EXCERPTS
The governments of Canada and Alberta are investing in early learning and child care systems to make life better for families with affordable, quality child care in Alberta. Today, the Honourable Amarjeet Sohi, Minister of Infrastructure and Communities, on behalf of the Honourable Jean-Yves Duclos, Minister of Families, Children and Social Development, and the Honourable Danielle Larivee, Minister of Children's Services for Alberta, announced a three-year bilateral agreement that reaffirms their commitment to children's development, helping parents with the rising costs of raising children, and addressing the unique early learning and child care needs of families in Alberta.
The agreement allocates just over $136 million, over three years, to Alberta for early learning and child care investments. Funding to the province will focus on increasing access to quality, affordable, flexible and inclusive child care through the expansion of Early Learning and Child Care (ELCC) Centres across the province. In 2017, the Government of Alberta launched 22 pilot ELCC Centres, based on a maximum fee for all parents of $25 per day to support children and their families accessing affordable, quality, flexible and inclusive child care. With this new funding, approximately 78 additional Early Learning and Child Care Centres will be launched across Alberta in 2017–2018, an increase of more than 350%.
This announcement follows a historic agreement, made on June 12, 2017, by the Federal, Provincial and Territorial Ministers Responsible for Early Learning and Child Care on a Multilateral Early Learning and Child Care Framework. The Framework sets the foundation for governments to work towards a shared long-term vision where all children across Canada can experience the enriching environment of quality early learning and child care.
By taking care of our children today, we're growing and strengthening the middle class for years to come. The bilateral agreement is supported by long-term Government of Canada investments in early learning and child care announced in Budgets 2016 and 2017, totaling $7.5 billion over 11 years. This is another step to help ensure that Alberta's children get the best start in life.
Quotes
"The development of early learning and child care systems is one of the best investments our government is making to strengthen Canadian families, society and the economy. Through the agreement signed with the Government of Alberta, we will be able to better support parents, families and communities in their efforts to build high-quality, inclusive and affordable early learning and child care."
– The Honourable Jean-Yves Duclos, Minister of Families, Children and Social Development
"We believe accessible, affordable quality child care is essential to positive early childhood development, labour force participation of parents, women's equality, social integration and inclusion of newcomers, and poverty reduction—all aspects of social and economic growth."
– The Honourable Amarjeet Sohi, Minister of Infrastructure and Communities
"Kids in Alberta deserve the best possible start to life, and our government is committed to making early learning and child care, and other life-changing opportunities, more affordable for families. We are proud to have the support of the Government of Canada to make $25-a-day child care available to even more families in our province, and we look forward to announcing the locations of additional Early Learning and Child Care pilot centres in the very near future."
– The Honourable Danielle Larivee, Minister of Children's Services for Alberta
Quick Facts
- $95 million will go towards closing data gaps to better understand child care challenges and needs and track progress
- $100 million will go towards early learning and child care innovation; and
- a portion will be dedicated to strengthening culturally appropriate early learning and child care for Indigenous children.
In April 2017, the Government of Alberta announced funding for 22 pilot ELCC Centres based on a maximum fee for all parents of $25 per day. This has resulted in:
- approximately 1,300 licensed child care spaces, of which over 700 are new;
- approximately 120 new child care jobs province-wide; and
- 357 parents, mainly women, able to enter the workforce.
-reprinted from Newswire
CRRU's online documents database contains thousands of resources relevant to ECEC policy and practice in Canada and internationally. CRRU's website allows the user to quickly search or browse the database of documents.
Research, policy & practice materials include: scholarly research, policy studies and briefs, government and NGO reports. Child care in the news is an archive of news articles about ECEC in Canada and abroad.
Links to the full-text of materials are provided where publicly available; where access is restricted links are provided to abstracts, as well as purchase and subscription options.
The online document database is continually growing. New materials are added to the database each week and featured on the homepage as what's new online this week and child care in the news.
![]() |
Online documents CRRU resources CRRU publications CRRU project websites more |