In 2021, Ottawa announced plans for a nationwide $10-a-day childcare at a cost of $30 billion over five years. Three years in, how is it going? Not well.From the outset, skeptics predicted shortages, reduced parental choice, the destruction of private-sector operations and a significant discrepancy between projected spending and the actual cost of providing childcare at a fraction of its true value. The evidence from coast to coast shows all this now coming to pass.Let’s begin in BC. Vancouver estimates it is short 15,000 childcare spaces; a senior planner told city council last November that “it’s a desert everywhere” when it comes to childcare. Elsewhere in BC, local media in Langley Township, one of the province’s fastest-growing suburban communities, report there is a “desperate childcare shortage;” in Okanagan Valley, the state of childcare has reportedly “reached a crisis point.”Ontario is no better. Childcare centres “are at risk of closing,” say media reports; it’s estimated the childcare shortage could reach 220,000 spaces. According to the Toronto Star, the city “is set to fall well short of its target for new child care spaces by 2026.” In rural Simcoe County, waiting lists for daycare are said to be “insane.”On the East Coast, CBC News reports activists and unions in Nova Scotia are complaining about a “severe shortage of spaces.” Another CBC story from Newfoundland and Labrador says the childcare sector is — surprise! — short on federal and provincial government cash.Statistics Canada data confirm the media reports of our national childcare crisis. The number of children aged up to five years in childcare across Canada fell by approximately 118,000 from 2019 to 2023, with an uptick in centre-based childcare attendance offset by a larger decline in home-based childcare provision. As a result, today more parents are looking after their kids at home than was the case in 2019. Such a decrease in childcare use nationally seems remarkable, given the billions being spent on increasing access to affordable childcare.StatsCan also reports 46% of parents with children in childcare had trouble finding it in 2023 — up significantly from 36% in 2019. Waiting lists have also exploded. The number of children under the age of one waiting for a space has grown from 38% in 2022 to 47% in 2023.Three years into Ottawa’s national childcare program — in big cities and small towns from coast to coast — it is an absolute disaster. Exactly as was predicted.The key to understanding this unfolding crisis is the deliberate hostility the Trudeau government has shown for private sector childcare operators, which has severely exacerbated the problems inherent whenever government attempts to impose a centrally-planned takeover of a sector or industry.According to recently passed federal legislation, the Liberals’ national childcare plan is meant to “facilitate access to early learning and child care programs and services … provided by public and not-for-profit child care providers.” In some provinces, the apparent goal is to get rid of all private-sector childcares. Yet entrepreneurs are best able to respond quickly to rising demand. They are also more efficient than unionized, non-profit operators. Even in provinces where the private sector is tolerated, the funding arrangements required to participate in the $10-a-day subsidy program have severely limited entrepreneurs’ ability to recoup costs and make a profit. “It is virtually impossible for my centre to remain financially viable under the new agreement,” says Christine Pasmore, the owner of a Grande Prairie, AB, childcare centre, in an interview.This government attack on entrepreneurs is also deeply ironic, given how loudly the federal Liberals proclaim their feminist credentials. The vast majority of private sector childcare owners now being forced out of business are women. So how did Ottawa’s grand experiment in national $10-a-day childcare gone so wrong? Lowering the price in such dramatic fashion increased demand by a huge factor. Everyone loves a bargain, especially parents. But at the same time, the Trudeau government is trying to rid the childcare system of profit-making entrepreneurs for ideological reasons.The inevitable result is chaos for parents. Canadian families must now suffer through a severe shortage of spaces and growing waiting lists as demand spikes. It is an outcome eerily similar to complaints about Canada’s crisis-prone Medicare system.Of course anyone even vaguely familiar with a government takeover of any industry could have seen this coming. The Soviet Union was never well-known for efficiency, an ability to meet demand or for offering high-quality goods and services. Evidently, Trudeau’s advisors forgot to inform him of this important fact.Matthew Lau is a Toronto writer. A longer version of this essay first appeared at C2CJournal.ca
