Why it’s been so hard to implement $10-a-day child care

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Jordan Heath-Rawlings When a government announces that it is finally giving the people what they want, that it’s enacting a long overdue and almost universally popular policy, there’s really only one thing to say in return as a citizen. That’s great, but how and when speaking as your finance minister and as a working mother, we will get it done. High quality early learning and childcare for an average of $10. I did that clip was our finance minister, Chrystia Freeland, in April of 2021. And the how and the when have been evolving since then. First, the government had to make deals on that funding separately with every province and territory. Then daycares had to make their own deals with the governments implementing those programs in every province and territory. Then they had to figure out how to sign up those daycares and distribute the money and get a handle on the costs. But that’s mostly paperwork and it’s mostly all done. And the framework is mostly in place. And yes, in some places, daycare is. Much cheaper than it was before, but not everywhere and not all the time, and not for everyone. That’s because the last part of this plan is the toughest. Once it’s all done on paper, then the children have to actually. Get cared for. And that means workers, workers who are in short supply in many places owing to low wages, tough working conditions, and few benefits workers who often leave for a better job. And without enough people to do this work, they’re still just not enough. Which means it’s pretty tough to get access to everyone who needs it, regardless of how cheap it’s supposed to be. So now what? I am Jordan Heath-Rawlings. This is The Big Story. Emma Arkel is a freelance reporter based in British Columbia. She investigated the implementation of the childcare policy for shadowing. Hi Emma.

Emma Arkel Hi, Thank you for having me.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings You’re welcome. I know this is kind of a complicated story that’s. A long time coming, and I think a lot of parents who are listening to this are probably wondering where their $10 a day childcare is. Yeah, that’s a fair question to ask. Maybe we could start with the initial federal announcement of, you know, okay, we’re gonna do $10 a day childcare. What did the government promise at that time and, and what were they gonna provide to make it happen? Like, give us a sense of the journey from.

Emma Arkel Right. So in May of 2021, uh, as part of budget 2021, the government, federal government announced, uh, $10 a day childcare. Uh, and this was sort of in response to a lot of the issues that. Parents, especially women and mothers had been dealing with throughout the pandemic when, you know, their childcare center may very well have closed, uh, because of the lockdowns that we had in 2020. And a lot of people really struggled with that. They struggled to maintain their work schedules while they were also taking care of their children all day. And so the government announced this $10 a day childcare system building out this universal childcare system, which, uh, many governments have promised to do before. And, uh, none have really been successful.

Jordan So there was this 30 billion money put aside to be dispersed to the provinces so that every province could, uh, sign on to these agreements and build out their childcare systems. And, you know, we’re a year and a. Out from that and very much in the process of it. Have all the provinces now signed on, like, where are we at exactly in that process? 


Emma Arkel Well, this is going to be a long process. Um, I’m not sure if that was really made clear, uh, when this was announced, but this is a, a, really big undertaking. All of the provinces have signed on. I believe BC was the first, uh, because here in bc the provincial government has been working on this since, uh, 2018. So they’ve gotten a few years, uh, of head start. I believe the last province to sign on was Ontario. Could be political reasons for that. So now we’re in the process. Uh, other provinces figuring out how exactly they want to do this. So currently outside of Quebec, uh, where childcare has always been very low cost to parents. 


Jordan Is anybody getting $10 a day childcare right now? Or is it just like, well, we’ve got the money and we’ve gotta figure out how to make it happen still?

Emma Arkel I mean, I think parents more, more and more parents all the time are getting access to, uh, decreased childcare. Maybe it’s not $10 a day yet because considering how much parents have been paying for decades, you know, sometimes childcare costs, uh, exceed rent and mortgage costs per. You know, people are, uh, getting cheaper and cheaper childcare. I see. You know, just anecdotally I see, uh, people posting on social media all the time that, you know, they now are getting $900 off childcare a month. You know, that’s a huge savings. But as I said, this is a very big undertaking and so it’s going to take a number of years before $10 a day childcare is widely available for parents in terms of actually making that access universal. 


Jordan What has traditionally been the big sticking point in expanding, uh, this kind of cheap childcare across the country? Because look, 30 billion is a lot of money. Um, one of the reasons we’re talking to you, a labor reporter is cuz money, uh, doesn’t do everything.

Emma Arkel Yeah. The thing with the childcare sector is that, uh, there have been issues in the workforce around retention for decades. Wages have always been very low in this sector. I think people would be shocked to find out just how low wages are. You know, it’s around $26,000 a year, I think is the average across Canada. It’s very difficult to, to live on that. There’s also, you know, not a lot of childcare workers. Have extended healthcare benefits, have access to pensions. A lot of them feel as though there aren’t necessarily a lot of career, uh, advancement opportunities in the sector. People who have that educational background, you know, experience working with young children. if they’re working in childcare, and then they look at their colleagues in the public education system who make much higher wages, who have access to a pension, who are represented by a union who have healthcare benefits and other job benefits. It’s, I think difficult for a lot of them to stay in the sector when you know they could do similar work in the public education system and just have so much more stability in their lives.

