Most regulated day care spaces cost less today than in 2021.The Canadian Press
The federal government has made child care across the country more affordable, according to a new report from Auditor-General Karen Hogan, but the program may fall short of its goal of creating thousands of spaces over five years.
The report concludes that Employment and Social Development Canada supported provincial, territorial and Indigenous initiatives to improve early learning and child care. The department provided $35-billion in funding from April, 2021, to March, 2026, to those partners through bilateral funding agreements.
Based on Quebec’s model, the federal program was introduced in the 2021 budget and touted as a way to increase Canada’s work-force participation.
While child-care costs have been reduced, getting a spot remains a challenge and provinces have raised concerns about the program’s long-term sustainability. Every province and territory has signed extensions to 2031 with the federal government, with the exception of Ontario, Saskatchewan and Alberta.
The audit covered the period up to March, 2025. However, the Auditor-General could only get spending information from the department up to March, 2024.
It found that most regulated child-care spaces cost less today than in 2021. As of March, 2024, the fees for federally funded spaces were an average of $16.50 a day across Canada.
The aim is to reach an average of $10 a day by March, 2026. The audit found five provinces and three territories had reached that goal by March, 2024, and Ms. Hogan told reporters she thinks the other provinces are “well on track.”
However, Ontario’s Auditor-General has said the province needs almost $2-billion to meet the target.
The department also looked to increase the number of regulated spaces by 250,000 over five years. By the end of 2024, the Auditor-General found, more than 112,000 spaces had been produced – meaning more than half need to be created within the next two years.
“There is a risk that the goal of creating 250,000 spaces by 2026 will not be met,” Ms. Hogan told reporters.
Jobs and Families Minister Patty Hajdu said the audit confirms that families are seeing benefits.
“Fees are down by about 50 per cent on average across the country, and families are indeed saving thousands of dollars each year,” she told reporters, adding the 112,000 new spaces are “meaningful steps towards strengthening” the foundation of child care in Canada.
Ms. Hogan also found issues with reporting and data, which were the focus of her recommendations. The audit said there was a lack of comparable information to track the program’s performance and progress across the country, and that the department was more than four years behind on reporting results publicly.
The report said the department did not collect sufficient information to analyze whether the implementation of provincial and territorial plans would provide equitable access, despite that being an objective set out in agreements.
Ms. Hajdu agreed more work is needed to improve reporting practices, saying in a statement that the government is working with partners to provide clear and accurate information publicly.
The audit also said that annual reporting from provincial and territorial governments gave Ottawa limited information about the unmet child-care demand in their areas. Instead, the department monitored it via Statistics Canada surveys.
In 2023, the surveys said more families faced difficulties accessing child care than in 2020, according to the report, citing issues such as not being able to find care that fit work schedules.
“Among families whose children were not in child care, the most frequent type of difficulty reported was that care for their children was not available in their communities, and this increased between 2020 and 2023,” the report reads.
The audit also found that the department lacked information to evaluate whether the federal funding improved Indigenous early learning and child care.
Association of Daycare Operators of Ontario executive director Andrea Hannen said that over all, the report suggests to her there “wasn’t a lot of thought” given as to how the transition to the federal program would take place, including how it would be monitored and deliver on targets.