable, flexible and inclusive early learning and childcare is important for the future of children. Access to childcare also promotes greater gender equality by allowing more parents, particularly mothers, to participate in the workforce and achieve greater economic security. It also improves and grows the female-dominated early childhood educator workforce.
Sources: Budget 2022, Chapter 4: Creating Good Middle-Class Jobs, Government of Canada, n.d., https://www.budget.canada.ca/2022/REPORT-RAPPORT/chap4-en.html. “Toward $10-a-Day: Early Learning and Childcare,” Government of Canada, July 24, 2023, https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/campaigns/child-care.html; Vjosa Isai, “Day Care for Less Than $10: How Canada is Easing the Burden for Parents,” New York Times, July 5, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/26/world/canada/canada-child-care-fees.html; Jackie Mader, “What America Can Learn for Canada’s ‘$10 a Day’ Childcare System,” Washington Post, September 23, 2023), https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/09/24/canada-child-care-universal-system. Michael Baker, Jonathan Gruber, and Kevin Milligan, “Universal Childcare, Maternal Labor Supply, and Family Well-Bring,” National Bureau of Economic Research, December 2005, https://www.nber.org/papers/w11832 (accessed September 23, 2023). The authors further conclude that “our analysis also suggests that the new childcare program led to more hostile, less consistent parenting, worse parental health, and lower-quality parental relationships.”
