Latest News & Stories

Excerpt: "Finding quality and affordable child care can be a challenge for families in some communities due to long waitlists for subsidies and spaces. The government is helping 100,000 more children access affordable, quality licensed child care to give them the best start in life and support families across Ontario. As a first step, the Province invested an additional $65.5 million to help create 3,400 licensed child care spaces in fall 2016."

Excerpt: "In 2017-18, the department will introduce play-based pre-primary programming in a number of schools across Nova Scotia. This program will be available to 4 year olds the year before they enter school and will provide them with access to high-quality early learning programs based on Nova Scotia's first ever Early Learning Curriculum Framework."

Excerpt: "Budget 2017 also makes significant investments in the Department of Families, increasing its budget by more than $105 million, a 5.4 per cent increase over last year."

Excerpt: "The government is committed to addressing these challenges by increasing access to licensed child care and by making it more affordable for families: 24,000 more children up to four years old will have access to child care in 2017-18. This is part of the province's plan to help 100,000 kids access child care over five years, as announced in the 2016 Ontario Speech from the Throne; Parents will receive more financial support to increase affordability, including subsidies for approximately 60 per cent of new child care spaces."

Excerpt: "An additional $5.4 million dedicated to the education of Island children and youth. As a result, the total Budget of the Department of Education, Early Learning and Culture will be $256 million - an all-time high."

Excerpt: "The provincial government is investing $1 million to support the Early Learning and Child Care Trust Fund."

Excerpt: "This Research Bulletin is an affront to the standards promised by the Fraser Institute’s website, according to which “careful, accurate and rigorous measurement” is the foundation for its work, and the source of its data is “always provided.” The twelve arguments made in support of its view that Quebec’s childcare program is “flawed” do not hold water. Measurement is often careless, inaccurate, negligent, absent or mathematically absurd. Many sources are anachronistic, contrarian or unrelated to the argument, irrelevant, misinterpreted or missing. Simple correlations are fallaciously taken as identifiers of cause and effect.

All in all, an intellectual disaster."

Excerpt: "Ontario is also investing in smaller class sizes for students in full-day kindergarten (FDK) and Grades 4-8. FDK classes, which are supported by a teacher and an early childhood educator, will now be capped at 30 students next school year, falling to 29 students in 2018-19, and average no more than 26 students per class within each school board. Support will also be provided to ensure that for students in grades 4-8, all school boards have average class sizes of 24.5 or fewer students."

$2 million to be added to the base amount of $12.5 million to broaden the eligibility for the Child Care Subsidy Program, which will reduce costs for low to middle income families; $1.3 million increase to the Early Learning and Child Care Supplement; Over $13 million annually for full-day Kindergarten across the province.

Excerpt: "Indicative of our Government's commitment to early learning and child care, we will increase child care subsidies available to low income families throughout the province by increasing the income threshold eligibility requirement. Our Government will also look to increase the Early Learning and Child Care Supplement for qualifying early childhood educators."

Excerpt: "In order to enhance support for Québec families, the Québec Economic Plan provides for an additional investment of close to $130 million over six years for family services. $20 million will be allocated to the Ministère de la Famille for 2016-2017 to provide community-based financial assistance, including $10 million, which will be drawn from available budget funds over the year. Funding of $7.4 million will also be granted to the Ministère de la Famille for 2016-2017. These sums will be drawn directly from availabilities during the year. Further more, additional appropriations of $20 million per year for the period from 2017-2018 to 2021-2022 will be granted to the Ministère de la Famille."

Excerpt: "The headlines scream $7-billion for child care but dial back the enthusiasm. New funding creeps up from $500-million this year to $550-million a year over the next five years. It is not until post-election and another five years before annual funding tops out in 2028 at $870-million. Over a decade ago Paul Martin Liberals came out of the gate with $1-billion a year over 5 years and a plan that continued to shape provincial child care services long after the Harper government extinguished the money."