Five years after Ottawa’s $10-a-day child-care program launched, parents are still having a hard time finding a daycare spot.
Driving the news: The federal government’s childcare program, which aimed to add 250,000 spaces and bring average childcare costs down to $10 per day by this year, is expected to miss its target for new daycare spaces by ~90,000, according to a new report.
To make matters worse, many of the spaces that have been created — fully one-third in Ontario — are outside of the child-care program and don’t offer the lower, regulated price.
Why it’s happening: The rollout of new childcare spaces has been slowed by a number of factors, from federal funding not keeping pace with operating costs to a lack of interest in building childcare centres in less-profitable, smaller communities.
Why it matters: Expensive childcare is discouraging people from starting families — a third of potential parents in Canada cite the cost of daycare as an important factor in their decision to hold off on having children. Layer in the other costs of kids — totalling $293,000, by one estimate — and it’s not a surprise that Canadians are having fewer babies.
A recent StatsCan report found that Canada’s fertility rate hit a record low of 1.25 children per woman in 2024, putting the country in the “ultra-low fertility” category among countries like South Korea and Switzerland.
Big picture: Newcomers account for almost all of Canada’s population growth. With Ottawa’s U-turn on immigration, economists say the declining fertility rate will make it difficult to care for Canada’s rapidly aging population as the share of working-age people shrinks.—LA