Last month, Maclean’s published a cover story about Canada’s declining birth rate, and the rise of the “one-and-done” family. Several parents interviewed in that story said that having a second kid was just too expensive, given housing and childcare costs. Daycare fees can be prohibitive, especially for multiple kids. So when the Trudeau government introduced a more affordable $10-a-day daycare model, it seemed almost too good to be true.
Over the last few years, the program has been rolling out across the country with various degrees of success. Each province has operated a bit differently. Some parents are already seeing huge reductions in their fees. Others are stuck on ballooning waitlists. The most vocal critics of the program are the daycare operators themselves.
Sarah Hunter owns a daycare in Calgary. She's in favour of making daycare more affordable but, as she describes in an article for Maclean’s, she struggles to make her finances work under the program. She covers all her daycare’s operational costs up front, often relying on bank loans, then waits to be reimbursed by the province. That can take a while. She advocates for a new funding model in which the grant money goes directly to families.
The $10-a-day daycare project is a wildly ambitious enterprise that will likely take years to iron out. Hunter’s story is, I hope, a vivid and revealing illustration of a fixable problem, a bump in the road to a future of sustainable and affordable childcare in Canada.
—Sarah Fulford, editor-in-chief
