The Government of Alberta has released its plan to reduce child care fees in Alberta by an average of 50% by early 2022. Under this plan, every family’s out-of-pocket fees will decrease, but lower-income families will not see a 50% decrease—and some may see a decrease of less than 15%. As a result, child care may still be unaffordable for lower-income families under the new system. This talk will explain how the new system works, why it creates uneven decreases for different families across Alberta and will discuss both short-term and long-term options for changing this situation.
Our Guest
Rob Buschmann, PhD is a research associate at the Community-University Partnership for the Study of Children, Youth, and Families in the School of Public Health at the University of Alberta. He is currently CUP’s representative to the Edmonton Council for Early Learning and Care (ECELC), an organization with the vision of early learning and care for all children that is high in quality, universally available, accessible, affordable, and responsive to the diversity of individual children and their families.
