Canada has been working on a universal child care plan for five decades, with the 1970 Report on the Royal Commission on the Status of Women being the first to propose such a system. In 2021, Canadian leaders committed $30 billion (about $24 billion in U.S. dollars) over five years to create the country’s first federally-funded child care system. The plan aims to bring fees for regulated child care and ensure that families in Canada would no longer be burdened by high child care costs.
The Canadian Child estimates that the $30-billion universal child-care plan is expected to create 146,000 new child-care spots nationwide by 2026. However, Canada spends just 0.5% and is falling behind in supporting the cognitive and social development of children. A universal ELCC program phased in over 10 years would create over 200,000 jobs in regulated child care centers and produce an additional 80,000 jobs in industries that support expanded child care.
Canada has had several unsuccessful attempts at establishing a national child care system since 1984, with Quebec having a universal, affordable childcare system since 1997. The new national system passed Parliament as part of the nation’s budget in June 2021 and has been rolling out over the past two years.
Québec implemented the first province-wide subsidized childcare program in 1997, guaranteeing families a spot in the program. The plan, introduced in 2021 amid the turmoil of the pandemic, aims to spend up to $30 billion Canadian by 2026 to bring down child care costs. By 2026, Canada intends for Canada-wide to be universal in fact and name, with 250,000 new spots and parents paying no more than an annual fee.
📹 How would the Canadian government launch a national childcare system?
Prime Minister Trudeau is promising a national childcare and early education system as the coronavirus pandemic continues to …
When was the child welfare system established in Canada?
In the late 19th century, the Toronto Children’s Aid Society, established by J. J. Kelso, was a seminal force in the advancement of child welfare initiatives, culminating in the enactment of the landmark Children’s Protection Act of 1893.
How long has Canada Child Benefit been around?
Following the 2006 Canadian federal election, Stephen Harper’s conservative government introduced the Universal Canada Child Benefit (UCCB), a taxable payment of up to $1, 200 annually for children under 6. The UCCB was paid for the first time in July 2006. In 2010, the UCCB was made shareable between shared-custody parents, with each receiving $50 per month. The measure entered into force in July 2011. A significant expansion of the UCCB was announced in November 2014 in the Fall Fiscal Update.
Is childcare universal in Canada?
Canada’s child care program is controlled by each province or territory, with each setting annual goals for expanding child care spots and early educator pay scales. The money flows to provincial governments, which provide funding directly to child care programs. By 2026, Canada aims for the program to be universal, with 250, 000 new spots and parents paying no more than $10 a day for care. Despite the system’s biggest effects likely not being seen until it expands, there are signs of progress.
Nearly half of the provinces and territories offer regulated child care for an average of $10 a day or less. Federal funds have supported the creation of a new, full-day, year-round pre-K pilot program in Newfoundland and Labrador, upped early childhood educator wages in New Brunswick, and bolstered public funding in British Columbia, which used federal money to pay for 1, 271 child care spaces between 2021 and 2022.
When did CDA begin?
The Child Development Award (CDA) was established in 1971 with the objective of enhancing the quality of childcare by recognizing and enhancing the competence of childcare providers. The award offers certifications for preschool, infant/toddler, and family child care.
Where does Canada rank in childcare?
Canada is ranked 23rd in terms of favourable conditions for children, but 30th in terms of child well-being. This makes it one of a few countries with superior economic, environmental, and social conditions, yet less favourable outcomes for children.
When did child care start in Canada?
In 1909, Montreal established the inaugural daycare center in Canada, offering childcare services for children while their mothers were engaged in external employment. The advent of nursery schools was a response to the growing demand for educational and childcare services for children under the age of five.
Is childcare free in Canada?
As of 2022, the average Canadian parent pays $8, 146 annually for childcare for children aged 0 to 3, and $6, 880 annually for children aged 4 to 5. This is a concern for many Canadians, as high-quality, flexible, and affordable childcare is crucial for parents’ freedom to return to work and children becoming responsible members of society. Finding childcare in Canada may be particularly challenging for working parents without a network of family and friends. The best choice depends on the family’s needs, and specific regulations vary by province and territory.
