Key Messages about Child Care
Reviewing the messages below will help you familiarize yourself with the issue of child care and help you answer questions from others.
Vision Statement
Canada can have child care for all by 2030.
A national child care plan will take a long-term, phased approach to building the solid universal child care system Canada needs.
It will provide for an increase in Canada’s federal ELCC budget to $1 billion in 2020, and a further increase of $1 billion each year for ten years so as to meet the internationally recommended spending benchmark and achieve the goal of affordable, high-quality, inclusive child care for all across Canada.
Value Statement
Child care is good for the economy, good for families, good for Canada.
Making affordable, high-quality child care available to all families will grow the economy, promote gender equality, increase women’s labour force participation and enhance children’s well-being.
What we need to get there
The federal government must play a leadership role to ensure that all children in Canada, regardless of where they live, their ability, family circumstances or culture have access to affordable high-quality child care.
The Affordable Child Care for All Plan calls for the Government of Canada to:
- play a greater leadership role in building a stable child care system over a period of 10 years;
- increase funding to Canada’s ELCC budget by $1 billion each year over 10 years to meet international benchmarks;
- negotiate ELCC agreements with the provinces and territories that demand action on three fronts simultaneously:
- a) planned expansion through public/non-profit services;
- b) making child care affordable through operational funding and set fees;
- c) improving quality through improving child care workforce wages;
- continue to work with Indigenous leaders and communities on the Indigenous Early Learning and Child Care Framework;
- put in place federal infrastructure to support the implementation of the plan.
The Barrier Message – “Why should I pay for someone else’s childcare?”
Canada has the lowest ranking in child care investment among developed countries.
Good child care benefits all children, especially those most disadvantaged.
Just like Canadians pay taxes towards education, health care costs, the Canada Pension Plan, clean drinking water, environmental protection, roads, and so on, ensuring that children are safe, well cared for and provided with early learning opportunities should be a public responsibility.
Additional Messaging
The current patchwork of child care programs and services across the country doesn’t work for families. High fees and hard-to-find care strains household budgets keep women out of the work force and doesn’t represent the realities of families in Canada.
Much like public education and healthcare, the child care system that families need requires direct public funding to work.
Child care for all will give every parent the opportunity to contribute to the workforce, which puts money back in to the pockets of Canadian families and strengthens the economy.
Child care for all ensures that all children have access to child care environments where they are safe, well-cared, thriving and happy – that shouldn’t be a matter of luck.
Child care for all means affordable for all – right now child care is the second highest household expense for Canadian families.
Finding safe, affordable child care shouldn’t be a matter of luck. It’s a matter of priorities.
Building a child care system would benefit many more families than subsidies ever could.
Public investment in a national child care system pays for itself, and, creates a more equal society and a more sustainable economy.