Ontario and Canada sign agreement for early years and child care

EXCERPTS

AMO welcomes the news of a $13.2 billion Child Care Deal over six years reached today between the federal and provincial governments. Under the agreement, the new program will lower child care costs, and improve access and quality across Ontario’s child care and early years sector. AMO has been advocating steadily with the Governments of Canada and Ontario to advance these discussions and to secure an agreement for Ontario since the initiative was announced in the 2021 Federal Budget.

Municipal governments and District Social Service Administration Boards will play a key role to implement the program in communities with operational details to follow.

Highlights include:

• Fees will be reduced starting in 2022 and, by September 2025, they will be an average of $10-a-day child care.
• 86,000 new, high-quality child care spaces will be created, including more than 15,000 new spaces already created since 2019.
• Improved compensation for all Registered Early Childhood Educators (RECEs) to increase attraction and retention in the sector.
• Reforms will support the needs of diverse and underserved populations, including low-income, francophone, Indigenous, Black, other racialized and newcomer communities, as well as vulnerable and special needs children.