When did the Canadian child welfare system start?
In the late 19th century, the Toronto Children’s Aid Society, established by J. J. Kelso, was a seminal force in the advancement of child welfare initiatives, culminating in the enactment of the landmark Children’s Protection Act of 1893.
When was the Canadian Child Care Federation established?
The Canadian Child Care Federation represents Canada’s largest national, non-profit, charitable organization dedicated to achieving excellence in early learning and child care. It has been in operation since 1983. It provides assistance to provincial and territorial child care associations in the development and implementation of their activities, and facilitates communication among ELCC community members, government, and other interested parties in order to promote quality ELCC.
Is daycare in Canada free?
Childcare centers’ fees vary depending on the province or territory and whether they are public, private, or subsidized. However, childcare expenses can be deducted from taxes in many cases, which can significantly offset these costs. The amount of deductions depends on factors like the province of residence, childcare type, and potential income level. An experienced tax accountant can help guide newcomers or even compile and file a tax return on their client’s behalf. This can help families offset childcare costs and provide a better understanding of their tax situation.
Is it free to have a kid in Canada?
Canada’s childbirth costs can be high, with medical expenses ranging from free to a few hundred dollars for Canadian citizens. The first year can cost up to $13, 000, followed by $10, 000 to $15, 000 per year. Over their lifetime, many children can cost parents over $350, 000, depending on their lifestyle. Unexpected costs like medical treatments, dental care, and orthodontic care can also add up. Starting savings is a good idea, as each child is unique. Despite the challenges, starting some savings is always a good idea.
📹 Why the US doesn’t have universal child care (anymore)
Other rich countries have family policies the US doesn’t. Subscribe and turn on notifications so you don’t miss any videos: …
Why is it the responsibility of the taxpayer to pay for babysitting other people’s children??? We already give out child tax credits etc… Yes subsidies for low income single parents or families is understandable but not for dual working middle and rich families with their million dollar homes and $100,000 SUV’s. Having children is a responsibility of financial family planning, not a taxpayer funded holiday to Hawaii every year.
Universal child care. What a novel idea. As a family with 3 adult children, 35 years ago this would have benefited our family tremedously. The money spent on daycare/loss of 1 income, could have been redirected to home ownership, RRSPs, RESPs and a better quality of life. The benefit of all children receiving quality early education childcare would enrich us all.
The lack of universal childcare needs to be put in context – the U.S. has no mandated paid leave for *anything*. No paid vacation, no paid holidays, no paid sick days. There is also no universal elder care, and getting affordable health insurance outside of being employed is practically impossible. So the fact that there’s no mandated paid parental leave or universal childcare is not an anomaly. It’s part of a broader policy pattern in the U.S.
Pure capitalism is a different experience for people with different wealth. It helps rich stay rich and limits poor by keeping them poor. The golden way is to live in capitalistic democracy with implementatary socialism. Do you ever wonder why no one is arguing for firefighters to be privatized? It’s a well paid public service. So why health care can’t be the same? College?
that $8/day is approx $250/month, which is STILL insanely low compared to childcare today, even here in Canada. my mom was born in 1965, I was born in 1994. I’m the same age my mom was when she had me. my mother was paying roughly $200/month in the late 90s for daycare for me ($250 in 1995 is worth $461.20 today). Average daycares in 2019 in Toronto, where i grew up, is $1440/month. What tf happened between the 90s and today for this massive jump in the same timeframe (28 years)? Trying to find daycare at $500/month is impossible, unless you look at unregulated home daycares. people wonder why my generation isn’t having kids. why would we?
He was worried if would lead to “communal raising of children?” But that’s how it’s done. The whole it takes a village thing. Yeah, my parents raised me but our neighbors were part of it too. They would talk with may parents about what my sister and I did. And they had no problem chewing us out when we needed it. And my parents returned the favor with the neighbors’ kids. That’s how community works.
