Child care in Canada

Under Canadian federalism, the 13 provinces and territories have the "main responsibility for early learning and child care (ELCC)". The division of powers between federal and provincial governments was first established in the Constitution Act, 1867. Early learning and child care were not specifically identified as provincial matters in 1867, but fall within the broad scope of provincial power, along with many other social programs. Especially since World War II, national social programs were developed in which the federal government led the initiative or collaborated with the provinces. Prior to 2021, child care services were "organized on a market model." According to the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada (CCAAC), this resulted in "unaffordable parent fees, inequitable and inadequate availability of services, and, too often, of low or modest quality." The exception was the province of Québec, which implemented its Québec Educational Childcare Act in 1997 which provides publicly subsidized child care for children ages 0 to 12. Child care in Canada includes formal care, such as day care, and informal child care arrangements that allow some parents to be actively engaged in the labour market. Prior to the implementation of the CWELCC, about 60% of children who were 0 to 5 years-old participated in day care arrangements, as of 2019. 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." Leading up to the implementation of a national child-care program, a 2019 CCAAC report summarized the major challenges in the delivery of child care services as 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." ==History==

, 1940 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. By 1983, with approximately a million children needing child care outside the home, "only 1 in 10 was registered in a licensed day-care center." A national day care system was one of Brian Mulroney's promises in his 1984 Canadian federal election campaign. By 1992, the Conservative caucus shifted their focus from child care to child poverty in response to a national survey. In 2004 none of the 13 provinces and territories had merged departments. By 2017, only Alberta, Manitoba, Newfoundland, the Yukon Territories had not merged departments. The 2005 Canadian Federal Budget during the premiership of Paul Martin, included CA$5 billion over five years for a national day care program similar to Québec'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 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". 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". Following the election of Justin Trudeau in 2015, child care policy became a renewed area of focus. In 2016, the federal government combined the Canada Child Tax Benefit and the Universal Canada Child Benefit into an enhanced Canada Child Benefit, a means-tested cash transfer to most Canadian families. The federal government began negotiating Multilateral Early Learning and Child Care Framework agreement with provinces and territories in 2017. These three-year bilateral agreements "set how much federal funding for early learning and child care would be allocated and spent by each jurisdiction." The funds will "offset the cost of early learning and child care services" towards the creation a national child-care system. but all provinces and territories have now signed onto the plan. ==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. 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. ==Impact of Covid-19 on child care==

In March 2020, child care services in almost all provinces and territories, were already in a "vulnerable financial and organizational situation". 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 enrollment drop. For profit child care facilities' parent fees became "unaffordably high." The Covid 19 pandemic, however, also highlighted the critical importance of childcare to the workforce and economy. Partly as a result, after decades of discussion federal action was finally spurred, resulting in the roll out of $10 a day care. == Early childhood educators ==

As federal and provincial governments work to create new child-care spots by 2026 to achieve the five year goal of cutting daily child care fees to $10, Prior to COVID-19 pandemic, the focus had been on created affordable spaces so more parents, usually mothers, could work outside the home. With the added strain of working harder to protect children in their care during the pandemic, workers who were not eligible for either sick days or priority vaccinations felt they were being "ignored" and "disrespected". As of March 2022, early childhood education was "not a financially viable career for anyone with even the most basic life goals." ==Child care in Québec==

In 1997, the Québec Government implemented their Québec Educational Childcare Act in 1997 as part of their Family Policy, which included CA$5 a day child care, offering access to affordable child care to families at all levels of income. The Act sought to increase the participation of mothers in the labour force and improve school readiness, and enhance child development. 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." Haeck included the introduction of the 1998 federal National Child Benefit Supplement which amended the 1993 Canadian Child Tax Benefit (CCTB) which increased low-income families total benefits. Québec, and other provinces also introduced provincial child tax benefits at that time to "promote attachment to the labour market". Haeck and her colleagues said that Quebec's child care program led to "increased labour force participation by mothers." However, the report suggested that this increase was "mainly driven by highly educated mothers". A Fraser Institute article, citing the 2015 evaluation, said that the policy "did not improve school readiness and may even have had negative impacts on children from low-income families." Michael Baker of the University of Toronto, Jonathan Gruber of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Kevin Milligan of the University of British Columbia find that Quebec's $5 a day child care scheme (later rising to $7) raised mothers' participation rates substantially, but children suffered worse health outcomes. Also, Baker, Gruber and Milligan observe little impact on cognitive test scores, but negative effects on noncognitive skills. Also, these effects were persistent as children reached pre-teen and teenage years, relative to their peers in other provinces. Most strikingly, they find a sharp increase in criminal behaviour later in life among the cohorts exposed to the Quebec program. These effects are primarily for boys, who also see the largest deterioration in noncognitive skills. ==Notes==