Details of the NDP child care platform
Commitment
We’ll invest $10 billion over four years and work with the provinces, territories, and Indigenous governments to create over 500,000 new licensed child care spaces in our first mandate, and establish a national, affordable early learning child care system that will deliver universal child care by 2030.
We’ll bring in legislation to enshrine our commitment to quality, affordable publicly funded child care into law, and set out the principles, conditions, and requirements for federal transfer payments to provinces (like the Canada Health Act).
Quebec will be able to opt out with compensation.
We’ll commit $10 million right away to an Affordable Child Care Action Fund and create a national child care secretariat to oversee the coordination of the work, and to collaborate with the provinces and territories on initiatives such as a workforce strategy and improved data sharing and research.
Costing
An NDP government would invest $10 billion over four years, starting with $1 billion in 2020 and growing by $1 billion every year.
Our plan also includes a $10 million Affordable Child Care Action Fund to create a national child care secretariat to kickstart and oversee the coordination of work with the provinces and territories.
Our plan will create at least 500,000 new licensed spaces. This includes both capital and operating expenses and is based on a cost-share with provinces and municipalities.
Child Care Now PRESS RELEASE
VANCOUVER, September 30, 2019 – NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh’s child care platform, announced today from Vancouver, British Columbia, gets top marks from Canada’s child care advocacy association.
“The NDP has done its homework and come up with a solid solution to Canada’s child care crisis,” said Morna Ballantyne, Executive Director of Child Care Now. “They are proposing to do exactly what must be done at the federal level so that every child in Canada can have access to high quality early learning and child care, regardless of family income.”
Ballantyne said the NDP’s plan has all the right pieces:
Federal transfers to provinces and territories that will grow each year to support a steady increase in the supply of licensed child care spaces for all age groups;
Federal legislation that will ensure federal child care funds are used to develop high quality, inclusive and affordable child care services
A partnership with the provinces and territories, which are constitutionally responsible for the delivery of child care services, and a commitment to work with Indigenous communities to address their child care needs;
The development of a strategy to recruit and retain early childhood educators and other child care workers so that the NDP’s promise of 500,000 new spaces can be realized;
Funding for data collection and research so that Canada’s progress on child care can be measured and continuously improved;
The establishment of a much-needed national child care secretariat to coordinate and oversee the rollout of the child care plan.
“The NDP plan is what children need, it gives parents what they are looking for, it will make it possible for those who work in child care to be paid the real value of their labour, and it will give a huge boost to Canada’s economy by making it possible for parents with young children to stay or join the paid workforce”, said Ballantyne. “Mothers are especially going to benefit because they, more than fathers, have been kept out of paid employment because of the child care crisis, so the NDP plan is also going to be a big advance for gender equality and women’s economic security,” she added.
Ballantyne noted that while the NDP proposes to spend significantly more on early learning and child care than in recent federal budgets, the cost will be recovered through the higher tax revenue that will come from the increase in women’s labour force participation.
“The NDP plan is modeled after Child Care Now’s own Affordable Child Care for All Plan, which is based on careful study of what a federal government could do to make real progress,” said Ballantyne. “We asked each of the federal parties to adopt our plan and that is exactly what the NDP has done.”