EXCERPTED
Edmonton, November 15, 2021 - Alberta’s coalition of child care advocates Child Care Now Alberta, that includes child care providers, parents, Early Child Care workers and advocates, celebrates the long awaited signing of a Early Learning and Child Care Agreement. In fact, our organization mobilized over 1950 Albertans to sign a petition in support of an agreement.
We are pleased to be the ninth jurisdiction to sign a bilateral agreement with the federal government, one that will see nearly 4 billion dollars of federal funding for Alberta. Specifically, Child Care Now Alberta welcomes the agreement details that will immediately benefit Alberta families including;
- Reducing parent fees by 50% by end of 2022
- Average child care fee of $10/day by 2026
- Recognition of the much needed recruitment and retention of Early Childhood Care workers with the introduction of a wage grid
- The much needed, and ambitious creation of over 42,500 new licensed child care spaces
“It’s clear that Albertans want a system of child care in the province, and want to move forward with the federal government to access the more than one billion dollars available to Albertans. This is the right thing to do for Alberta, for women, for children and for the economy. Now that an agreement is signed, let’s get to work on implementing it for Alberta families.” said Susan Cake, Chair, Child Care Now Alberta.
For over 50 years, child care advocates have championed a publicly funded, universal, accessible and affordable system of child care. We are pleased to see Alberta join the movement towards a Canada-wide system that will be the catalyst in providing much needed high quality child care for families, promote gender equality, value the highly skilled labour of early childhood educators and jump start a post COVID19 economic recovery. We remain committed to building a system of child care and look forward to participating in its implementation in Alberta.
For more information, contact:
Susan Cake Chair, Child Care Now Alberta
780.288.5657 alberta@ccnow.ca