Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has pledged $1 billion to expand $10-a-day child care across the country.
Mr. Trudeau told reporters the funding, which is included in the upcoming federal budget, aims to provide low-cost loans, grants and student loan forgiveness to open up more child care spaces in Canada. The Liberals have said they aim to create 250,000 new spaces by March 2026.
Funding will be granted through the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), which Mr. Trudeau called a “common sense approach” with child care developed alongside housing.
The prime minister said at the press conference in Surrey, B.C., on March 28 that the government would increase student loan forgiveness for early childhood educators working in rural or remote areas as well as spend $10 million for extra training to increase the number of early childhood educators.
Mr. Trudeau was questioned by reporters about parent complaints that his government has failed to properly roll out the $10-a-day program, resulting in long waiting lists for child care.
“This is a brand new program we are building,” Mr. Trudeau said, adding that while some provinces have quickly gotten on board with the initiative, others have not.
Not all provincial government’s are moving “as fast or as responsibly as they should,” he said.
“We’re going to continue to work constructively with all provinces but recognize that because the federal Conservatives are consistently standing against child care, conservative premiers are in some cases slow walking and in some cases not delivering to the right level, because they’re listening to their federal brethren.”
Ontario, in 2022, was the last province to sign on to the $10-a-day child care deal with the federal government. The aim of the program was to bring every province and territory on board by 2026 for a cost of roughly $30 billion.
The rollout, however, has been met with criticism by some parents. In British Columbia a city official estimated as many as 15,000 day care spaces are needed just in the city of Vancouver, according to the Vancouver Sun.
The child care shortage in Ontario is as high as 220,000 spaces and some reports say child care centres may be at risk of closure.
Statistics Canada reported in 2023 that a significant portion of parents had difficulty finding child care. As many as 46 percent of parents with children in day care had trouble finding spots.