In 2021, Ottawa announced plans for a nationwide $10-a-day childcare at a cost of $30 billion over five years. Three years in, how is it going? Not well.From the outset, skeptics predicted shortages, reduced parental choice, the destruction of private-sector operations and a significant discrepancy between projected spending and the actual cost of providing childcare at a fraction of its true value. The evidence from coast to coast shows all this now coming to pass.Let’s begin in BC. Vancouver estimates it is short 15,000 childcare spaces; a senior planner told city council last November that “it’s a desert everywhere” when it comes to childcare. Elsewhere in BC, local media in Langley Township, one of the province’s fastest-growing suburban communities, report there is a “desperate childcare shortage;” in Okanagan Valley, the state of childcare has reportedly “reached a crisis point.”Ontario is no better. Childcare centres “are at risk of closing,” say media reports; it’s estimated the childcare shortage could reach 220,000 spaces. According to the Toronto Star, the city “is set to fall well short of its target for new child care spaces by 2026.” In rural Simcoe County, waiting lists for daycare are said to be “insane.”On the East Coast, CBC News reports activists and unions in Nova Scotia are complaining about a “severe shortage of spaces.” Another CBC story from Newfoundland and Labrador says the childcare sector is — surprise! — short on federal and provincial government cash.Statistics Canada data confirm the media reports of our national childcare crisis. The number of children aged up to five years in childcare across Canada fell by approximately 118,000 from 2019 to 2023, with an uptick in centre-based childcare attendance offset by a larger decline in home-based childcare provision. As a result, today more parents are looking after their kids at home than was the case in 2019. Such a decrease in childcare use nationally seems remarkable, given the billions being spent on increasing access to affordable childcare.StatsCan also reports 46% of parents with children in childcare had trouble finding it in 2023 — up significantly from 36% in 2019. Waiting lists have also exploded. The number of children under the age of one waiting for a space has grown from 38% in 2022 to 47% in 2023.Three years into Ottawa’s national childcare program — in big cities and small towns from coast to coast — it is an absolute disaster. Exactly as was predicted.The key to understanding this unfolding crisis is the deliberate hostility the Trudeau government has shown for private sector childcare operators, which has severely exacerbated the problems inherent whenever government attempts to impose a centrally-planned takeover of a sector or industry.According to recently passed federal legislation, the Liberals’ national childcare plan is meant to “facilitate access to early learning and child care programs and services … provided by public and not-for-profit child care providers.” In some provinces, the apparent goal is to get rid of all private-sector childcares. Yet entrepreneurs are best able to respond quickly to rising demand. They are also more efficient than unionized, non-profit operators. Even in provinces where the private sector is tolerated, the funding arrangements required to participate in the $10-a-day subsidy program have severely limited entrepreneurs’ ability to recoup costs and make a profit. “It is virtually impossible for my centre to remain financially viable under the new agreement,” says Christine Pasmore, the owner of a Grande Prairie, AB, childcare centre, in an interview.This government attack on entrepreneurs is also deeply ironic, given how loudly the federal Liberals proclaim their feminist credentials. The vast majority of private sector childcare owners now being forced out of business are women. So how did Ottawa’s grand experiment in national $10-a-day childcare gone so wrong? Lowering the price in such dramatic fashion increased demand by a huge factor. Everyone loves a bargain, especially parents. But at the same time, the Trudeau government is trying to rid the childcare system of profit-making entrepreneurs for ideological reasons.The inevitable result is chaos for parents. Canadian families must now suffer through a severe shortage of spaces and growing waiting lists as demand spikes. It is an outcome eerily similar to complaints about Canada’s crisis-prone Medicare system.Of course anyone even vaguely familiar with a government takeover of any industry could have seen this coming. The Soviet Union was never well-known for efficiency, an ability to meet demand or for offering high-quality goods and services. Evidently, Trudeau’s advisors forgot to inform him of this important fact.Matthew Lau is a Toronto writer. A longer version of this essay first appeared at C2CJournal.ca
