A major boost for childcare in the federal budget.
The new plan would be rolled out over five years, with a cost of $30-billion.
It is designed to significantly reduce what parents pay for care in the coming years.
Owner/Operator of Sutherland Childcare Centres Inc. Janice Sutherland says she expected some sort of child care funding, but not this large amount, “They’ve been talking about universal childcare for as long as I’ve been in this sector, which is around 30 years. It has been almost to the point where it was going to happen, but then it was shot down. This is a great day for our sector. We are being recognized as a professions that is essential.”
In New Brunswick, families that earn under $37,000 already receive free child care, but Sutherland says this new federal program will benefit middle income earners.
She says it will also allow more women to return to the workforce, “A lot of families, one of them stays home because they afford to pay child care. So it is going to put them out in the workforce and it’s going to mean quality childcare that they can afford,” Sutherland says.
Premier Blaine Higgs believes this was an election budget from the Trudeau government.
Sutherland says if it was, she hopes if another party is elected that it isn’t just the Liberals who see childcare as essential in our country, to keep people employed and to keep the economy going, “I would have to hope that that wouldn’t happen, because it does keep the economy going as we found out during the pandemic.”
With this $30 billion plan, the federal government hopes to eventually see Canadians eventually paying only $10 a day for daycare. This would apply in all provinces and Territories with the exception of Quebec, because they already have a similar plan in place.
