The 10-dollar-a-day daycare deal for Ontario was officially announced this morning in Brampton.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced the 13.2-billion-dollar deal over six years that Trudeau says will cut child-care fees for parents by about six-thousand-dollars per child by the end of this year.
Parents of children aged five and under in child care will start getting rebates in May as part of the deal.
Ford calls it a great deal for Ontario parents and the right deal for Ontarians that will lower fees for families and deliver an average of $10 a day child care by September 2025.
The Ontario deal is the last one needed to fulfil Trudeau’s pledge to bring child-care fees down to an average of 10-dollars a day in every province and territory by the end of 2026.
Ford says it is another example of the province keeping costs low for parents and families.
The agreement supports the creation of 86,000 more licensed child care spaces to address increasing demand, including more than 15,000 licensed child care spaces created since 2019.
Highlights of the deal include:
- A federal investment of $13.2 billion over six years with the province having secured more certainty around out-year funding. The deal includes an additional year of funding of at least $2.9 billion.
- The flexibility to allocate federal funding in a way that will allow the province to deliver an average of $10 a day child care, including by spending the initial $10.2 billion over four years instead of five.
- Enhanced protection against funding shortfalls through a mandated financial review process in year three – the first of its kind in any provincial child care deal – to reconcile the actual costs of the new national child care plan with funding.
- Reduction of child care fees through four steps of reduction to an average of $10 a day per child five years old and younger by September 2025.
- Parent rebates, retroactive to April 1, will begin in May.
- Protection of all for-profit and non-profit child care spaces, helping to support predominantly female entrepreneurs across the province who provide high-quality child care services.
- Creation of approximately 86,000 new, high-quality child care spaces for children five years old and younger.
- Hiring new early childhood educators and support improved compensation for all Registered Early Childhood Educators (RECEs) working in licensed child care.
- Maintain Ontario’s child care tax credit program that supports 300,000 families with expenses in licensed and unlicensed child care.
- Work with municipalities to enroll 5,000 licensed child care centres and home child care agencies into the program between now and September 1.
Written by Ian McCallum