Ontario falling short on reaching $10-a-day child-care goals: auditor general

Crayons are seen on a table at a new child care facility in this file photo. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

The Ontario government is not on track to meet its targets when it comes to affordable childcare, a new report from Ontario’s auditor general says, with decreased enrollment for low-income families and poor tracking of available spaces.

The province and the federal government signed the Canada-wide Early Learning and Child Care (CWELCC) Agreement in March 2022, providing $10.23 billion over five years for the program, which aimed to bring down childcare fees to an average of $10 a day by 2026.

But by December 2024, only 36,000 spaces had been created over five years, just three quarters of the government’s target of 48,000 spaces, Auditor General Shelley Spence found in a new report unveiled by her office Wednesday.

Ironically, child-care enrolment has decreased by 31 per cent for typically lower-income families receiving the child-care fee subsidy, compared to 2019. The auditor says that the program has reduced child-care costs, increasing the demand for spaces and making it more difficult for families to find spots.

Spence also found that as of December 2023, there were some 80,500 program spaces in Ontario (27 per cent) that did not have children enrolled because they were “vacant or not operational.”

“We found that the Ministry has not sufficiently monitored the number of unutilized spaces at provincial and regional levels to identify and address systemic issues leading to underutilized spaces and to better ensure the efficient use of available CWELCC spaces to support program objectives,” she wrote.

A proper website to help search for child-care spaces won’t be ready until 2029.

Ontario also committed to hiring 60 per cent “qualified employees” for the sector by March 2026. The province measures that by the percentage of Registered Early Childhood Educator (RECE) staff.

While a 2022 estimate by the province suggested 8,500 more RECE staff would be needed in the child-care sector by 2026, the auditor says that number is closer to 10,000.

The auditor found that the government will likely need to change its plans in order to achieve the program’s target of an average $10 per day fee for parents by March 2026.

Reaching the target would mean increasing the number of children who receive the full subsidy to 57,000 from an average of 41,900 in 2022-23. But with fewer children eligible for the full subsidy, the $12 maximum daily parent fee might have to be altered to ensure that the program commitments are met, Spence found.

In addition, there is currently an estimated $1.95 billion funding shortfall for the program for 2026/27, assuming it is renewed.

“Without additional federal and/or provincial funding, the Ministry estimated that parent fees would need to increase,” Spence wrote.

The province and the federal government are still in discussions to extend the agreement beyond 2026 but a deal has not yet been finalized.

The auditor made 11 recommendations for improvements and the government has accepted them all.

Education minister says province can move faster

Addressing the auditor general’s findings Wednesday, Education Minister Paul Calandra said he hasn’t had a chance to review the report in detail, but he agrees with many of the recommendations “at first blush.”

He said the province has not yet sat down with Ottawa for negotiations to extend the program, but is hoping to do so soon.

“We’re going to be meeting soon, and we’re hoping to meet with the federal minister as quickly as possible,” he said.

In terms of why child care costs more in Ontario than other parts of the country, Calandra said Ontario is generally more expensive than other jurisdictions.

“Ontario is just a more costly place, right? Daycare operators in Toronto pay higher rents. Throughout the GTA, not just Toronto, there are higher rents. Staff are paid more,” Calandra said. “It is just a more expensive jurisdiction to operate out of than Saskatchewan, Manitoba or any other province, frankly. So that accounts for some of for some of the cost of differences between Ontario and other provinces.”

Calandra also told CTV News Toronto that he “not comfortable” with the 2029 timeline for a website to help parents search for child care spaces.

“We’ve got to move very quickly and I will be tasking the department to move quicker,” he said.