Every affordable child-care centre that Andrea Ferguson has approached has more than 200 people on the waitlist — leaving her worried she will never find child care for her daughter.
“Am I going to have to take a reduction in my work so that I can be home for my daughter because I don’t have access to child care?” said Ferguson, who is a Nova Scotia-based volunteer advocate with the National Coalition of Childcare Operators, an organization that represents child-care operators.
Ferguson is not alone. Nationally, child-care centres that signed onto Ottawa’s $10-a-day program have hundreds, and at times thousands, of children on their waitlists. Only about a third of parents have access to the program.
The coalition is running a national letter-writing campaign and asking parents who are on waitlists to participate in it. The coalition’s aim is to spur federal and provincial governments to address the program’s accessibility issues.
Ottawa has only created 97,000 child-care spots in the $10-a-day program since 2021, according to figures obtained by Radio Canada. The federal government planned to add 250,000 spots by 2026, but is not on track to meet this goal.
“It’s working for about a third of Canadians — that’s not good enough,” said Krystal Churcher, chair of the Association of Alberta Childcare Entrepreneurs, an advocacy organization that has been at the forefront of efforts to address problems with the $10-a-day program.
“We need to do better for the families that are coming to us looking for a space,” said Churcher, who helped found the national coalition. “We need to start advocating for them to have access.”
Give parents a voice
Lack of accessibility was one of the chief issues identified by child-care operators at the first national conference for operators, which was hosted by the Association of Alberta Childcare Entrepreneurs on April 30 and covered by Canadian Affairs.
The coalition is committed to addressing access issues in every province and reducing bureaucracy that prevents or slows the creation of new child-care spaces.
The national campaign seeks to give “parents … a voice,” said Kathryn Babowal, secretary of the association.
The coalition has sent child-care operators a toolkit they can use to encourage parents on waitlists to contact their representatives in government. The coalition will also invite waitlisted families to join a parents conference to discuss accessibility issues and advocacy efforts on June 19.
“Those 70 per cent of families that don’t have a space are the ones that we need to really support,” said Churcher.
The coalition is also conducting a national survey of waitlisted parents, and plans to present their feedback to policymakers.
‘Band together’
Child-care operators who are members of the Association of Alberta Childcare Entrepreneurs have said they felt coerced into signing Ottawa’s program. Many who are participants in the $10-a-day program fear bankruptcy.
The Alberta government continues to tell operators they cannot change the provincial model because they are “stuck in the agreement that they signed” with Ottawa, said Peter Pilarski, president at CIPR Communications, a marketing and communications agency that works with the association.
“But I’m a firm believer that where there’s a will there’s a way,” he said.
Earlier this year, child-care centres protested Alberta’s management of the grants under the $10-a-day program by closing for a day on Jan. 30. The province was sending monthly funding to the centres 40 to 45 days late, which was creating a cash-flow crisis for operators, says Churcher, who helped organize the campaign.
After the protest, Alberta agreed to send the grant money in a timely manner. This has been working so far, she says.
“I think for the child-care industry in Canada to succeed is by uniting … and to get people at the grassroots level, who are not happy with what’s going on and to make their voice heard,” said Pilarski.
Christine Pasmore, board member of the association, says policymakers have asked the association to propose solutions to the different issues child-care operators are facing.
“If you are an operator, you are aware of the impact that lack of access is having on families, and communities,” said Churcher. “We need to band together as operators to really support the parents that are sitting on our waitlist.”
