Will Ontario ever reach the $10-a-day child care target?

Children play at the Blessed Chiara Badano Child Care Centre in Stouffville, Ont., Friday, May 2, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette

For months, Ontario parents eagerly awaited news about whether the province and federal government would come to a deal to continue the national $10-a-day child-care program in the province.

Without a deal, parents feared that child-care fees could skyrocket when the previous agreement expired in March 2026.

Carolyn Ferns, policy coordinator for the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care, said parents breathed a sign of relief when a one-year extension was announced in November.

“There was at first relief because we knew that meant at least one more year of security in this program,” she told CP24.com last month.

“Then, once the details came out, we learned that child-care fees are not going to be further reduced as had been promised.”

She said when Ontario first signed on to the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care (CWELCC) system, the province was supposed to reach a target of $10-a-day by September 2025.

“Then it was moved to March 2026, and now in this agreement, they’re stalled. Fee reductions are stalled where they are and there’s no plan at this point to get to that average of $10-a-day,” Ferns said.

Majority of provinces and territories have reached target

Ferns noted that most of other provinces have reached the $10-a-day average already.

“We need that same benefit here in Ontario for our families,” she said.

Child-care fees for parents in Ontario are now $19 a day on average in Ontario.

“Child-care fees in Ontario before this program started were the highest in the country. Market fees were very high in Ontario, especially in the Greater Toronto Area. And so families have been benefiting really greatly from this program,” Ferns added.

“They’re saving thousands of dollars, thanks to the Canada-wide Early Learning and Child Care system. And we’ve seen what a difference it makes for them. I think that there is still a need to try to meet that target.”

Ontario received an additional $695 million from Ottawa as part of the 12-month extension, a sum that will keep fees stable but won’t allow the province to reduce costs any further, Ontario Education Minister Paul Calandra previously stated.

The province and the federal government initially signed the CWELCC agreement in March 2022, providing $10.23 billion over five years for the program.

Ferns noted that both Calandra and Federal Jobs and Families Minister Patty Hajdu have expressed a desire to bring fees down to an average of $10 a day in Ontario.

“I think we need to hold them to it,” she said.

In a statement to CP24.com, Emma Testani, a spokesperson for Calandra’s office, said the extension provides “stability for families.”

“We will continue working with our federal partners toward a long-term agreement that delivers high-quality, affordable child care for families across Ontario,” the statement read.

‘We are working on next steps’

Jennifer Kozelj, a spokesperson for Hajdu’s office, said the agreement is “an important step” and both governments will work to develop “long-term solutions that respond to the needs and priorities of Ontarian families.”

“With Ontario, we are working on next steps through action plan negotiations. We will have more to say once these are finalized,” she said in a written statement provided to CP24.com.

Kozelj noted that eight provinces and territories are already delivering on their $10-a-day goal.

“Affordable child care is essential to Canada’s economy. Every child deserves the best possible start in life, and every parent deserves the peace of mind that comes from knowing their child is cared for, in a safe and inclusive environment,” the statement continued.

“To that end, Canada’s historic investments in early learning and child care have helped reduce fees in Ontario by more than 50 per cent, saving families an up to $10,400 annually and together with Ontario we have announced 41,000 new spaces in affordable, high-quality child care.”

Beyond the reduction of fees, Ferns said, much more work is required to expand access to child care in the province.

Ontario’s auditor general recently found that by December 2024, only 36,000 spaces had been created over five years, about three quarters of the government’s target of 48,000 spaces.

Ontario short 10,000 ECEs: auditor

One of the biggest factors preventing more spaces from opening up in the province, Ferns said, is a shortage in the workforce. The auditor general noted that the province would need an additional 10,000 ECEs by 2026 to meet the current demand.

“It’s not that we don’t graduate enough early childhood educators from college programs. We do,” Ferns said.

“But they either don’t go to work in child care, or if they do, they only stay there for a few years before they leave to work in another sector. Why? Because the wages are just too low in child care.”

She noted that there are many centres across the province that have rooms closed in their facilities because they don’t have workers to staff them.

“Families that are waiting for child care that are sitting on those waitlists, they find out that actually there’s the physical space at the child care centre, but we just need to ensure decent work for ECEs so that we have enough of them,” Ferns said.

“If we had the workforce, we could get more child care programs at capacity, and then I think governments should be much more bold and ambitious about building new child care centers, looking at what publicly available buildings and land we have.”

With files from CP24’s Joshua Freeman and The Canadian Press