Building Canada’s
Child Care System
Universal child care through the $10-a-day plan
Implementation details are key to success
Putting an early learning and child care (ELCC) system in place is complex, especially in the
Canadian context. The implementation, which is primarily to be carried out by provinces and
territories, is critically important. The foundation for the $10-a-day plan was laid in the 2021
federal budget, but the details of each jurisdiction’s approach to implementing it determine
how and when the vision of a universal, affordable, accessible, high quality, and inclusive ELCC
system in Canada becomes a reality.
Making a historic commitment
In 2021, the Government of Canada made a historic commitment to build a Canada-wide early learning and child care system (the $10-a-day plan or CWELCC). CWELCC would be “a transformative project on a scale with the work of previous generations of Canadians, who built a public school system and public health care”.
A multi-year approach to system building
The first foundational system-building benchmark was reached when all provinces and territories reached agreements with the federal government by March 2022. Federal,provincial, territorial, and Indigenous governing bodies began working to put the $10-a-day plan in place from coast to coast to coast. These first agreements and accompanying action plans paved the way for the longer-term system-building work needed to achieve the ambitious shared goals.
A long term proposition
The stated expectation was that “meaningful progress towards a system that works for families” would be accomplished over the next five years (2021 – 2026). There was widespread recognition that building a full early learning and child care program that could meet the shared goals of universality, affordability, accessibility, high quality and inclusivity would be a much longer term endeavor, with the expectation that new bi-lateral agreements and action plans would be put in place when the first five year phase came to an end in 2026.
