Today in Vancouver, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, the Honourable Chrystia Freeland, highlighted how the new Early Learning and Child Care Infrastructure Fund, first announced by the Prime Minister on June 28, 2023, will help public and not-for-profit child care providers deliver affordable child care for families by funding the cost of building more child care spaces.
As the federal government works towards making $10-a-day child care a reality for families across the country, it is creating an additional 250,000 child care spaces through existing agreements with provinces and territories. The new Fund will provide an additional $625 million to provinces and territories to create child care spaces in communities that currently do not have enough of them.
British Columbia is working towards reducing fees to an average of $10-a-day by 2026, and has already reduced fees for licensed child care spaces by 50 per cent on average-saving families an average of $6,600 this year.
The federal government's plan is putting thousands of dollars back into the pockets of hardworking families, while also helping parents-particularly mothers-rejoin the workforce and grow our economy. As of May 2023, Canada's labour force participation rate for women in their prime working years was a near-record high of 85.4 per cent-compared to 77.6 per cent in the United States.