I’ve always felt like the US is a country that’s just stuck in the past. Around the end of WW2, they were probably on par/ahead of most other countries with a lot of their policies. But since 1945 i don’t think allot of progress has really been made, while most other countries are and have been changing rapidly. (Probably due to the age-old socialism vs capitalism mindset I bet) To really start progressing again I think American citizens need to realize that to be “great again” is not to go back to the way it was, but to be implementing new ground-breaking policies again.
maybe they should do a study on how lack of child care or working mothers led to the high crimes waves of the 90’s. Those children with no direction found themselves involved in criminal activities which then increased our prisons which then increased the wealth of certain individuals who profited off their privatized prison systems. See there’s always a reason.
1) No free child care leads to declining birth rates. 2) Declining birth rates lead to increase in immigration. 3) Increase in immigration leads to racial tensions fueled by domestic extremist groups. 4) Racial tensions lead to Donald Trump. 5) Donald Trump causes decline in immigration. 6) Decline in immigration leads to demographic collapse. 7) Demographic collapse leads to the adoption of free universal child care. COULDN’T IT BE LESS COMPLICATED?
What’s so interesting to an outsider is not that the US doesn’t have universal childcare, it’s that so many Americans think that’s normal or don’t seem to care. You can of course say the same for extortionate health care costs, high poverty rates, high obesity rates, lack of gun control, deaths by assault, incarceration rate ……..
Why the US… Don’t have free health care, Don’t have free and accessible college, Don’t have paid vacation, Don’t have paid maternity and paternity leave, Don’t have affordable housing, Don’t have something to reduce systematic discrimination. … But countries that Americans call the third world have that, but the self-declared best country in the world land of freedom and bla bla bla don’t have it
Lack of child care is really pressing on a lot of immigrant families. Parents are not only less likely to be able to afford child care but also have fewer close friends/relatives they can trust to watch over their kids as a favor. I knew quite a few classmates who had one parent leave work, either completely or for 5+ years, and after seeing the costs involved I can see why they might.
This is probably what that single mother who got arrested recently for leaving her children at home needed (The one whose eldest teen daughter was left to look after the younger siblings but one still ended up walking outside for 15 minutes). It may not have been the best solution but might’ve provided her another option.
In my country Lithuania we offer parents up to 144 weeks or 3y of parental/family leave, which starts before mother giving birth. Parents get child money, they get all sorts of other benefits like additional time off from work on top a already minimum 4 weeks vacation + 16 national holidays. Kindergartens, Preschools all free, also we have law that mandates for kids to receive healthy nutritious food in kindergartens, preschools and schools. Everyone receive Universal Healthcare here and kids up to 18 and sometimes up to 23 receive free dental care and in general dental care is cheap and top quality here. University is free for everyone, you can join Medical School without any problems.
Nixen is praised among so many even democrats but he was a terrible president who was super pro corporation and low accountability for the powerful and media and is single handedly responsible for so many of the problems we face to this day. Not to forget his wars on the poor and minorities and the things he was caught saying about them.
I think another reason that the US also never jumped on the paid childcare bandwagon (and this is really just my opinion) is because it had a combination of high immigration + high birth rates from lower income groups that the population still grew even without these subsidies. It’s only recently in the past decade that declining birth rates across all groups have many people stop and realize “hey, maybe we should have a universal child care system in the US too because people aren’t having as many/any kids anymore”
Cause you cannot write Jealous without US. People would rather not have anything at all, than see anybody else get almost as much that they think are undeserving of the perks regardless of how hard they had to work for it or how badly they were dealt cards at birth… If “I” cannot get it, “THEY” should not get it either.
The US doesn’t have universal childcare because it’s garbage and there are no widely accepted or proven statistics that suggest positive effects. It was used during WWII because of desperation, men needed to go to war, and thus women were inevitably going to become much more involved and responsible for some of the jobs that would normally be performed by males. The government didn’t keep it because it’s a horrible policy. It’s expensive and degrades the connection between children and their parents, the family structure that has aided in making the US one of the wealthiest nations out there.
