Families in Canada deserve affordable child care, but costs vary widely across Canada. Many Canadians don’t know that Quebec has the least expensive child care in the country at $7.30/day. Quebec’s fixed fee puts the province at the top of the list for child care affordability, meanwhile in big cities like Toronto, parents pay $49/day, and in Vancouver it's $41 a day (for toddlers/preschoolers).
Here’s the kicker, Quebec spends $2 billion each year on $7/day childcare. In 2015, the federal government will spend $7 billion on the Universal Child Care Benefit (UCCB) and income splitting—untargeted programs that won't create a single child care space. That $7 billion would buy the rest of the country the same $7/day childcare program as Quebec.
This means that the government is investing in child care solutions that only serve a fraction of the country. For the same cost, they could be helping a lot more families.
Read more in our blog post, We’re paying for $7/day child care, so why is only one province getting it? [2], and check out our infographic below to learn more about the differences between the government's approach to family policies and a national $7/day child care plan.