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Affordability & Childcare

Childcare platforms

Here's what the 2021 Canadian election parties are promising.

Liberal

  • Reduce fees for childcare by 50% next year.
  • Finalise agreements with more provinces & territories to provide $10-a-day childcare within 5 years or less.
  • Create 250K new childcare spaces.
  • Hire 40K more early childhood educators.
  • Work with Quebec to build on its childcare system.
  • Work with Indigenous partners on childcare for Indigenous children.
  • Enact federal childcare legislation.

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Reduce fees for child care by 50% in the next year.

Deliver $10 a day child care within five years or less.

Build 250,000 new high-quality child care spaces.

Hire 40,000 more early childhood educators.

Finalize agreements with all remaining provinces and territories.

Work with the province of Quebec to build on its world-class, affordable child care system, improve working conditions for educators, and create more spaces for families.

Work with Indigenous partners to ensure Indigenous children have access to culturally appropriate, affordable, high-quality early learning and child care.

Enact federal child care legislation to strengthen and protect a Canada-wide child care system.

Forward. For Everyone., retrieved 2021-09-02

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Conservative

Convert the Child Care Expense deduction into a refundable tax credit covering up to 75% of childcare for lower income families, and pay it out over the course of the year.
We don't have any Bloc policies on Childcare.

NDP

  • Introduce legislation committing to high-quality, public childcare.
  • Provide relief funding to re-open spaces lost from COVID-19 at not-for-profit childcare centres at risk of closure.
  • Work with the provinces to build a universal, $10 a day childcare system.
  • Ensure childcare workers are paid a living wage.

Green

  • Work with governments, Indigenous communities, & the childcare sector to ensure that universal affordable childcare becomes a reality.
  • Increase federal childcare funding to at least 1% of GDP annually.
  • Eliminate GST on construction costs for childcare spaces.
  • Ensure equitable access high-quality, culturally appropriate early learning & childcare programs for First Nations, Inuit, & Métis children.

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1. Dedicate additional resources to making a universal, affordable, early learning and child-care (ELCC) system a reality

● Collaborate with provinces/territories, local communities, Indigenous communities and the child-care sector to ensure that a comprehensive short-, medium- and long-term policy road map – based on the principles of universality, affordability, quality, inclusivity, accessibility, and equity – finally becomes a reality.

● These principles will ensure a right of access for all children regardless of their parents’ work status or income levels, while at the same time allowing for regional and local adaptation.

2. Improve and strengthen parental leave

● Make parental leave more inclusive so it covers leave to care for elderly family members, leave following miscarriages and more,and more flexible and better paid.

3. Increase federal child care funding

● Immediately begin to ramp up federal child care funding to achieve the international benchmark of at least one per cent of GDP annually.

● Long-term, stable, national funding must be made available and be sufficient to meet the standards of the guiding principles. It must also be secure and predictable enough to permit the long-term planning and sustainability of the programs.

● Ensure the training, recruitment and retention of well-paid and professional staff.

4. Eliminate GST on all construction costs related to child care spaces

5. Ensure equitable access to high-quality, culturally appropriate ELCC programmes for First Nations, Inuit, and Métis children

● Build on the Multilateral Framework on Early Learning and Child Care and the accompanying bilateral agreements that have been negotiated with every province and territory, as well as with the First Nation, Inuit and Métis Peoples to ensure solutions are meeting their needs.

Be Daring., retrieved 2021-09-11

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Looking for the parties' positions on other topics?

See our full 2021 Canadian election platform comparison