Key points
Ontario’s child-care system is struggling to meet parents’ needs despite billions in federal funding.
The 2021 Early Learning and Child Care Agreement promised $10 a day child care and the creation of 86,000 new spots for children under six, but the current fee cap is $22 a day and the deadline for new spaces has been extended.
While child care has become more affordable, demand has increased faster than supply. Many families cannot find a space for their children and have to wait months for a spot.
Ottawa resident Victoria Tsonos knew it would be difficult to secure child care before becoming a parent. That’s why she joined the city’s waitlist a week after learning she was pregnant.
The federal and Ontario governments introduced the Early Learning and Child Care Agreement, or ELCC, in 2021, promising 86,000 new spaces and an average cost of $10 a day for daycare by the end of 2026.
But these goals have not been met, leaving families struggling for support and governments working to recover the program.
“Every new parent is warned that as soon as you get pregnant, you need to sign up on the city’s daycare waitlist,” Tsonos said. “Even though I didn’t know the sex of my baby until (he) was born, I had to make a profile for him and sign him up.”
She said the uncertainty of waitlists is stressful, especially when her child could age out of programs for which she signed up.
“I need to go back (to work) when my child is 12, 13 months. … If he becomes a toddler by the time an infant spot becomes available, he will no longer be accepted,” Tsonos explained.
Ontario says an infant is younger than 18 months, and a toddler is between 18 and 30 months old.
The City of Ottawa waitlist advises parents that more families are looking for child care than there are available spaces, encouraging them to find a “backup plan.” But for some, a backup plan isn’t enough.
Emily Knoppert said she went to social media looking for advice on navigating the waitlist. She found a common answer was in-home daycares.
While child-care centres and home agencies can be subsidized through the ELCC system, Knoppert said she wants to send her daughter to a public centre – a choice that could mean waiting longer.
Her family moved to Ottawa from Seattle in May and was aware of the waitlist before arriving. To prepare, Knoppert said she accessed the city’s portal in March.
“I just didn’t totally know what to expect,” she said. “My daughter had already attended half-day preschool in the U.S., so I was looking for something similar.”
Knoppert’s wait wasn’t as long as she expected. Her daughter was offered a spot at a half-day preschool in April, though the wait could have been longer for a full day. She said she has not heard from the full-day facilities she applied to seven months ago.
“Most people are looking for a full-day program to better align with their full-time jobs, and the half-day programs are less popular and a little easier to get into,” she said.
For Knoppert, a half-day program works. Her partner’s job allows them to stay home with their daughter during afternoons, but she said it’s not that simple for every parent.
“I just didn’t think that full-day was gonna work, where either I had to get insanely lucky … or I would have had to do an in-home daycare, which I was a little uneasy about,” she said.
Her daughter’s preschool is subsidized by the ELCC system, which caps fees at $22 a day for children 0-5 – $12 more than the price promised in 2021.
To address these shortcomings, the federal government announced nearly $12 billion for the Ontario ELCC program on Sept. 29, adding to the $13.8 billion already provided. Jobs and Families Minister Patty Hajdu said in a press conference that funds will go toward maintaining the current $19-a-day average fee until next June 30.
The new budget will also be used to meet the goal of 86,000 new child-care spaces, for which the deadline has been moved from Dec. 31, 2026, to March 31, 2027.
Kim Hiscott, CEO of Andrew Fleck Children’s Services, said the ELCC program has positively impacted families accessing the organization’s 30 subsidized centres, but shortages in funding will keep waitlists long.
“Fees were $90-95 a day, now they’re $22, so that’s a big change,” she said. “The challenge is the program in Ontario. The target is one space for 37 per cent of children.”
When daycare costs go down, wait times go up, Hiscott explained. If the budget only plans to guarantee a spot for 37 per cent of children under six, the extra $12 billion is unlikely to shorten waitlists.
“As soon as child care became more affordable, more families realized they could afford to return to work,” she said. “We jokingly say we find out somebody is expecting a baby before the grandparents because they put their baby on the list a week after they find out they’re pregnant.”
For Tsonos, squeezing her child into that 37 per cent took patience.
After over a year of waiting, her child was offered a spot in a private daycare. But because the centre is not part of the ELCC system, she is paying around $900 more monthly than she would for a subsidized facility.
Still, she said she is thankful to have a spot.
“We’re gonna have to re-budget in order to accommodate that, but we are so lucky and privileged that we can accommodate,” she said. “We can make that work, but there are so many families that cannot.”