The number of lower-income families receiving subsidized daycare in Ontario has been decreasing, the province’s auditor general found, despite a national effort to achieve a $10-a-day child-care program.
Since 2022, the Ford government has been trying to implement a promise made by former prime minister Justin Trudeau to offer families across the country access to affordable childcare.
The program involves dramatically increasing child-care spaces to accommodate the increased demand, hiring new early childhood educators and balancing the need across the province with set funding from the federal government.
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Ontario’s auditor general found, however, that the province’s implementation of the program has led to fewer families having access to the cheaper spaces, saying the Ford government may have to “change its current plans” to achieve $10-per-day child care by 2026.
The auditor also determined that the Ford government spent the bulk of the $10.23 billion child-care funding it received from Ottawa over the course of four years — when the money was originally earmarked for five years — leading to a potential $1.95 billion shortfall in 2026.
While the province expects the agreement between the federal government and Ontario to be extended for another five years, families could be facing increased costs for subsidized care.
The auditor said child-care operators could face a shortfall of “at least $20 per space, per day,” pushing the fees for parents to an average of $32 per day.
“The Ministry has initially developed plans to deliver child-care funding to support the Agreement’s affordability, access, quality and inclusion objectives,” the auditor said in a special report, but added that the government’s efforts have fallen flat.
“We found that the systems and procedures in place to meet the targets by the end of the Agreement are not effective, and the commitments are at risk of not being met based on current projections and without changes to plans,” the auditor said.
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