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The Association of Canadian Early Learning Programs (ACE), a lobby organization that acts as the mouthpiece for-profit child care operators, has released a new proposal that would undermine child care affordability and weaken the long-term viability of Canada’s $10-a-day child care system.
In a March 2026 press release, ACE argued that $10-a-day child care is simply too expensive. Without publishing any supporting evidence, the organization claimed that a fully funded national system would require $40 billion annually in federal spending; a figure it emphasized as approaching the size of the defence budget. On that basis, ACE has proposed increasing child care fee caps so operators can cover the real costs of care directly from families rather than through public funding.
Beyond ACE’s farcical framing that positions child care is less worthy of sustained public investment than military spending, there are some significant holes in ACE’s claims.
ACE cannot justify its $40 billion claim
ACE provides no explanation of how it arrived at its $40 billion estimate. Neither its press release nor its website offers a costing model, assumptions, or breakdown of expenditures. Given that this figure is more than four times current annual federal spending on early learning and child care, the absence of transparency is suspicious.
Without evidence, it is impossible to determine how much of this projected spending would actually support educator wages, quality improvement, and expansion of licensed spaces, and how much would instead be captured as profit by for-profit operators.
That distinction matters. A substantial body of evidence shows that for-profit child care providers tend to pay lower wages and, on average, deliver lower-quality care than public and non-profit providers because revenue is diverted into profit rather than reinvested into the program.
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The better path is the opposite: governments should strengthen, and not retreat from the promise of $10-a-day child care. That means sustained federal and provincial investment in operational funding, public and non-profit expansion, and workforce recruitment and retention.
Advocates such as Child Care Now have been clear: a genuinely universal child care system must be both affordable and accessible. Properly funded, it improves the lives of women and children, reduces inequality, and strengthens the economy. The real question is not whether Canada can afford universal child care. It is whether governments are willing to treat care as essential public infrastructure rather than a market commodity.