Trudeau announces $37B in child care deals with 11 provinces and territories

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government has signed agreements totalling almost $37 billion over five years with 11 provinces and territories that will extend the federal child care space program until 2031.

With just days to go before he leaves office, Trudeau said Thursday that these deals will ensure the long-term viability of one of his government's flagship policies. 

Becoming visibly emotional as he reflected on his legacy, Trudeau said that he has worked every day to ensure he is putting Canadians first and child care has been one of the ways he has done that.

"I am here to tell you all that: we got you," Trudeau said. "Even in the very last days of this government, we will not let Canadians down today and long into the future."

"In the past few weeks, we have been working with our provincial and territorial partners to make sure that families can rely on this system, not just for years to come, but will allow this to lock in, to become something that no government, a year from now, five years from now, 20 years from now, could ever go back on," the prime minister said in Ottawa on Thursday.

Trudeau said that while any government can undo the work of a previous government, Canadians can ensure child care survives if they are "very clear on the need to keep this going."

Describing child care a "national building" program, Trudeau said the funding announced Thursday will "make sure that more Canadians over the coming years understand that child care is a foundational building block of what it means to be Canadian, like health care, social programs or cheering at a Canadian anthem."  

Trudeau said that the five-year deals that start in 2026-27 will not only help fund child care in participating provinces until 2031, but they will also increase the base funding by three per cent, per year, for four years starting in 2027-28 in order to to make sure that the program can keep pace with rising costs. 

Ottawa has not managed to reach an agreement with Alberta and Saskatchewan. CBC is not aware of what these Western provinces were offered. 

This is how the $36.8 billion will be distributed: 

• Quebec: $9.83 billion.
• British Columbia: $5.38 billion.
• Manitoba: $1.9 billion.
• Nova Scotia: $1.05 billion.
• New Brunswick: $876 million.
• Newfoundland and Labrador: $503 million. 
• Prince Edward Island: $199 million.
• Nunavut: $109 million.
• Northwest Territories: $80 million.
• Yukon: $74 million.
• Ontario: $16.77 billion.

Discussions between the Trudeau government and the two provinces that have not signed an agreement are continuing.

In 2021, the federal government announced a $30 billion, five-year child-care plan to create 250,000 new affordable child care spaces. It said the plan would cut the costs of those spaces to $10 a day by 2025-26, when the federal government began providing a minimum of $9.2 billion annually for the program.

Radio-Canada has previously revealed that the labour shortage, inflation and the complexity of the program have since complicated the realization of that promise.

On Thursday, Trudeau said that while the program has been slow to meet its goal, since its inception, 150,000 new child care spaces have been "created or funded" and that this additional money would create the remaining spaces by this time next year. 

Pierre Poilievre's Conservative Party voted for the legislation that created the program, but he is promising changes if he takes power to end the "chaos" in child care.

Former central banker Mark Carney, seen as the front-runner in the Liberal leadership race, has promised not to cut federal transfers to provinces and individuals.

In the 2021 budget, the federal government said that of the $30 billion promised, $27.2 billion will be used to "bring the federal government to a 50/50 share of child care costs with provincial and territorial governments." 

As part of the agreements struck with the provinces, the Liberal government paid $6 billion to Quebec, which already had its own child care program. Under the deal Quebec chose where that funding went.