Today, Minister of Middle Class Prosperity and Associate Minister of Finance, the Honourable Mona Fortier, began her tour to discuss Budget 2021: A Recovery Plan for Jobs, Growth, and Resilience by meeting virtually with members of the Windsor-Essex Regional Chamber of Commerce.
Budget 2021 is an historic investment to address the specific wounds of the COVID-19 recession, put people first, create jobs, grow the middle class, set businesses on a track for long-term growth, and ensure that Canada's future will be healthier, more equitable, greener, and more prosperous.
The government is making a generational investment to build a Canada-wide early learning and child care system. This is a bold, feminist policy. It is a plan to drive economic growth, a plan to secure women's place in the workforce, and a plan to offer each and every child in Canada the best start in life. This plan will aim to reduce fees for parents by 50 per cent on average by 2022, with a goal of reaching $10 per day on average by 2026, everywhere outside of Quebec. Budget 2021 will invest almost $30 billion over the next five years, working with provincial, territorial and Indigenous partners to prioritize quality, not-for-profit child care, and ensuring the needs of early childhood educators are at the heart of the system. Combined with previous investments, a minimum of $9.2 billion per year ongoing will be invested in child care, starting in 2025-26.
The past thirteen months have shown that child care is not only a social issue but also an urgent economic issue. Without it, parents - usually mothers - can't work. Early learning and child care is the national economic policy Canadians need now.
Early learning and child care will increase our workforce and boost growth, creating jobs for mostly women childcare workers, and helping to raise a smarter, better educated next generation.
Quotes
"A Canada-wide early learning and child care plan is a plan to drive economic growth, a plan to secure women's place in the workforce, and a plan to give every Canadian child the same head start. It is a plan to build an economy that is more productive, more competitive, and more dynamic. It is a plan to grow the middle class and help people working hard to join it."
Minister of Middle Class Prosperity and Associate Minister of Finance, the Honourable Mona Fortier
"Families in Windsor-Tecumseh pay on average of almost $900 per month on child care fees. Our government has a plan to lower costs, to ensure that families have more money in their pockets at the end of each month, and more parents - especially mothers, have the opportunity to participate in the workforce. This is a once-in-a-generation transformation with the goal of setting families on the right foundation for success"
Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion, Irek Kusmierczyk
Quick facts
-
The high cost of child care-in some urban centres fees for one child can be as much as rent or mortgage payments. In Windsor, the average family pays about $868 per month to cover these costs.
-
TD Economics has pointed to a range of studies that have shown that for every dollar spent on early childhood education, the broader economy receives between $1.50 and $2.80 in return.
-
An early learning and child care system will enable over 240,000 workers to enter the labor force, driving economic growth and raising GDP as much as 1.2 per cent over the next two decades.
