Federal investment:

To achieve the goals of the Canada-wide Child Care Plan, the federal government committed to a monumental investment of 30 billion dollars into childcare and early learning over five years in the 2021 budget and $9.2 billion annually thereafter. This investment promise included an allocation of $2.5 billion dollars for Indigenous early learning and childcare.

Increase in Federal Investment Under Canada-wide Child Care Plan:

Estimated average savings per child

Once $10-a-day childcare is achieved for all children under six, and parental out-of-pocket fees are reduced by the promised 50%, savings per child are expected to vary across provinces due to historically different childcare costs, availability of childcare spaces, and regional childcare landscapes.

(image: https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/campaigns/child-care.html)

• Why is there such significant variation between provinces/territories?

Estimated number of child care spaces to be created under the plan

The Canada-wide Early Learning and Child Care (ELCC) Agreement aims to address childcare shortages across Canada. A key goal of the agreement is to create 250,000 new childcare spaces nationwide by 2026. In 2021, the Department of Finance Canada estimated the number of new childcare spaces that would be created in each province and territory based on their population size and child are needs. This data is summarised in the table below. However, at that time, agreements had not yet been finalised with Nunavut and Ontario, so the estimates for those regions are based on more recent information from government sources and media reports.

Estimated number of jobs to be created under the plan for early childhood educators

As childcare spaces are expanded, there will be a corresponding need for more Early Childhood Educators (ECEs) to staff these new spaces. In 2021, the Department of Finance Canada projected the number of new ECE jobs that would be created in each province and territory. However, job creation estimates for Nunavut and Ontario were not included in those initial projections as they had yet to come to an agreement with the federal government. For Ontario, job estimates were sourced from CUPE (the union for early childhood educators), but accurate job estimates for Nunavut could not be found. All of this data has also been integrated into the table below.

Estimated Childcare Space and ECE Job Creation By 2026

• References