Ottawa announced another $5.4 billion for child care agreements across the country.
In 2021, Ottawa promised $10 a day to the provinces for child care, and had already invested $58 billion to child care throughout the country, and is adding another $5.4 billion to fulfill the $10 a day.
The question may be, isn’t child care a provincial and territorial responsibility? The answer is yes, but this headline is one of the most important lessons in Canadian government.
Child care is not a federal jurisdiction per se, it is a provincial and territorial jurisdiction. The federal government cannot open day cares, set staffing rules, determining educator requirements, or setting regulations, this all lies with each respective province and territory. So, when you enroll your child in daycare, you are interacting with a provincial or territorial system, not a federal system.
Ottawa works with provinces, territories, and Indigenous partners to build a Canada wide, community-based child care system, so instead of running the system, Ottawa helps pay for it. The federal government signs funding agreements with each province and territory committing to these finances for several years to help make child care more affordable and accessible. With this, provinces and territories are responsible for how that money is going to be used for their daycares and agree to share outcomes with the federal government. This is the connection between the federal government and a program that is constitutionally under provincial jurisdiction and the only thing Ottawa can negotiate is in terms of money.
One misconception in Canadian politics that the federal government is responsible for everything. The federal government works with the provincial and territorial governments, and for the most part, services that are used daily are more likely provincial or territorial with support from the federal government.
Sources reviewed: CBC News, Government of Canada (Federal Secretariat on Early Learning and Child Care)