Minister promotes $10-a-day child-care plan
Liberal government’s strategy will cut fees in half by end of 2022 and reach goal in five years
KITCHENER — With talk of a federal election this fall increasing, the minister of families, children and social development came to town Tuesday to remind everyone of the Liberal government’s promise earlier this year to bring in $10-a-day child care by 2026.
“Through budget 2021, we’ve made an investment unlike any other that any federal government has made in Canadian history,” Minister Ahmed Hussen told a news conference Tuesday at Rising Oaks childcare centre in Kitchener.
In its spring budget, the federal Liberals unveiled plans to spend $30 billion over five years, and $9.2 billion thereafter to make child care universally affordable and accessible.
Hussen called the plan to cut child-care fees in half by the end of next year, and to $10 in five years, “a game-changer in our fight against the ongoing she-cession,” a reference to how women have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic.
Lori Prospero, the executive director of Rising Oaks Early Learning, made it clear she hopes Ontario signs on to the federal child care plan.
“Here in Ontario we have some of the highest child-care fees in the country, and an issue with workforce retention,” Prospero said. “We are calling on our Ontario government to partner with the federal government, to join provinces like British Columbia and Nova Scotia in signing on” to the federal child-care plan.
Better access to child care has economic benefits, Hussen said. “When parents, especially women with children, have to choose between working or taking care of their kids, that’s not much of a choice. We want to enable Canadians to have the opportunity to go back to school and go back to work, and one of the ways to do that is to
provide access to affordable, high-quality care.”
The news event included a photo op with toddlers accompanying Kitchener-Conestoga MP Tim Louis with cymbals and tambourines as he played keyboard, switching from boogie-woogie to blues with impressive ease.
The event was to announce an
inflationary increase of one per cent to the Canada Child Benefit, on the fifth anniversary of the introduction of the benefit. The increase, effective today, will be applied automatically for any parent now receiving the benefit, increasing payments up to $6,833 for each child under age six, and up to $5,765 for kids six to 17.
About 120,000 families in Waterloo Region have received the benefit since it was introduced, and it has helped lift 435,000 children out of poverty across the country, Hussen said.