Jan 26, UPDATE: The Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care, Association of Early Childhood Educators Ontario and Ontario Campaign 2000 have written to the Ministry of Education to express our support the Shared Framework and to ask Ontario to take the .
We are excited to share an important new document, a Shared Framework for Building an Early Childhood Education and Care System for All.
The Shared Framework outlines three core elements:
- Common federal, provincial and territorial frameworks
- A plan for long term sustained funding
- System-building shared by federal, provincial/territorial governments and key stakeholders.
The Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care worked with our federal counterpart, the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada, and with many others from across Canada to help develop this Shared Framework. We did so in response to the new federal government’s commitment to develop a National Early Learning and Child Care Framework in collaboration with provinces, territories and Indigenous communities. The main national organizations driving the development of this Shared Framework initiative are the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada (CCAAC), the Canadian Child Care Federation (CCCF), the Childcare Resource and Research Unit (CRRU) and Campaign 2000, with significant input from Indigenous representatives, policy researchers, early childhood providers and educators, along with many others.
We began this collaborative process in the lead up to ChildCare2020, the 2014 national policy conference that brought together more than 600 childcare policy experts, educators, parents, Indigenous community representatives, union representatives, economists, advocates against child and family poverty and others. The conference adopted a “shared vision” for early childhood education and child care. This Shared Framework builds on that vision.
The Shared Framework has now been delivered to key decision-makers responsible for ECEC: federal Ministers Jean-Yves Duclos (Children, Families and Social Development) and Carolyn Bennett (Indigenous and Northern Affairs), to their provincial/territorial Minister counterparts, to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and all Premiers. Representatives from the CCAAC, CCCF, CRRU and Campaign 2000 met with Minister Duclos on January 15th to present and discuss the Shared Framework.
We believe that broad support for the Shared Framework is critical at this time to ensure that our vision of ECEC moves forward. At the same time, there is an urgent need to reach out to elected representatives quickly on this issue: we expect the federal government will convene a federal/provincial/territorial meeting on an Early Learning and Child Care Framework very soon to meet the Liberal election promise to do so within 100 days of forming government.
We recognize that getting governments to adopt our Framework is only a first step to building the ECEC system that Canada needs. However, it will help ensure that governments get it right from the start. It sets the groundwork for an equitable, universal, high quality, inclusive ECEC system—something that is not only possible but a necessity for Canada.