Ottawa considers expansion of federal role in funding child care

OTTAWA— The federal government has been quietly probing how to provide provinces with more money annually for child care, as part of what sources describe as an issue that is at, or near, the top of the Liberal agenda to restart the economy.

Social Development Minister Ahmed Hussen has spent the past two weeks making phone calls to experts in the field, asking about how federal spending on child care can be better targeted.

Hussen has asked about the risks the sector faces through the shutdown and issues that need to be addressed to help centres reopen.

At the same time, the agenda for a group of deputy ministers has in recent days included child-care funding and social infrastructure, hoping to capitalize on the goodwill between the federal and provincial governments during the pandemic. The suggestion coming through those conversations is that the Liberals are exploring how Ottawa can better co-ordinate a patchwork of provincial systems, so a lack of child care does not trip up the desired recovery from the COVID-19 shutdown in the second half of the year.

Hussen said the message he’s getting is that there’s a desire for the federal government to help co-ordinate an area of provincial jurisdiction to ensure more uniformity across the country so “Canadians have access to affordable, accessible, quality child care as they go back to work.”

More than three million Canadians are out of work, according to Statistics Canada, and 2.5 million more had their hours slashed as public health restrictions forced the closure of businesses and sent workers home. Child-care centres and services have closed for all but essential workers.

The Liberals have acknowledged that getting parents back on the job, or increasing their productivity, won’t be possible without a place for their children to go, be it school or daycare. The situation is particularly acute for women, who have seen proportionately steeper job losses than men, and are more often in part-time work, as well as in sectors affected early on. Statistics Canada reported this month that 1.5 million women lost jobs over March and April.

The federal government is in the midst of a 10-year, $7-billion spend on child care.