Alberta’s Action Plan for fiscal year 2022 to 2023

Government of Alberta's commitment to child care

Alberta recognizes that accessible, affordable, quality child care is essential to positive early childhood development, labour force participation of parents, promoting women's equality, supporting social integration and inclusion of newcomers, and poverty reduction – all aspects of social and economic growth.

A child's future health, learning, employment, and social well-being is impacted by early childhood experiences. Children who have a strong start in life are more likely to be healthy and engaged learners and citizens, and more likely to become independent, resilient and productive adults.

As Alberta recovers from the pandemic, Alberta's parents need access to high quality, flexible, affordable child care options so they can work and grow our economy knowing their children are also growing and thriving. In short, child care is critical to growing Alberta's future.

The Early Learning and Child Care Act and regulation came into force February 1, 2021, to enshrine quality requirements, increase flexibility, and reduce red tape. One major change in the legislation was to create 1 licence category for facility-based programs, allowing child care operators to care for children between the ages of birth to 12 years old in the same program.

In November 2021, the governments of Alberta and Canada signed the Canada-Alberta Canada-wide Early Learning and Child Care Agreement to increase accessible, affordable and high-quality child care, giving families the choice they need.

Alberta's child care system – Overview

As of March 2022, an estimated 119,426 children were enrolled in 152,226 licensed child care spaces across Alberta in licensed daycares, group family, pre-school, out-of-school care (OSC) programs and family day homes overseen by a licensed agency. There are 2,287 licensed child care programs across the province. Approximately 63,350 children from birth to age 5, attend child care programs full time, and 30,040 children from birth to age 5 attend part time. For children in grade 1 and older, there are approximately 26,000 children who participate in a child care program. All statistics are approximations because Alberta knows that enrollment data may shift month-to-month due to continuous enrollment and growth from the Canada-Alberta Canada-wide Early Learning and Child Care Agreement. More detailed information on the outcomes of the initiatives of this Agreement will be provided through the annual progress report that is required as per the terms of the Canada-Alberta Canada-wide Early Learning and Child Care Agreement.

Approximately 19,756 certified child care staff work in these programs. All staff working directly with children in licensed facility-based child care programs (daycares, OSC programs and preschool programs) must be certified at 1 of 3 levels of certification:

• level 1 Early Childhood Educator (3 credit course in early learning and child care (ELCC) or equivalent; 50 hours of training)
• level 2 Early Childhood Educator (1-year ELCC Certificate or equivalent; 720 hours of training)
• level 3 Early Childhood Educator (2-year ELCC Diploma or equivalent; 1,445 hours of training)

The Government of Alberta supports Alberta's regulated child care system through 2 main programs: the Child Care Subsidy Program and the Affordability Grant.

Child Care Subsidy Program

The Child Care Subsidy Program provides funding to families to offset the cost of child care in licensed child care programs. Of the 119,426 children enrolled in licensed child care in March 2022, the provincial government provides child care subsidies to the parents/guardians of an estimated 55,274 children:

• of those, approximately 72% received full subsidy and 28% a partial subsidy
• families who have children from birth to Kindergarten age earning less than $119,999 per year may be eligible for a full subsidy and those earning less than $179,999 per year may be eligible for a partial subsidy
• families with school-aged children (in Kindergarten full time and grades 1 to 6) earning less than $49,999 per year may be eligible for a full subsidy, and those earning less than $89,999 may be eligible for a partial subsidy

Affordability Grant

Alberta provides an Affordability Grant to all parents of children 0 to Kindergarten age enrolled in a licensed child care program. The Affordability Grant reduces licensed child care fees by an average of 50%, and will reduce the average child care fee to $10/day by fiscal year 2025 to 2026.

Working together

On June 12, 2017, Federal/Provincial/Territorial (FPT) ministers signed the Multilateral Early Learning and Child Care Framework. Alberta's action plan, in full respect of Alberta's roles and responsibilities in this area of provincial jurisdiction, sets out how the federal contributions will be used to advance the principles and objectives outlined in the framework. This aligns with Alberta's priorities and is achieved through Alberta's existing system of programs and services.

In keeping with the principles of the framework, Alberta will use federal investments to support increased affordability and quality of ELCC in Alberta.

Alberta has conducted recent consultations with its stakeholders on exploring opportunities for attraction, growth, and retention of the early childhood educator workforce. During these consultations, stakeholders also shared their support for Alberta's approach to making child care more affordable through continued grants to programs aimed at reducing parent fees.

Priority areas of investment

Affordability, accessibility and flexibility

Child care should be flexible and broadly available to respond to the varying needs of children and families to promote early childhood development.

The Government of Alberta is working to improve access to child care, so that all Albertans have the opportunity to participate in the workforce, and are aware of all possible child care resources available for their families and have opportunities to access it.

Despite overall availability of spaces across the province, some communities in Alberta face shortages of regulated child care spaces, leading to child care "hot spots". These hot spots are identified as child care centres that are at maximum (or over) capacity. Many smaller communities face challenges in providing stable child care options for their residents. Accessibility can be improved by creating child care spaces in areas of geographic need by introducing grants and by creating inclusive child care spaces.

A lack of affordable child care options can be a barrier for many parents, especially for families with low household income. Unaffordable child care has a range of consequences including:

• lost wages for parents who have to work part-time or drop out of the labour market
• lost opportunities to invest in future education as parents are spending most or all of their disposable income on child care; and
• lost provincial income tax revenue as a result of fewer parents working

As child care becomes more affordable in Alberta, the number of children who have access to regulated child care spaces increases due to the elimination of socio-economic barriers. The number of flexible early learning and child care arrangements for harder-to-serve populations of children will increase, and parents who require non-traditional arrangements such as flexible/irregular hours and weekend and emergency services will now have more options to choose from as child care costs decrease.

Alberta will leverage investments under both the Canada-Alberta Early Learning and Child Care Agreement and the Canada-Alberta Canada-wide Early Learning and Child Care Agreement to continue to implement 'affordability' through maintaining an affordability grant, benefitting all Albertan families with children from birth to age 6. As stated in the Canada-Alberta Canada-wide Early Learning and Child Care Agreement as part of the fiscal year 2022 to 2023 action plan, 84,076 Albertan children are to benefit from affordability grants that offset parent fees. Investments from the Canada-Alberta Early Learning and Child Care Agreement will fund affordability grants for an additional 18,500 Alberta children from 19 months to age 3 enrolled in full-time day care, at $510 per month. Investments carried forward from the fiscal year 2021 to 2022 action plan will support child care subsidy for an additional 4,090 lower-income Alberta children from birth to 19 months enrolled in full-time day care, at $266 per month.

In total, funding from the ELCC agreements between Alberta and Canada in fiscal year 2022 to 2023 will support affordability for 106,666 eligible Albertan children (84,076 from the Canada-Alberta Canada-wide Early Learning and Child Care Agreement, and 22,590 from the Canada-Alberta Early Learning and Child Care Agreement). All other Alberta children from birth to age 6 (including Kindergarten children who require care during the day) in related programs will continue to receive funding from the Canada-Alberta Canada-wide Early Learning and Child Care Agreement.