Summary

Investing in the Future: A Roadmap for Ontario’s Child Care System

Ontario’s implementation of the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care plan has improved affordability and access to child care for many families, but issues like staffing shortages, stalled space creation, and inequities in school-age child care persist.

The Roadmap to Universal Child Care in Ontario evaluates progress made, makes a call for renewed government collaboration, and offers a plan of recommended policy interventions for Ontario to achieve bold progress in ELCC system building, funding, affordability, workforce development, and expansion.

Most urgently, Ontario must sign a new bilateral agreement with the federal government to maintain the current benefits experienced by children, families and the economy. The current agreement expires March 2026. ​

System Building

Goal: All children have the right to access regulated, affordable, inclusive, culturally safe, early learning and child care.

A critical step to building a new system is for the Province to set a long-term goal of universal access and to enshrine children’s right to early learning and child care in the Child Care and Early Years Act. Ontario should develop both short- and long-term detailed plans to achieve improvements in access. Child Care Now recommends that Canada should aim to achieve 65% coverage for 0-6 year olds by 2031 – a goal that Ontario should adopt.

Ontario should better integrate the programs of the broader early years and child care sector to create a comprehensive rights-based system to support children, families, and communities. This should include working with the federal government to bring school-age child care into the CWELCC system. The Canada Early Learning and Child Care Act states that the Government of Canada is committed “to supporting the establishment and maintenance of a Canada-wide early learning and child care system, including before- and after-school care” (p. 1).

A rights-based system also goes beyond access. Between 2022 and 2024 the OCBCC convened an anti-racism working group made up of racialized mothers and educators. Their recommendations for creating an anti-racist child care system in Ontario should be foundational to a rights-based and culturally safe system so that it can address colonial and racist structures. Ontario must undertake a transparent and open consultation process through which data, impact deliverables, and consultation documents can be used to maintain accountability for the significant transformation that is required.

Recommended policy interventions

1. Amend the Child Care and Early Years Act to enshrine the right of all young children to access regulated, inclusive, culturally safe early learning and child care.
2. Revise and enhance the Access and Inclusion Framework to feature an actionable Inclusion Strategy, with clear goals and an evaluation process created in collaboration with the Disability Community and other individuals with additional support needs, child care sector leaders, researchers, and stakeholders, that will serve as a foundation of system planning.
3. Make legislative and regulatory changes that recognize the right for Urban Indigenous organizations to administer and deliver Urban Indigenous child care in order to contribute to the expansion of Indigenous-led care and cultural reclamation for Indigenous children and families.
4. Integrate the broader early years and child care sector together with equitable funding, wages and fees. This includes bringing school-age child care into the CWELCC system, ensuring equitable wages in EarlyON programs, and recognizing Resource Consultants and other professionals as part of a well-supported system.
5. Create a Steering Committee to embed anti-racist and anti-oppressive policy and pedagogy. The Committee should be able to make recommendations across ministries and provide public reports to the Minister of Education and legislature. The Committee should prioritize the voices, needs, and experiences of Black, Indigenous, and racialized educators and families.