Child Care Advocacy Organization of Canada 

On this date seven years ago, Stephen Harper axed Canada’s first national child care program, which would have seen $5 billion go towards child care in Canada.

Harper replaced this program with the universal child care benefit, which delivers $100 cheques to families for each child under the age of six.

The cost of the UCCB so far? $15 billion.

How much do taxpayers pay annually for this program? $2.5 billion.

This “benefit” was introduced to support a family’s choice on child care options. This has in no way been helpful in helping families find child care and nothing has been put in place to ensure spaces in child care centres are being filled.

Also, as parent fees continue to rise across Canada, these Cheques do not provide realistic financial support for families as the average child care space in Canada is $700 a month, and some spaces run upwards to $1600 a month.

For more information please refer to:
http://www.ccaac.ca/pdf/media/Feb62013CCAACReleaseF.pdf?

Media

Ottawa Citizen- Column: Not much to show for $100 a month - February 7, 2013