$10 Daycare


This week we heard that Alberta has signed a childcare agreement with Ottawa with the goal of reducing daycare to $10 a day by 2025. Ontario and New Brunswick are the only 2 provinces who have yet to sign a deal. A deal would give Ontario $10.28 billion over five years. Lecce and Ford say it’s a bad deal for Ontario but, really, is it?

Ford says it’s not enough. Well it was enough for all the other provinces except NB. The Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care said this claim has been debunked. And anyway, it’s meant to be a 50 - 50 cost sharing deal so, yes, Ontario will need to pitch some more in. Ah! Maybe that’s what is at the heart of the PC’s resistance - being told to spend more on social services! Lecce also claims that the deal is vague about what happens after 5 years failing to mention that these deals are always set in 5 year frameworks and are meant to continue on as fixed budget items into the future.

An OECD report showed that dollars spent on Early Childhood Education and Care generate returns greater than schooling and it raises education outcomes. “Public expenditure is partly offset by an increase in the tax base from higher rates of female employment . . .” Disadvantaged children benefit the most from high quality ECEC.

Most of the articles we read on this deal with Ottawa raised the spectre of Ford and Lecce playing politics and looking for vote capital on this issue rather than doing what almost every other province has done, by doing what’s right for kids and what’s right for families struggling to pay crippling costs.

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath and Early Learning and Childcare critic Bhutila Karpoche said “If Doug Ford won’t get a deal on $10-a-day child care done, an NDP government will as part of its commitment to make life more affordable for families in our province.”

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