Alberta and the federal government reach an agreement on child care of $ 10 per day

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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Prime Minister Jason Kenney met today in Edmonton to sign an agreement that would make Alberta the most recent jurisdiction in Canada to reach a $ 10-a-day childcare agreement.

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The $ 3.8 billion deal will cut the cost of child care in Alberta in half by early 2022, and move toward a program that would cost parents $ 10 a day by the end of 2025.

The agreement will also create 42,500 new spaces for early learning and child care, and will provide $ 300 million to pay good salaries and provide training to child care providers.

Child care providers will receive money through operating grants that will flow from the federal government and the savings will be passed on to parents.

The agreement will also see an expansion of the child care subsidy program to include additional supports during the first two years for families with a household income of up to $ 180,000 per year.

Trudeau said the agreement was an example of how the government can deliver great things to the people despite the well-documented history of disagreements between Alberta and the federal government.

“The fact that we were able to do this with Alberta today is a clear indication that it is available to every family across the country,” Trudeau said.

Kenney noted that Alberta’s agreement with the feds allowed for the inclusion of privatized child care providers, something that originally did not qualify for funding in the initial offering, and will give Alberta the highest percentage of child care spaces offered by private operators.

“The province has reached an agreement that allows Alberta parents to have the type of child care that works best for them, which has been a key element of any agreement this government signs,” Kenney said.

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The firm also featured comments from Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, Karina Gould Minister for Families, Children and Social Development, and Rebecca Schultz Alberta Minister for Children’s Services.

Schultz said federal child care dollars will support and create more access to flexible and overnight child care, as well as more supports for child care spaces.

“We have reached a ‘made in Alberta’ agreement that will support working parents, meet the unique needs of Alberta families, drive economic recovery and make child care more affordable across the province,” said Schultz. .

Freeland said this agreement creates jobs by allowing mothers and fathers to work, which can boost economic growth and make life more affordable.

“Child care is vitally important to our economy,” Freeland said, “it is as critical a piece of infrastructure as a highway, a grain elevator or a railroad.”

According to Gould, she believes the 50% fee reduction will save Alberta families $ 5,000 per year per child.

“Families with young children often at the beginning of their careers, stressed by the high costs of raising a family, will see a real and tangible impact over the next year,” said Gould.

New Brunswick, Ontario, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut are the remaining jurisdictions that have not yet signed a $ 10-per-day child care agreement with the federal government.

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At the press conference, reporters asked Kenney why the agreement signed by Alberta contained less flexibility than the child care agreement that the province of Quebec had signed.

Kenney responded by saying that they would have liked the same deal as Quebec, but at the end of the day, this was the best deal the province could have gotten and they would be leaving $ 4 billion in taxes on the table if they didn’t. don’t take it.

“At the end of the day, it’s not the only time that we see what appears to be a two-tier federation,” Kenney said.

Trudeau responded to the charge from Kenney’s two-tier federation stating that Quebec already had its own province-wide program that provided an average of $ 8.50 per day for childcare, so there would be no point in imposing restrictions.

“This is not about treating a province differently,” Trudeau said, “if Alberta already had childcare at $ 8 a day throughout the province, we would have had a similar approach to Quebec,” Trudeau said.