Summary
Child care availability is improving in Toronto, thanks to the federal government’s launch of the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care (CWELCC) program in 2021. This analysis looks at child care coverage between 2022 and 2025, by neighbourhood.
There has been some progress: Across Toronto, 3,943 spaces have been created since 2022. Average child care space coverage increased from 41.5 to 46.5 spaces per 100 children—a five percentage point increase, though more than half of the city’s children still lack access.
Adequate child care coverage nearly tripled, going from three per cent to nine per cent of neighbourhoods since 2022. Child care deserts decreased by half—dropping from 15 per cent of neighbourhoods in 2022 to eight per cent in 2025. But neighbourhoods with inadequate coverage only increased from 83 per cent in 2022 to 84 per cent in 2025.
Many high-need neighbourhoods have been rapidly adding new spaces, but inequalities persist: only 14 of 158 Toronto neighbourhoods have adequate coverage, nearly all in affluent downtown and mid-town areas. The 12 worst-performing neighbourhoods (child care deserts) are clustered in poorer areas of northwest and south Etobicoke and central/southern Scarborough.
Clearly, significant challenges remain. For starters, the only growth in child care space creation comes from home-based child care (it grew from six per cent to nine per cent over the past three years). The share of non-profit licensed child care spaces shrunk, from 56 per cent to 53 per cent.
Key obstacles to affordable child care expansion include recruitment and retention of qualified child care workers and insufficient capital infrastructure.
Federal funding has helped to bring down the cost of child care in Toronto, but provincial funding is needed to expand access—especially in the non-profit sector. Without it, the gap between affluent and low-income neighbourhoods will persist.