Freeland draws line on fees for daycares

• Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland sent a warning to provinces about her budget's pledge on child care, saying she would negotiate in good faith but not bend on reducing parental fees, as several provinces questioned the tight strings on the promised new spending.

Monday's federal budget outlined $27.2 billion over five years, starting this fiscal year, in new spending the Liberals want to send to provinces to subsidize daycares.

The specific strings attached on the spending pledge would dictate what forms of childcare could be eligible for federal funding, and how much parental fees must drop over the next five years.

On Tuesday, Freeland said she had spoken with some provinces and territories, but didn't go into more detail. She said she wanted to give them time to read the budget.

She said the government wanted to understand what each province and territory needed, but underlined the budget's aim to have fees come down in the coming years.

“Although Canada is very, very diverse in the provision of early learning and child care ... our goals are now national,” Freeland said at a news conference in Ottawa.

“Every Canadian parent five years from now, everywhere in the country, should have access to affordable, high-quality early learning and child care for an average of $10 a day.”

The responses marked the opening lines in negotiations the Liberals must have with provinces to create a national system, if Parliament approves the minority government's first budget in two years.

The Liberals hope to build on previous childcare funding deals first signed four years ago that broadly outlined how spending tied to the Trudeau government's first foray into daycare needed to be used.

A key goal coming out of the initial three years of the $7.5-billion, 11-year spend was to create or maintain 40,000 spaces, but Freeland's first budget doesn't say how many spaces the new pledge would create, nor estimate how many spaces might move from home-based or private care to non-profit settings.

Expanding spaces needs to go hand-in-hand with fee reductions, otherwise long wait-lists at daycares would become even longer, said David Macdonald, senior economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

“There are not specific targets on the number of childcare spaces created. Hopefully, there will be soon,” he said. “That's a big part of a national childcare plan, particularly if your goal is to reduce fees.”