Child care in Canada

The 13 provincial and territorial governments have the main responsibility for early learning and child care in Canada because of the way in which specific powers and responsibilities were divided in the Constitution Act of 1867. Since 1984, there have been a number of unsuccessful attempts at establishing a national child care system. By 2019 in Canada, 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. 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 April 2021, the federal government announced the creation of a a national child-care system, with CA$5 billion in federal funds to "offset the cost of early learning and child care services".

Overview

Under Canada, the 13 provinces and territories have the "main responsibility for early learning and child care (ELCC)" through the division of powers between federal and provincial governments first established in the Constitution Act of 1867. Early learning and child care were not specifically identified as provincial powers in 1867, along with hospitals, justice, marriage, and corporate affairs. Especially since World War II, national social programs were developed in which the federal government led the initiative or collaborated with the provinces. Since 1984, attempts have been made at establishing a national child care strategy but it has never been realized.

In most of Canada, as of 2019, child care services were "organized on a market model." This has resulted in "unaffordable parent fees, inequitable and inadequate availability of services, and, too often, of low or modest quality." The exception is the province of Quebec, which implemented its Quebec Educational Childcare Act in 1997 which provides publicly subsidized child care for children ages 0 to 12.

Child care in Canada includes formal, such as day care and informal child care arrangements that allow some parents to be actively engaged in the labour market. By 2019, in Canada, 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 care for by a relative. About 40% of parents had difficulty finding child care arrangements. According to a Statistics Canada 2019 report, based on the "Survey on Early Learning and Child Care Arrangements" (SELCCA), "[c]hild care is an important economic contributor for families since provision of non-parental child care is a necessity for some parents to engage in the labour market or to study."

A 2019 Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada report summarized the major challenges in the delivery of child care services, which included a "severe shortage of spaces, unaffordable fees, poor working conditions for early childhood educators (ECEs), service gaps that have led to the expansion of for-profit services, and programs of questionable quality." The report listed the most significant barriers that impeded the implementation of a national strategy for ELCC as "Canadian federalism, an unwillingness to allocate sufficient public funding, and the contested historical belief that publicly-funded child care should be treated as "welfare" rather than a universal entitlement."

In 2008, Canada ranked at the bottom of the list of 25 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries based on benchmarks of ELCC delivery, according to an often-cited UNICEF 2008 early childhood education and care. Since 2008, while other OECD countries continued to develop child care systems, Canada "barely improved".

History

According to the Childcare Resource and Research Unit (CRRU) 249-page annual report, "Early Childhood Education and Care in Canada 2019", which was partially funded by the federal government's Employment and Social Development Canada's (ESDC) Social Development Partnerships program, past attempts at advancing child care programs have been made in 1984, 1987, 1993, 2003, and 2005. In spite of this, by 2020 Canada never had a "comprehensive national strategy or policy" as changes in governments repeatedly intervened.

The Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada was founded in 1983 as part of the massive women's rights movement in Canada putting pressure on the Liberal government of then Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau for a national child care program. By 1983, with approximately a million children needing child care outside the home, "only 1 in 10 was registered in a licensed day-care centre." With the debate on child care in Canada heating up, then Prime Minister John Turner appointed a task force on the state of daycare across Canada which resulted in the 428-page 1986 report.

A national daycare system was one of Brian Mulroney's promises in his 1984 Canadian federal election campaign. He unsuccessfully attempted to pass Bill C-144, which would have "shifted federal-provincial responsibilities for daycare and allowed for direct funding of commercial day centres." By 1992, the Conservative caucus shifted their focus from child care to child poverty in response to a national survey.

The 2005 Canadian Federal Budget, under then the Prime Minister Paul Martin, included CA$5 billion over five years for a national day care program similar to Quebec's child care system. The federal and provincial governments signed bilateral agreements "Moving Forward on Early Learning and Child Care". This allowed individual provinces to access the new federal funding. Both Saskatchewan and Manitoba signed agreements through which they committed to expanding only in the non-profit sector. Ontario did not. In 2005, the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care, said that there needs to be support for "more and better before and after school learning and care opportunities for children 6-12". The Coalition also noted that the agreement was not binding on Ontario in regards to additional funding from the province to child care. Without both federal and provincial funding, longer-term child care is unsustainable in Ontario. When Stephen Harper won the 2006 Canadian federal election, the eliminated the bilateral agreements on child care as their first act of power. The Harper government replaced the Liberal early education and child care plan with the Universal Canada Child Benefit (UCCB). This consisted of parents with young children receiving CA$100 a month, along with tax credits for private or profit care. A maximum of CA$250 million a year was set aside to create child care spaces all across Canada.

A November 2012 TD Economics special report recommended that federal and provincial governments should make investment in early childhood education a "high priority", noting that "public spending" on early childhood education was lower in Canada than in "many advanced economies".