Jordan I don’t know if you know the answer to this question or not, but it’s more a philosophical one, I guess. Why have those two sectors been treated so differently? You know, what’s different from. Educating a four year old at a preschool, that magically changes to when you’re educating a five-year-old in a kindergarten?

Emma Arkel Yeah, that’s a good question. Obviously, childcare labor has been devalued because this is feminized labor, right? This is labor that is often expected of women that people, you know, maybe unconsciously still believe that women are just naturally better at, and so, yeah, we, we’ve really never seen a lot of, uh, appreciation for childcare. I think that’s, that’s a very recent change. Maybe something that’s changed with the pandemic is that people recognize how central childcare really is not only to our economy, but to the development of children. There’s tons of research to back that up, but I. Largely because it’s been associated with women and often with women of color that this laborer is just not appreciated and, and not valued. 


Jordan How that differs from education. It’s, I think it’s hard to say , just to illustrate for the audience, uh, what it can look like on the ground at a daycare center when there’s lots of money. . Um, but money can’t solve it. Can you tell us the story of Jen Carmen and her center back in 2017? What happened there? 


Emma Arkel Right, so Jen Carmen is the manager of a center that is run under the STA service agency. And in 2017, you know, she was new to being a manager. She had worked in a lot of different roles at the center and had kind of worked her way up. And in 2017 they received a grant. To renovate their basement to open a bunch of new childcare spaces. And I think this is something that a lot of people would see as like an, an obviously good thing, you know, like why you can better serve your community. You can bring more kids in. But Jen was really worried because she knew that. She had had a lot of issues finding childcare workers and, and keeping childcare workers. Um, and so they went through with the renovations and those spaces were open for a while. The pandemic hits and the whole center closes for a bit as many centers did across the country. And they struggled to reopen those spaces for years because they could not. The staff to work those spaces. You know, there was a lot of demand in the community, especially for infant and toddler spaces. 


Jordan Those are, uh, typically very sought after, right? To get your kids into the childcare system from when they’re very young. But they really struggled despite being a center that, you know, offers, benefits, uh, that is very community focused that people will really feel very strongly about.

Emma Arkel They still really struggle to find workers, and that’s a story that you find across the country.

Jordan There was a, a report recently out that looks at the childcare workforce in bc and 40% of employers were unable to fill a vacant position. What kinds of things have or haven’t been tried to solve the staffing problem? You know, to your point, uh, in the last couple of years we’ve realized how essential childcare is in the lives of so many Canadians. Have the provinces realized this and try different tax to get more people into this work? 


Emma Arkel Well, all of the provinces, I believe, are looking at raising wages in some way. In some provinces, you find wage grids that set very clear wages. You know, they set a wage floor. So we know that everyone in the sector is being paid at least a certain amount. Um, and then it goes up based on credentials and experience. Other provinces are on their way to a wage grid and are doing wage enhancements. And so that’s, you know, an extra one to $4 an hour if you have a certain credential. Um, those are also typically paid retroactively. Those, those raises, uh, a lot of provinces are also, you know, opening up more spots in childcare programs, uh, colleges and universities to, you know, get more people into the sector, and recruitment is very important, but I think what we really need to be looking at is retention.

Jordan How do we keep people who are already in the sector from leaving, you know, for jobs in the public education system or just for other jobs entirely?

Emma Arkel When we improve retention, we will also make it easier for the people who are bringing in to stay in the sector. And I think that’s, that’s really the key. And that’s what the research that’s being done in BC is showing.

Jordan One of the things you mentioned, aside from, uh, wages and benefits was a sense of career advancement. What does that look like in the childcare space? And when you talk to childhood educators, you know, what do they want to see from a career in the sector that they’re not getting? 


Emma Arkel I think one thing, And it’s connected to wages. It’s, it’s seeing that if you do, you know, increase your, uh, your credentials, you will earn more and you’ll earn significantly more. Right now in the sector, there’s really no guarantee of that, and I think the differences between different credentials, what they’re earning, uh, is, is unclear, uh, or is just not enough to encourage people to go back to school. 


Jordan I realize this is always. A dicey question, but given that spots are in such demand, What about changing the educator to child ratio? Making it so more educators could cover more kids, obviously safely, and that would have to be ascertained. But do you know what I’m saying? Like I, if we can’t beat this just by throwing money at it, how else can we do it? 


