Excerpt from the Budget in Brief:
High fees, low wages, and unmet demand should be a wake-up call to governments about the fundamental inequality of their longstanding market-based approach to child-care services.
The evidence-based response should be a publicly managed and publicly funded system that blends early childhood education and child care, and prioritizes equality in both access and service provision.
At least three-quarters of Canadians support a national child-care program and consider the lack of affordable child care to be a serious problem. Fortunately, the solution is clear and powerful: a consistent body of evidence shows that building a public system of early childhood education and care is not just the right thing to do for parents and children, but the smart thing to do for Canada's economy.
It is encouraging to note the recent and growing provincial and territorial interest (among governments, families, advocates, experts, etc.) in using public education systems to deliver 'early childhood education and care' (ECEC) services.
Most countries that have implemented effective systems have done so through education rather than social services ministries.
In the past, federal governments have promised more than they've delivered on child care, but the current federal government has gone one step further by abandoning all responsibility for the file. At the height of Canada's economic success in the 2000s, the federal government terminated Canada's sole significant national childcare initiative. Federal transfers in 2007-08 were reduced by 37% from 2006, and by 61% from the previous government's commitment for 2009.
Canada's public spending on ECEC programs is only 0.25% of GDP -- about one-third the OECD average (0.7%) and far short of the international minimum benchmark of 1% of GDP.
To protect and promote the public interest, the AFB urges providing significant funding support to provinces and territories that commit to building public systems of early childhood education and care. The goal of the AFB's early childhood education program is to reach 1% of GDP by 2020, starting this year with a $1-billion investment that escalates over the next 10 years. This new ECEC program will be guided by the following policy framework:
1. public plans;
2. public expansion;
3. public funding;
4. public monitoring and reporting.