To finally make a national child-care program a reality, Ottawa would need to budget between $7 billion and $9 billion a year. Since child care is a provincial jurisdiction, it’s important to explicitly consider the scale of federal fiscal intervention that would be necessary to incentivize all provinces, including those with low fiscal capacity, to participate.
The Fiscal Rationale for Meaningful Federal Intervention in Child Care
To finally make a national child-care program a reality, Ottawa would need to budget between $7 billion and $9 billion a year. Since child care is a provincial jurisdiction, it’s important to explicitly consider the scale of federal fiscal intervention that would be necessary to incentivize all provinces, including those with low fiscal capacity, to participate.