It’s interesting how many things in America we don’t have because it will benefit black people directly. Things that are standard in other countries we are debating each other about. Universal healthcare, paid maternity leave, affordable college. You have to sign up for the military here. And still programs like tricare you lose once you leave.
US can never have this things and they never should. US is a very decentralised country and that’s actually good. If these programs were to be implemented it should be done by states and not by the federal govt. States and Metropolitans are at a unique position to provide more direct care according to their local needs without federal interference or oversight. US is never going to have a universal healthcare or childcare but California, Mass, NY, Washington, Illinois can. The conservative states can do what their electorate prefers. I really don’t understand why everything has to be so divisive. If a healthcare in California goes well it will incentivise and create more public pressure in other states to implement same program even states like Texas and Florida. So our efforts should be directed towards at states and cities level rather than at federal level.
I realized that the secret to making a million is saving for a better investment. I always tell myself you don’t need that new Maserati or that vacation just yet. That mindset helped me make more money investing. For example last year I invested 80k in stocks (with the help of my Financial Advisor of course) and made about 246k, but guess what? I put it all back and traded with her again and now I’m rounding up close to a million.
Nursery school in the UK is only for a morning OR an afternoon each school day. Good luck trying to find a job for those few short hours, especially when you have to factor in any travelling time. Of course, come school holiday time, you have no free childcare at all. Tax credits used to pay roughly 70% of private nursery charges, idk if that applies any more.
My professor pays over 1k a month for his children in insurance. Hes conservative though says he doesnt trust government to handle healthcare and yet he trusts it to fund public schools, fire departments, the military and an assortment of public works and programs such as Libraries. It’s really thanks to Reagan that people began to really support small government before Reagan we had Carter and because of the Oil crisis which wasnt his fault people kinda moved further away from leftism.
It’s going to interesting to see how crime and other parts of society have been affected by a lack of policies like this. Imagine if we did this with K-12 free education? If you thought people were defiant today, imagine what it’ll be like when these children who could have gotten a great early childhood education, DIDNT get that. And now people say that this country is riddled with crime and look at our poorly performing students. Perhaps if they had ECE or participated in Daycare, we may see more well rounded individuals in our society?
I qualify as low income right now. I’m a single working mom with one child. It’s been really hard/slow to get affordable childcare right now. Most programs that help have slowed down because of Covid. Since everyone has been needing help at the same time, the people who need the most help get that help and the rest just have to wait. I guess that’s how it should be, but it’s hard.
I find it funny how the was the Labour party in the UK that introduced universal child care when the Tory party has been the plurality for over a decade. The representatives that get voted into your legislature matters. And the reason why the US doesn’t have universal child care is because there isn’t enough legislative representation for it.
What is the big mystery? People do not want to need to pay for the care of someone else’s child. I’m not saying that is a good thing to feel, in fact it is counterintuitive. However, I can see how in the US this would remain a State-level issue. I live in Connecticut and would not want our resources to go to Mississippi. I also know that different states would want different curriculums for their students, and I can see how that may play as a factor.
I was born in Canada and I went through Canada’s childcare system. I remember that in Canada my mom had a job while having two kids. She got maternity leave for both of us for a year each and then we went to a government funded daycare that you still had to pay but was a lot cheaper. When we moved to the US, my sister was 4 and I was 7. Even with me going to school, my mom wasn’t able to find a job because she had to take care of my sister along with a few other obstacles as well. I can attest to the fact that going from one system to the other while having small children set my mom YEARS back in her career and even though the childcare system wasn’t the only perpetrator, it sure didn’t help and still doesn’t help to encourage women to have children or to support the mothers raising this country’s future generations.
in america, the parents are the owners of the child, like a dog. in many other countries the child is part of the people. the people pay for the education and care together and together they keep an eye on the child’s well-being. no child should only be in the care of his family! it is good and right if the pedagogues watch out for bruises in childcare and at school. it’s not about money, it’s about the human rights of a child!
