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The Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, today announced measures from the upcoming Budget 2024 to build more affordable child care spaces – saving more families thousands of dollars and helping more parents return to their careers.
These measures include:
- Launching a new Child Care Expansion Loan Program. With $1 billion in low-cost loans and $60 million in non-repayable grants, public and not-for-profit child care providers will be able to build new spaces and renovate their existing child care centres. This means more resources for child care providers and more affordable child care options for families.
- Offering student loan forgiveness for rural and remote early childhood educators. This will encourage educators to work in smaller communities and help families get the child care they need. With a $48 million investment over four years, student loan forgiveness will increase the longer an educator works in a rural or remote area, attracting and retaining the talent, similar to the programs we’re offering rural doctors and nurses.
- Increasing training for early childhood educators. We’re investing $10 million over two years to train more early childhood educators, building up the talent needed for the expansion of affordable, high-quality child care.
While in Surrey, British Columbia, the Prime Minister also announced that the Government of Canada is providing British Columbia with $69.9 million to create new child care spaces and support inclusive child care services across the province. This investment, through the Early Learning and Child Care Infrastructure Fund, means more spaces – and more affordable spaces – for families in British Columbia.
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In just three years, we’ve made incredible progress in building the Canada-wide early learning and child care system. Across the country, over 750,000 kids are already benefiting from affordable, high-quality child care, with some families saving up to $14,000 per child, per year. Alongside provinces and territories, we have also announced over 100,000 new spaces, well on our way to reaching our goal of creating 250,000 new spaces by March 2026.
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