Only 11 of 35 cities studied have reached $10-a-day fees five years into the national program

It’s been five years since the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care (CWELCC) program—otherwise known as $10-a-day child care—began, and yet most parents still aren’t paying $10 a day.

The program has been a major success in at least one important way: parents are saving hundreds, if not thousands of dollars every month. But “less expensive” child care is not the same as $10-a-day child care.

So what happened to the federal government’s 2021 promise to build $10-a-day child care across the country and why does it still remain so far from reality?

It’s important to look at how the program is actually working well. The last decade of child care fee surveys taken by the CCPA shows that parents are paying less today than in 2021. To begin with, parents in Toronto are saving roughly $1,800 a month for an infant space. And $1,200 to $1,500 in monthly savings for infants is common in other major cities. Even in B.C., where progress on fee reductions has stalled, parents are still saving approximately $300 to $500 a month for an infant space compared with five years ago.

This means that the $10-a-day child care program has already demonstrated that public investment in child care can accomplish a lot—even if it’s still not enough.

In fact, $10-a-day child care remains the exception, not the rule. Only six provinces or territories in Canada have maximum fees of $10 a day or less: Newfoundland and Labrador, P.E.I., Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Nunavut—with Quebec’s $9.65 fee predating CWELCC.

Three provinces, New Brunswick, Ontario and Alberta, also have a maximum fee, which is much easier for parents to navigate, but they set them above $10 a day. The final four, Nova Scotia, B.C., the Northwest Territories and Yukon, have a more complex system with varying fees, depending on the provider and the age of the children, which makes the system harder for parents to navigate.

Examining our data, only 11 of the 35 cities we analyzed have fees at $10 a day or less. This means that the national system is still highly uneven, despite being called a Canada-wide program.

The province of B.C. is the clearest example of what happens when fee reductions stall. Before the national program, B.C. had managed to improve affordability, but now it has the most expensive child care in Canada. At the highest price, Richmond, B.C., has a median infant fee of $52 a day.

The case of B.C. underlines something else: the importance of recognizing the difference between for-profit and non-profit centres. For-profit centres consistently charge more, and B.C. has more of these than not. This matters because the CWELCC is not simply trying to subsidize existing child care; it is trying to build a non-profit child-care system that delivers value for money over the long term.

The federal government has been doing its part. In June 2026, it increased its funding to CWELCC by one-third, contributing an additional $5.4 billion over two years. It’s important for this to be seen as an opportunity to lock in the initial goals of the program, like $10-a-day child care everywhere. Ottawa should maintain its commitment to long-term federal funding and accountability.

But the provinces and territories need to support that investment with their own financial contributions and translate the funding into key results for parents, including $10-a-day fees, thousands of new spaces, and a system that works for parents across income levels and communities. Ultimately, funding alone isn’t the successful outcome; affordable spaces are.

Therefore, Canada’s governments must honour the original promise of $10-a-day child care, and now the federal funding increase gives them an opportunity to finish the job. A lot has already been achieved: parents are saving thousands of dollars and the program has changed affordability dramatically. But five years is long enough to stop treating $10-a-day as an aspiration.

Ottawa has increased the investment. Now every province and territory needs to deliver the child care spaces and affordability parents were originally promised.

David Macdonald is a senior economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, specializing in Canadian public policy and fiscal analysis.