Many Alberta daycares concerned about $10-a-day program as re-signing deadline looms

With just over a week before the deadline to re-sign with the latest phase of the Alberta Affordability Grant for childcare agreement – better known as the national $10-a-day daycare – operators say their concerns are not being heard and that they are not necessarily unique to Alberta.

The program is a joint arrangement between the federal and provincial governments and is targeting $10-a-day daycare by 2026, dependent on family incomes and other factors.

As of January 1, grants to operators increased per-space which means parents pay less, however, under the funding model in Alberta operators are paying the costs upfront and reimbursement can take up to 45 days, according to the Association of Alberta Childcare Entrepreneurs.

However, the province said that on average, it takes five to 10 business days for claims to be processed.

Operators have until Jan. 31 to re-sign but some have considered opting out of the program which would result in parents' costs skyrocketing come next month.

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Krystal Churcher, with the Association of Alberta Childcare Entrepreneurs, said most are re-signing because they feel like their hands are tied.

“I think people are signing under duress, we don’t have a choice. We either opt out of this program and lose access to all of our subsidies,” she said, in reference to wage top-ups for staff, subsidies for low-income families and the affordability grant for all families.

“It puts operators in a position where they really are going to have to choose to not really be able to support their staff in their centre and any of the families, especially the low-income families in the programs, and that’s a really hard decision to make.”

Churcher said daycares that do re-sign will be forced to make cuts to the programs they offer.

“There’s just not enough money on the table to continue the level of quality we’ve had in our mixed market system in Alberta for the past decades,” she said.

“We won’t be able to support having extra staff on the floor supporting students with high needs. We’re going to see meal services cut back, we’ll see extra programs, like you know, maybe music and a second language, those types of programs definitely cut back.”

The province said a “vast majority of child-care operators have signed” up for the agreement for another year, but final numbers will not be known until after the Jan. 31 deadline.

“We continue to look for opportunities to streamline and improve payment processes,” Ashli Barrett, a press secretary from the Office of the Minister of Children and Family Services, said in an emailed statement Monday.

“The current Affordability Grant structure is an interim measure and will be replaced by a new funding formula and streamlined processes that will determine how funding is allocated and the timing of disbursements to operators.”

The provincial government has launched a survey to get feedback from parents and operators which Churcher said is well intended but lacks transparency.

“It’s really got nothing to do with the current interim agreement on that table, it’s for the next phase that we’re going to be seeing rollout in the next 12 to 15 months,” she said.

Calgary Liberal MP George Chahal said Monday that the provincial government needs to provide the appropriate funding in a timely fashion.

“Provincial governments need to step up here. In the province of Alberta, we have billions of dollars of surplus, and we need to have funding go (to) those operators so they’re paid in a timely fashion so families get the benefits of $10-a-day childcare.

Child-care concerns across Canada

The Association of Alberta Childcare Entrepreneurs represents some 20,000 daycares and is now launching a national campaign with their provincial counterparts to address the challenges of the national program.

“It’s absolutely a Canada-wide issue,” Churcher said. “We’ve heard from operators in Manitoba, we’ve heard from operations in B.C., Ontario and the Maritimes.”

In a news release Monday, the AACE said while it “wholeheartedly” supports the goal of affordable child care, it is seeking a dialogue to explore a more sustainable system.

It suggests that more daycares choosing to leave the program will affect the choice and quality of child care in the province and hurt small business owners in the child-care industry.

Ontario’s biggest childcare operator warns that some centres are at risk of closing if issues are not addressed.

“We have experienced across the country centres having to temporarily close because of a lack of staff, especially in rural areas,” Jessica Lue, the vice president of government relations and advocacy at YMCA Canada, said.

YMCA Canada provides childcare to 60,000 children across the country and has more than 10,000 employees.

While the YMCA supports an affordable and accessible childcare system in Canada, they say the program’s funding model does not reflect the true cost of delivering high-quality childcare.

“The true cost would constitute a full spectrum of operational costs such as program administration, human resource costs, capital. We are experiencing ourselves pressure due to inflation, so we’re seeing costs rise significantly across the board from food to utility, to insurance,” she said.

Lue said Canada is also facing a workforce shortage for early child-care operators and support staff which needs to be a priority for all levels of government.

“If we increase affordability, which we are doing, we need to increase accessibility at the same time and that would require the workforce in order to open spaces or meet licensed capacity today or add new spaces in the future,” she said.

Then, as well, we need to make sure that the funding is there that reflects the trust cost of delivering so that operators are able to continue to provide that vital care in communities.”