Child-care program is PM’s key victory

Opinion

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This article was published 07/03/2025 (195 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

As Canada prepares to close the book on the Justin Trudeau era, some will be happy to watch him go. But in Canada’s haste to see him out the door, let’s not forget his government’s significant achievements.

His strong performance in the ongoing showdown with United States President Donald Trump, for example, may have led Canadians to view him in a distinctly more positive light.

But what has undoubtedly been his single greatest achievement — prodded in no small part by the NDP — was the introduction of a national child-care program: The Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care (CWELCC) system, colloquially known as $10-a-day child care.

As scholars of social policy — as well as a mother and grandfather — we believe this program is the biggest improvement to Canada’s welfare state since the initial implementation of medicare in 1966-67, updated via the Canada Health Act in 1984.

Somehow, however, amid all the negative Trudeau headlines, this major contribution has been seemingly forgotten.

Gender equality

Trudeau’s child-care program is a massive advancement for gender equality and should be celebrated by all women, parents and — more broadly — people who care about reducing social inequalities.

By freeing parents — mostly women — from the need to stay home with their children or from having to rely on aging and often frail grandparents, evidence suggests Canada will experience substantial benefits to children, parents and society as a whole.

The program allows highly skilled and motivated workers to join the paid labour force and could also affect fertility decisions in some cases if, for example, families decide to have more children due to reduced child-care costs. Just as importantly, formal child-care benefits children developmentally, particularly in the case of disadvantaged and single-parent households.

In purely fiscal terms, study after study shows that a dollar invested in child care yields a greater financial return over a lifetime than any other expenditure of public funds.

Massive uptake rates

The CWELCC program committed more than $30 billion federally to support early learning and child care, with specific funds dedicated to Indigenous child care.

To date, it has created 150,000 new spaces, with a goal of creating an additional 100,000 new spaces by March 2026.

All provinces and territories have participated in the program, with uptake rates among child-care centres starting at 92 per cent in Ontario and rising higher elsewhere across the country.

Notably, the road to implementing national child care in Canada has neither been short or easy.

In 2004, Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin was unable to bring national child care to fruition, despite gaining bilateral child-care agreements with all 10 provinces.

When Stephen Harper replaced Martin in 2006, among the first acts of his Conservative government was to cancel these agreements. Instead, he offered the Universal Childcare Benefit that delivered $100 per child to parents monthly, but did nothing to address the lack of available child-care spaces.

It did, however, ensure that a rhetoric of “choice” and cash in hand for in-home care for children was prioritized over women’s equal participation in the labour market.

Internationally, there is consistent evidence that care allowances offered in lieu of publicly funded child-care services reinforce traditional gendered divisions of labour and reduce female employment rates.

All provinces and territories signed up

By contrast — and no small feat in terms of negotiation skills — Trudeau’s team was able to persuade each and every province and territory to sign an Early Learning and Child Care Agreement.

Major reductions in child-care fees for eligible families followed, with all territories and four provinces at $10-a-day as of 2024 (with New Brunswick and Alberta only slightly higher, while Nova Scotia] will be at $10-a-day as of March 1, 2026.)

Even in Ontario, where rates are higher, costs now average about $23 a day.

Trudeau managed to carry out this program by starting his efforts early in his tenure, unlike with the dental and pharmacare initiatives, and building consensus across a diverse and often contentious Canadian landscape.

Supply issues

It’s not all roses, of course. Some Canadians are frustrated about the slow expansion of subsidized child-care spaces.

And the program remains plagued by serious supply (availability) issues, especially in rural and remote communities.

Early childhood educators still do not receive fair pay for the essential work they do, and staff retention is a serious issue.

But as we look toward the next federal election, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has had little to say about the national child-care program except for vague references to “flexibility” and a suggestion about replacing it with tax credits.

This should set alarm bells ringing across the country.

Fortunately, Trudeau has set up a framework that will be difficult to dismantle in the future. There has been massive buy-in from users, providers, funders and much of the general public.

We urge whoever replaces Trudeau as prime minister to highlight what has been accomplished in child care over the last few years, and to prioritize the further expansion of the program in the years ahead.

This would be Trudeau’s proudest legacy.

» Naomi Lightman is an associate professor of sociology at Toronto Metropolitan University. Ernie Lightman is professor emeritus of social policy at the University of Toronto.

» This column was originally published at The Conversation Canada: theconversation.com/ca