Diversity or disparity? Early childhood education and care in Canada

Excerpts from report: Through the ECEC Community Indicators Project, Campaign 2000 aims to raise public awareness about early childhood education and care (ECEC) and to foster and strengthen links between the early childhood education sector and the broader community. The project's three main activities are: community forums; a website with discussion forum opportunities; and two reports, the first one released in October 2002 and this one. The purpose of the reports is to provide the public with an overview of the status of early childhood education and care (ECEC) in Canada. In our first report we used indicators to provide some illustrations of the availability, affordability and quality of ECEC in four provinces. In this report we build on that snapshot but are hampered, as we were then, by the limited availability of administrative and other data. However, as this is the final report of the project we will broaden the scope to include some new indicators and as many provinces and territories as possible. Canada is a country where the diversity of its regions is celebrated and often valued. This report, like the first one, illustrates that disparity the less attractive cousin of diversity is often a factor when the focus is on early childhood education and care.