Alberta child-care centres participating in Ottawa’s $10-a-day program are mulling how to stay afloat as business costs soar above the province’s subsidy rate.
“The whole program… is really underfunded,” said Krystal Churcher, child-care operator and chair of the Association of Alberta Childcare Entrepreneurs, a not-for-profit that advocates for the interests of private child-care operators in Alberta.
“We’re not seeing the fees being allowed to be increased to a place that actually meets what the cost of child care is.”
Alberta child-care centre owners are calling on the provincial government to revisit the agreement first put in place in 2021 between the federal government and the province to implement the $10-a-day program. Under the program, Alberta parents currently pay an average of $15-a-day for child care, but the province aims to reduce parents’ fees to $10-a-day by 2026.
Child-care owners say the grant agreement they signed with the province to participate in the program must be revised to enable them to offer quality education — and, in some cases, to ensure their very survival.
“My overall costs on running The Imagination Tree went up 18 per cent last year, and we were allowed a three per cent increase in fees,” said Sarah Hunter, founder and operator of the Calgary-based child-care centre.
“It’s kind of a recipe for bankruptcy if you can’t raise your fees.”
‘Just the beginning’
When Alberta child-care centres opted to participate in the $10-a-day program in 2021, they were required to disclose their centres’ fees to the province. Those fees informed the amount that the province agreed to grant to centres under the subsidized program.
As a condition of participating, child-care operators were prohibited from raising their fees by more than three per cent a year.
But since 2021, child-care centres’ operating costs — insurance, rent, food and more — have risen dramatically. The fees that centres used to charge parents, and which they disclosed to the province three years ago, are now no longer sufficient to cover their costs, even with the three per cent permitted fee increase factored in.
Child-care centre owners across the country, including in Ontario, are experiencing similar problems, Canadian Affairs reported in March.
Alberta child-care centres under the $10-a-day program say they have had to cut back on their services as a result, says Churcher.
“Most of us have cut [on] food,” said Churcher. Homemade style meals have been replaced by prepackaged easy-to-serve snacks. Some no longer serve fresh fruit.
Others have reduced their child-care capacity and employees. This week, Churcher said she received a text from a child-care operator who was cancelling their infant-care unit in order “to keep their doors open.”
Under the provincial regulations, child-care operators must maintain a set ratio of early childhood educators to children for each age group. Children under 12 months old require a minimum ratio of one to three, educators to babies, said Churcher. Older children require a lower ratio, making it more affordable for centres to offer that care.
“This was a heart wrenching decision, but we felt we had no choice,” said Churcher, reading off the child-care operator’s message.
“This is just the beginning,” Churcher said.
The office of Matt Jones, Alberta’s minister of jobs, economy and trade, said in a statement to Canadian Affairs that, “Alberta’s government continues to engage with child-care providers as we develop a new funding formula to ensure the child-care system is sustainable and continues to meet the diverse needs of Alberta families.”
Not a babysitter
The funding model under the $10-a-day program is undermining the quality of education that centres offer, says Hunter.
“I’m not interested in running a centre that’s become a babysitting service,” Hunter said. “I think it needs to be recognized that we’re doing really important brain development with these children.”
Children who have special needs, such as learning or physical disabilities, risk losing their support workers, said Hunter. She currently employs an emotional agility coach who works one-on-one with children.
“To be honest, those children probably wouldn’t be able to attend… without her amazing expertise,” said Hunter. “But of course, that also costs money. So how much longer are we going to be able to do that? That’s another huge question in my mind.”
Child-care operators are concerned the subsidized program is neglecting education, said Austin Goldie, director of the Narnia Learning Centre, a child-care centre in Lethbridge.
“What we’re concerned about in Alberta is what kind of quality of child care are we going to be left with when we get to $10-a-day,” said Goldie. “Because we’re only at $15, and we’re already starting to see things happening.”
The subsidized program has also imposed a significant administrative burden on child-care operators, she said. One of her employees, who was previously in charge of organizing the children’s educational activities, now works on filing paperwork for the program.
‘Back to the table’
Child-care operators are calling on the Alberta government for help. They would like the province to either raise the amount of funding it sends to operators or to allow centres to increase parents’ fees, said Hunter.
Child-care providers can receive Cost Increase Replacement Funding, which provides up to an additional six per cent increase from the government subsidy, the office of Alberta’s Minister of Jobs, Economy and Trade told Canadian Affairs in a statement.
Additional funding “has also been provided to child-care providers to expand professional development opportunities, increase wages for early childhood educators and cover the costs of mandatory employer contributions,” the statement said.
Child-care operators believe in offering affordable child care, said Churcher. But the program has not made it affordable for child-care centres, she said.
The rollout has left many feeling trapped. “I think we naively signed into this agreement, not really having all of the information at hand and not really realizing how it was going to handcuff our businesses,” said Hunter.
“My fear is that many centres — and this is a fear for my own centre as well — won’t be able to continue,” said Hunter.
Earlier this year, child-care centres protested Alberta’s management of the grants to centres under the $10-a-day program. The province’s practice of sending money 40 to 45 days late each month creates a cash flow crisis for centres, says Churcher, who organized the campaign that saw many of the province’s child-care centres close for a day on Jan. 30.
Many operators ran up debt as they dealt with the late grants. Hunter says she has about $100,000 in debt because the government has been slow to send funding.
After the campaign, the government agreed to send the money in the first four days of the month. So far, money has flowed to child-care centres in a timely manner, said Churcher.
Child-care operators want the province to hear the rest of their concerns.
“I think that it would be really great if we could all just go back to the table” and speak with the provincial government, said Hunter. We need to “tell them how we’re struggling and what we need to be successful and to remain viable going forward.”
