Child care in Canada

The idea that quality accessible child care has a key role to play in creating a more equal Canada is now part of the public and political discussion about the connections between health and wealth, public services and social justice, economics and democracy, taxation and fairness. [...] Overall, research evidence and common sense show that we all stand to gain the most when child care is designed as a universal system that includes all children and families ― affluent, modest income and poor, children with disabilities and without, newcomers to Canada and those who settled generations ago, young parents and grandparents. [...] Regulated child care is not evenly distributed among provinces/ territories with the coverage (availability of a centre space per child in the province) for 0-5 year olds ranging from 11.5% in Saskatchewan to 46.5% in P.E. [...] Although Canada has many excellent child care programs, overall research, indicators of quality (such as staff training requirements and wages) and structural characteristics of child care programs (such as for-profit operation and under-funding), suggest that the quality of Canadian child care centres is more likely to be mediocre or poor rather than high quality. [...] Without a publicly-funded and publicly-managed child care system5 with sustained public funding and well-designed policy, Canadian child care follows a market model, an approach demonstrated to lead to limited and inequitable access and quality.