Ottawa is expected to miss its 2026 deadline to implement $10-a-day child care services across the country, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives said in a new report published on Wednesday.
The analysis concluded that just six provinces and territories are meeting that fee target now.
David Macdonald, an economist with the centre, said even though fees have dropped significantly everywhere, the federal government is unlikely to meet its self-imposed deadline.
“It’s almost certain that even after the 2026 deadline passes, many parents in five provinces will be paying more than $10 a day for child care,” Macdonald said.
“That being said, the fee drops for parents so far have been staggering in Ontario, Alberta and Nunavut, as these jurisdictions had let fees get far too high before the federal program.”
The $10-a-day child care program, announced in 2021, was a signature policy of former prime minister Justin Trudeau.
The report says just six provinces and territories — Nunavut, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Quebec, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador — have met or improved upon the government’s 2026 target for $10-a-day child care.
Five provinces — Ontario, Nova Scotia, Alberta, B.C. and New Brunswick — do not yet have plans to reduce fees to $10 a day, the report says.
Cities in those provinces have the highest costs for child care, says the report — for example parents in Richmond, B.C. are paying median fees of $39 per day for infants, about four times the target fee.
The federal government’s goal was for fees to “average” $10 a day, but Macdonald called that a “get out of jail free card” that will leave parents paying more than that amount after the deadline passes.
“I think that this will become a political problem in April of 2026 when folks say, ‘Wait a second, this is a $10-a-day child care program, but I’m paying $12, $17, $20 a day,”‘ he said.
Jurisdictions like Ontario that already had high fees are seeing savings of around $1,300 per month in Toronto and $1,000 per month in the surrounding area, the report found.
In Toronto and Ottawa, the median fee for infants is $22 per day, the report says. That’s down from just under $86 a day five years ago, said Morna Ballantyne, executive director of Child Care Now, an advocacy group that was involved in the report.
“In the GTA, the fees have dropped really dramatically, more than just about anywhere else because the fees were so high before the introduction of the federal program,” Ballantyne said in an interview with CBC Radio’s Metro Morning on Wednesday.
Macdonald said that’s largely because regulations have forced prices down.
“Across the board, we saw the provinces that had the fewest restrictions on fees and let the fees really get out of control, you see really big savings when you step in and regulate those fees,” he said.
Macdonald said it’s unlikely Ontario and Alberta will meet the 2026 target but noted the “big progress” in those provinces and others.
Ontario to cut funding from daycares not in $10-a-day program
Fees in Quebec have increased slightly since 2019. Macdonald said that’s largely due to inflation, with the province’s day fee sitting about $0.70 below the $10 target.
Macdonald said that as fees drop, another problem will continue to grow — the lack of child-care spaces.
“At this point, there isn’t enough. The fact that fees are much lower drives a lot more demand,” he said.
“Now the real question will be, can we rapidly build those spaces so that there are enough spaces for people to actually access these more affordable prices?”
A huge challenge to creating those spaces is attracting and retaining people to work at them, partly due to low wages, said Ballantyne.
“If we’re trying to grow a system, especially [a] child-care system where it’s a very labour intensive industry … you need a lot of people who are trained and willing to work in the sector,” she said.
“And unfortunately, there are many early childhood educators who are fully qualified but are unable to work in child care because the wages are so poor and the benefits so few.”
Martha Friendly, who works with the Childcare Resource and Research Unit, said that to avoid “child-care deserts,” more public and non-profit child care spaces should be created countrywide.
“The expansion of the child-care workforce is also key, emphasizing the hiring of more workers and the retention of existing ones,” Friendly said.
“The lessons of what works so far has been clear. We need primarily public and non-profit services, affordable set fees for parents and fair wages and good working conditions for workers.”