The UK has an established childcare program? I’m in the UK with two kids between 1-3 and I have no idea what you’re talking about because you include NO DETAILS. Childcare in the UK is super expensive, the same cost as a full time job in my experience and I live deep in the South West, not a major city.
It’s disgusting. Our daycare costs $2k per month, and the daycarers don’t get a living wage. Not because they owner owner makes a lot of money, but because costs are so high. Think about how many women can’t pay tax because they can’t afford day care, and the ones that can are leaving their child in a system designed around cost not quality.
I appreciate the information and the enthusiasm, but the US is no longer a democracy, politicians work for themselves or for corporations and universal childcare would only benefit the people, the voters, the constituents and therefore, would never pass because Congress is completely bought and owned by corporations, as is pretty much all of American politics, except maybe at the state level. Very informative though, so, I can at least appreciate it for that.
We waited until we were educated, married, professionally employed and had a house in a good neighborhood before we had (only 2) kids. We were able to afford our own quality childcare without burdening others in society. Reproduce responsibly because children are not pets. Quality people, not quantity. Please don’t reproduce early and often when you have nothing to offer children. Have some dignity.
Such a cool presentation of the information. I don’t know who needs to hear this but stop saving all your money in the bank. Learn some new skills and lnvest your money if you want financial freedom…I don’t depend on the govt for money, it’s so sad that some of us work industriously for hours and earn low lncome with an ant share so called minimum wage..
From what it sounds like, it seems that parents need to act more responsibly. Everyone has the right to have a child, but that doesn’t mean it’s the right moment to have a child. For many Americans, there is either a struggle with finances, or both parents are very busy. Or that kids are not exactly what those two grown adults should have. Instead of child care, the government should be promoting the use of birth control, or a thing called self control. Because remember, a child doesn’t just come from nowhere. We should promoting to everyone to be sexually responsible so we do not have these issues. And if a parent has kids when they shouldn’t have had kids, then that’s mostly on them. Responsibility ladies and gents, you need to be able to face consequences of your actions. (Of course there are extreme cases where it was I consensual, or the child is born with a unfortunate disability, in which I would say the state should offer some kind of support)
Sorry if I missed it, but the article doesn’t distinguish between “child care” and “pre-school education”. Kids who go to pre-school do better right through their school years. Pre-school is run by qualified teachers, (9am-3pm only). Day care is just that – they mind your kid and keep them safe, but that’s all. I was lucky that my kids could attend govt-funded pre-school here in Australia for at least a year (3 days a week) before they started primary school. However it’s under-funded and there are not nearly enough places for everyone. Separately, Aus has some means-tested federal support for child care. But it sort of tells how far behind the USA is in this debate – that the difference between “pre school” and “child care” is apparently not known or understood, if this article is a guide.
This article is a bit of a misnomer. It doesn’t explain why the US doesn’t have childcare now but instead explores why we had it once, and then decided to no longer support it in the 1940s and then decided against it in the 1970s. Its been 50 years since Nixon vetoed that bill. If the US wanted universal childcare, another bill would have been proposed, passed, and signed by a different administration. The reason the US doesn’t have universal child care NOW is not that a president was sexist half a century ago, but because the US doesn’t like government programs in general. In child care, as with many areas, the US opts for the higher efficiency and greater choice offered by the public sector, even if that comes at the price of increased inequality. It would be interesting to see a article that explores why the US, unlike other western nations, has developed this culture.
I went to daycare every weekday all from kindergarten to until 4th grade when I started walking home from school. I hated it. I never dealt with bullies at school but I did at daycare because it was supervised by older teens and twenty somethings. They would usually just hangout with each other all day. Thanks a lot ARPD Franklin Park, Alameda CA.
I hope universal pre-K (for 4-year-olds) will at least be implemented. Every 4-year-old needs to be in full-time education at this point. Many families only have one child, or have 2 children 5 or more years apart. Can you imagine how far behind socially a kid that stayed home until kindergarten would be?!?