Parkland report highlights challenges of new child care plan

By Sam Leishman - Lethbridge Herald Local Journalism Initiative Reporter on February 7, 2025.

The Parkland Institute is offering some solutions to a number of glaring challenges it sees in Alberta’s new child care plan.
It was announced by the UCP government on Jan. 30 that parents with children from newborn to kindergarten age will start paying a flat fee of $326.25 per child per month for full-time care at licensed facilities, or $230 for part-time care, starting Apr. 1. This $15 per day universal system aligns the province with the federal government’s $3.8-billion Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care Agreement.
The Parkland Institute is a non-partisan, Alberta-wide research centre that focuses its efforts on economic, social, cultural and political issues. It released a new report just one day after the child care announcement, in which Susan Cake, the report’s author and chair of the Child Care Now Alberta advocacy group, examines problems within the new plan regarding affordability, accessibility and quality care.
Cake outlines several key areas for improvement in the report, entitled Raising Alberta: Making $10-a-Day Child Care Work in Our Province.
Funding and affordability are chief among Cake’s concerns. She explains that the federal government is currently the main funder of Alberta’s child care system, so she would like to see the provincial government step up to become at least a 50-50 funding partner in order to better support care providers. Cake also recommends scrapping the proposed cost control framework, which would have parents paying more for enhanced services like sending their kids on field trips, for example.
“Alberta’s child care bills could look similar to our utility bills where we have the set fee and then we have a lot of extra add-ons,” Cake said during a webinar about her report Thursday. “The actual cost of care isn’t represented in what is included in the $15 a day average.”
Cake argues that a fee cap and sliding scale approach would be more widely beneficial, but particularly for low-income families that aren’t able to afford more than basic services.
Enhancing workplace supports to attract and retain Early Childhood Educators (ECE), and mandating a curriculum that would allow for effective structure and training are also top priorities. According to Cake, a wage grid, pension and healthcare benefits for ECEs would be a good starting point.
“We really need this workforce to grow if we want the system to grow. It won’t happen without them.”
While Alberta already has a child care curriculum framework called Flight, Cake says providers are not required to use it. She points out that other provinces have enforced early learning curriculums that are similar to those used in public schools, with some added flexibility to ensure high quality care.
Finally, Cake is encouraging the Alberta government to find a way to connect parents with the child care system more effectively. She offers the idea of an online database that would allow families to immediately find vacancies in their area instead of having to call around to individual facilities, and learn how quality is measured at each facility.
“A universal system is not bad, but treating everybody the same isn’t necessarily how we have to do that,” Cake says. She adds that there are plenty of viable options to correct how child care will be handled in Alberta.
Cake’s full report is available on the Parkland Institute website.

2
-1