The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives' annual Alternative Federal Budget 2023, Rising to the challenge, sets out a comprehensive program to advance solutions and reinforce the dire need for public leadership to tackle multiple pressing challenges facing Canada. The child care chapter outlines the implementation elements needed to achieve the promised transformation to a system of early learning and child care for all.



Alternative Federal Budget 2023: Rising to the challenge
Canadian Centre for Policy Alternative, 22 September 2022

The authors draw attention to the transformation of child care in Canada since the historic commitment to child care system-building outlined in the federal budget 2021. The report emphasizes that an effective transformation will require strong public leadership to move from Canada’s longstanding, failed, market-based approach to a publicly managed system that recognizes, values, and funds child care as a public good.

The alternative budget points out that government plans and policies implemented to date to reduce average child care fees through fee-reduction grants and/or changing income-tested parent fee subsidies reinforce the failed market-based approach to child care funding. Hence, jurisdictions must develop and implement equitable direct funding models with low, provincially set parent fees.

Recognizing that a well-supported, professional, committed child care workforce is the pivotal element in a well-functioning child care system, the alternative budget puts forth a plan to develop an in-depth, comprehensive, Canada-wide workforce strategy to tackle longstanding challenges faced by early years professionals: poor working conditions, low wages and benefits, lack of recognition and direct consultation in policy making processes.

Building on the Indigenous Early Learning and Child Care Framework and Child Care Now’s Canada’s Roadmap to Affordable Child Care for All, the alternative budget proposes five actions to jump-start Canada’s transformation to a publicly managed child care system: 

• A federal capital expansion program;
• An in-depth, comprehensive, Canada-wide workforce strategy;
• Federal legislation to ensure equitable access to high-quality, inclusive, and culturally safe programs;
• Equitable direct funding models; and
• Maximum affordable parent fees of $10 a day.

These five actions ensure that the historic transformation of child care in Canada is grounded in the best available research and evidence and maximizes public accountability to realize the social and economic benefits of public investment.