Ron McKinnon

Budget 2021 –Analysis by Ron McKinnon, MP What is in Budget 2021 for Child Care and Early Learning?

April 27, 2021

What is in Budget 2021 for Child Care and Early Learning?

Establishing a Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care System

Budget 2021 makes a generational investment to build a Canada-wide early learning and child care system. That is a plan to drive economic growth, a plan to increase women’s participation in the workforce, and a plan to offer each child in Canada the best start in life.

ü This plan will aim to reduce fees for parents with children in regulated child care by 50 percent on average, by 2022, to reach $10 per day on average by 2026, everywhere outside of Quebec.

ü Budget 2021 will invest almost $30 billion over the next five years and provide permanent ongoing funding, working with provincial and territorial, and Indigenous partners to support quality, not-for-profit child care, and ensuring the needs of early childhood educators are at the heart of the system.

Supporting Accessible Child Care Spaces

For families that have children with disabilities, it is often challenging to find affordable and accessible child care spaces that meet their needs.

To make immediate progress for children with disabilities, Budget 2021 proposes to provide $29.2 million over two years, starting in 2021-22, to Employment and Social Development Canada through the Enabling Accessibility Fund to support child care centres as they improve their physical accessibility. This funding, which could benefit over 400 child care centres, would support improvements such as ramps and accessible doors, washrooms, and play structures.

Addressing the Needs of Indigenous Families and Communities

Early learning and child care programs designed by and with Indigenous families and communities give Indigenous children the best start in life. That is a critical part of reconciliation. Canada’s Indigenous Early Learning and Child Care Framework, co-developed with Indigenous partners in 2018, adopts a distinctions-based approach to strengthening high-quality, culturally appropriate child care for Indigenous children guided by Indigenous priorities.

Budget 2021 builds on this framework and on recent investments in the 2020 Fall Economic Statement to continue the progress towards early learning and child care system that meets the needs of Indigenous families, wherever they live. A proposed investment of $2.5 billion over the next five years in Indigenous Early Learning and Child Care will include:
- $1.4 billion over five years, starting in 2021-22, and $385 million ongoing, to ensure that more Indigenous families have access to high-quality programming. Guided by Indigenous priorities and distinctions-based envelopes, this investment will build Indigenous governance capacity and allow providers to offer more flexible and full-time hours of care, build, train and retain a skilled workforce, and create up to 3,300 new spaces. That will include new investments in Aboriginal Head Start in Urban and Northern Communities.
- $ 515 million over five years, starting in 2021-22, and $112 million ongoing, to support before and after-school care for First Nations children on reserve.
- $264 million over four years, starting in 2022-23, and $24 million ongoing, to repair and renovate existing Indigenous early learning and child care centres, ensuring a safe and healthy environment for children and staff.
- $420 million over three years, starting in 2023-24, and $21 million ongoing, to build and maintain new centres in additional communities. The government will work with Indigenous partners to identify new infrastructure priorities.

To read the Budget 2021 speech or to review the budget documents, please visit https://www.canada.ca/en/department-finance/services/publications/federal-budget.html

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