A national daycare program has created a limited number of the promised 276,000 spaces under Ottawa’s $30 billion subsidy, according to documents from the Department of Social Development.
The daycare system has had thousands of job openings pop up in the past three years due to roughly 15,000 workers leaving for higher-paying jobs, according to a recently published department briefing note first obtained by Blacklock’s Reporter.
“Low pay in the sector is one of the most critical factors contributing to workforce shortages,” the note reads. “Other challenges to recruiting and retaining a qualified workforce include lack of benefits, poor working conditions, and lack of recognition and respect for the profession.”
Workforce shortages come at a time when demand for child care is on an upswing, the report noted. “Demand for child care has been increasing as parent fees decline,” the report said.
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland included $30 billion in the 2021 budget for its national, affordable daycare program.
The funding was offered as five-year subsidies to provinces and territories that signed agreements to create “250,000 new high-quality child care spaces.” The goal was to begin by cutting day care fees in half by 2022, before slashing them to $10 a day by 2025-26.
Only 80,127 new spaces have been created thus far, the brief said. The department did not estimate how many parents were actually receiving daycare under the initiative. But Statistics Canada has reported that thousands of parents are waiting for publicly provided daycare.
StatCan data show that 26 percent of parents with children under the age of five in 2023 who did not have child care were on a waitlist. That is up 7 percent from 2022’s 19 percent.
Disclosure of the figures followed complaints by MPs that they have been unable to find basic data on the daycare program.
Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner said the program was short on crucial details.
“For example, how many children are currently enrolled in a $10-a-day spot?” she asked. “There is no data on the average income of parents who have the $10-a-day spots.”
Liberal MP Ken McDonald also commented on the issue, saying his Newfoundland and Labrador constituents have complained of being unable to find promised $10 spots.
Funding Shortfall
The Canada-wide Early Learning and Child Care system is often feted by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as a boon to the economy because it allows more mothers to rejoin the workforce.Every province and territory has signed on with the program with Ontario being the last province to reach an agreement with Ottawa in March 2022. Under the program, provinces must create more public child care spaces, while cutting fees and increasing wages for day-care workers.
After more than a year of the program, some daycare operators have said the federal funding isn’t enough to cover their costs. One such provider is the YMCA.
“Unfortunately, while cost savings are being offered to families, the cost burden on operators like the YMCA has grown,” the YMCA said in a pre-budget submission.
“This is because the current approach to revenue replacement funding is insufficient, leaving many non-profit operators with deficits and uncertain outlooks as we negotiate with each municipality for pressure funding.”
Any daycare provider wanting to take part in the federal plan had to freeze its fees in March 2022. That means the government’s revenue replacement model is based on rates that don’t reflect the true current cost of providing child care, operators say, and the 2.1 percent increase Ontario has factored in for 2024 to account for inflation is not nearly enough. That number for 2023 was 2.75 per cent.
What the YMCA wants to see is a “full cost recovery” model, the submission said.
YMCA of Greater Toronto chief strategy officer Jamison Steeve said the non-profit had hoped to see a new funding formula in the fall of 2023, but that did not materialize. Mr. Steeve said it needs to happen soon because the charity is currently subsidizing the cost of care.
“(For) an infant in our care, if it’s under the current funding model, we would be running at a loss of between $10,000 to $13,000 a year ... if the funding formula isn’t corrected going forward,” he said. “It’s difficult for any provider in the not-for-profit or for-profit sector to have that level of uncertainty on a year-to-year basis of what the funding model is going to look like.”
An Ontario Education Ministry spokesperson said the province is pushing for more money from Ottawa.
“While Ontario will continue to increase funding annually to operators, starting this month, we will commence a review of the federal deal and vigorously advocate for a long-term increase in funding to better support operators and families,” Isha Chaudhuri said in an emailed statement.
A spokesperson for Families Minister Jenna Sudds said the agreements with the provinces and territories were designed to provide flexibility to respond to inflation. Federal funding increases each year, Soraya Lemur said in a written statement, adding that Ottawa “continues to engage” with the provinces to better understand “their needs and challenges.”