Emma Arkel Well, money is always going to be appreciated, right? Like, yeah, the wages need to go up. Uh, there’s really no debate about that. Some of the wage floors that we’re seeing, like in Ontario, I think currently the wage floor is $18 an hour. It’s, it’s very difficult to live on that and, and that’s not going to attract anyone to the sector. So we really need to be ambitious about our wage grids and also really aware of what inflation and the rising cost of living has done to people’s wages. The wage floors that people were talking about in 2019 really don’t make any sense in 2023 on top of wages. You know, what we see is that benefits are really important in retaining workers. You know, so that can be paid sick days, which in a sector, uh, where the work is so physical, both because you’re working with children, you know, you’re bending down to be at their level, you’re picking them up, you’re running after them, um, and also, You get sick a lot working with kids. Anyone who’s worked with kids knows that in the fall and in the winter, there’s a lot of viruses going around that’s only gotten worse this year. And so extended health benefits are essential. Paid sick days beyond, you know, provincial minimums are, I would also say essential these things are going to. Keep people in the sector by preventing burnout. And I think that’s, that’s another key. And so provincial programs that somehow incentivize employers to offer those benefits, I think will be very helpful in keeping people in the sector. 


Jordan Is it feasible though to tamper with those regulations and how much do those regulations vary from province to province anyway, in terms of like educator to kid ratio? And listen, I am not, uh, advocating for increasing it. I can’t even care for one child myself, so I understand it’s a job. I’ve never heard anyone suggest that the ratios should be, you know, expanded so that there are more children per educator. 


Emma Arkel I, I’ve never seen that suggested. I think as we’re building out this system, which again is going to take. A number of years. You know, we have, I think like a 10 year sort of, uh, view of this. I think 10, 20, 30 years is really what we should be looking at. This is a system that we should have, you know, this should become a permanent part of Canadian society, and so it’s going to take a number of years to build that out. I think quality and ensuring the quality of childcare is. Of top of mind for educators and advocates. Um, and so tampering with ratios at all. I, I’ve, I’ve never heard that put on the table. I think centers also have a good. Idea of what works for them. And that comes up in the piece, you know, at, uh, a Lamaha, the center that I, I sort of profiled for this piece, they run at a higher educator to child ratio. 
So they have more educators in the room than the provincial minimums because for them that is what quality childcare is. Um, and. That, you know, I think will vary a little bit.

Jordan Center to center and educator to educator. It, it also depends on the group of children, right? We’re we’re talking about, uh, little humans who have, you know, big personalities, big feelings. 


Emma Arkel Yes, exactly. And so, Yeah, it’s really about ensuring quality just as it is about ensuring that you know, as many people as possible have access to affordable childcare. The last thing I want to ask you about is how the federal government will be involved over the next few years as this gets built out. 


Jordan You know, we’ve so far talked about their initial. 30 billion investment. And then we’ve talked about, you know, finding ways for the provinces to incentivize people to join the workforce. Is the government doing anything to that end the federal government? I mean, will they get involved, uh, in, in beefing up the workforce or are they sort of giving the money to the provinces and, and allowing them to just figure it out? 


Emma Arkel My understanding of their role right now is, is really. Uh, as, as the money people , they’re giving the provinces money in order to build out the system, and the provinces are figuring out the details. I think there are sort of standards in these agreements and ideas of like what we should be aiming for, but as far as I know, their role in figuring out some of those details is limited. So it’s really about the provinces. Um, I think learning from each other and figuring out, you know, how to attract people to the field, that’s a big issue, but really on how to retain the workers that we already have. And, and to make the field sustainable, not only for the people who are working in it right now, but for the people who will be working in the sector in five or 10 years. 


Jordan Emma, thank you so much for this and uh, it’s good to know progress is being made. I guess patience is the watchword. Yeah, definitely patience is going to be key. Patience and uh, advocacy for the workforce.

Emma Arkel Thank you for having me on.

Jordan Emma Arkel Writing and Shadowing, that was the big story. For more from us, head to the big story podcast.ca. If you have suggestions on other federal policies that you’d like to see broken down from conception to implementation, I would love to hear. I sometimes feel like I don’t understand how these things our politicians announce actually work when we try to do them. So if there’s something that you don’t understand too, I would like to hear about it. And you know how you can do that on Twitter at the Big Story Fpn via email. Hello at the big story podcast.ca, and with a phone call and a voicemail, (416) 935-5935. The big story’s available in every podcast player. You can also find it on your smart speaker just by asking it to play the Big Story podcast. Thanks for listening. I’m Jordan Heath-Rawlings. We’ll talk tomorrow.