Multilateral Early Learning and Child Care Framework

Since the announcement of the Multilateral Early Learning and Child Care Framework agreement by the federal government on June 12, 2017, negotiations on three year bilateral agreements between the federal government and the individual provinces and territories took place. These bilateral agreements "set how much federal funding for early learning and child care would be allocated and spent by each jurisdiction."

Types of child care

Formal regulated child care options include for-profit and not-for-profit operations. Prior to 2004, only 20% of child care operations in Canada were for-profit. Since 2006, as the "funding for public child care and expansion of spaces stagnated", the number of "large corporate-type, regional chain and single-owner" for-profit operations grew rapidly across Canada. By 2016, 30% of regulated child care operations were for-profit. Provinces and territories—and in some cases municipalities—may have regulations in place to prevent public funding of for-profit child care operations.

By 2018, large corporate for-profit chains such as BrightPath, Busy Bees, and Kids and Company were operating in some provinces in Canada.

Cost of day care

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) has been publishing their survey of fees for full-time, regulated child care for infants, toddlers and preschoolers in 37 cities across Canada since 2014, highlighting the least and most affordable options. Day care for infants is the highest rate, then toddlers and preschoolers.

The CCPA cited prices for for profit child care services as high as CA$1,700 a month in Winnipeg, Manitoba. One of the co-authors of the CCPA 2021 report, "Sounding the Alarm: COVID-19's impact on Canada’s precarious child care sector" said that the "only way to stabilize this situation and prevent loss of child care spaces in the future—which women will need to re-enter the post-pandemic workforce—is through sustained, substantial public operational funding. We’re sounding the alarm: the federal government must prioritize funding and full transformation of child care now, before it’s too late."

Regulation of child care

The 1986 task force on child care listed staff/child ratios, group size, caregiver qualifications, curriculum, and physical environment as factors to consider when evaluating the quality of child care. Child care centres require a license to operate—provinces and territories can set their own minimum regulatory standards. Canada "requires that homes be supervised by a licensed agency" but resources to monitor and enforce these standards was inadequate at that time. Alberta "required no qualifications other than a minimum age to work with preschool children" until the late 1980s.

Impact of Covid-19 on child care

In March 202, child care services in almost all provinces and territories, were already in a "vulnerable financial and organizational situation". The primary source of revenue for most child care services was directly through parent fees. With closures caused by the pandemic, most of the regulated child care facilities were unable to pay their staff and were forced to lay off their employees. This led to a crisis across Canada where working parents were unable to access reliable child care. The dilemma of parents, most often mothers, became obvious to all Canadians. The CRRU 2020 report said that, across "Canada and across sectors, for the first time, the essential and central nature of child care for the economy's full functioning became apparent to a much broader population".

A November 2020 report RBC report warned that COVID-19 had "rolled back the clock on three decades of advances in women’s labour-force participation" and that this would slow down Canada’s economy recovery. Between February and October 2020, there were 20,600 Canadian women that left the work force while almost 68,000 men joined the labour force. With daycares offering services for smaller numbers of children, and more classes were online with children at home, women's child care became "more onerous" and may have forced "more women to choose not to work outside the home." Mothers of children who are under the age of 6, make up over 50% of women aged 35-39 who are out of the labour force, according to the analysis.

During the pandemic, across Canada, full-time licensed child care providers saw their enrolment drop. For profit child care facilities' parent fees became "unaffordably high."

Child care in Québec

In 1997, the Quebec Government implemented their Quebec Educational Childcare Act in 1997 as part of their Family Policy, which included $5 a day child care, offering access to affordable child care to families at all levels of income. Twenty years later, according to the testimony of Pierre Fortin, a Université du Québec à Montréal Emeritus Professor of Economics who appeared before the Standing Committee on the Status of Women (FEWO) of the House of Commons in March 2017, a "unanimous finding of the research literature is that [Quebec]'s low-fee universal childcare system...has had a spectacular impact on child care utilization and the labour force participation of mothers of young children." He reported that a "low-fee universal childcare system is more effective and less costly than the traditional, purely targeted system in providing high-quality childcare." Fortin said that was a "marked increase in Québec women’s participation in the labour force" since the province's policy of subsidizing child care was enacted.

A 2012 TD report said that the child care regime in Quebec in place since 1997, is the most comprehensive in Canada. Along with the provision of CA$7 per day child care for children from 0 to 12-years old, it also includes care before and after school. As a result of the child care program, there was an increase in the rate of female participation in the labour force from the lowest to the highest in Canada. Standardized test scores rose to above the national average. There was an "increase in fertility rates and a 50% reduction in poverty".

Budget 2021: A Canada-wide early learning and child care plan

The April 19, 2021 federal budget tabled by Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland included approximately CA$30 billion over 5 years for a "Canada-wide early learning and child care plan". The funds will "offset the cost of early learning and child care services" towards the creation a national child-care system.

See also

• Child care in the United Kingdom
• Child care in Quebec, Canada
• Early childhood education
• Nursery school