The Unseen Casualties of Canada’s Child Care Revolution

The federal government’s $10-a-day child-care program has been touted as a game-changer for working parents, promising to make affordable care a reality across the country. However, as it rolls out in provinces and territories, a disturbing trend is emerging: home-based daycares are being squeezed out of business.

At first glance, this seems counterintuitive. Home child-care providers like Linda Herbert Gilmet, who has 34 years of experience caring for children, have invested heavily in their businesses, only to see them hemorrhage money. They cannot compete with the deep pockets of larger centres offering free months of care and gift cards to attract clients.

The decline of home child-care is not just a symptom of the $10-a-day program; it’s a long-term trend that predates this initiative. According to data collected by the Childcare Resource and Research Unit of Canada, home-based care has been steadily shrinking as a proportion of total daycare spaces since 2010.

One factor contributing to this shift is changing employment patterns among women. As Gordon Cleveland, an associate professor of economics at the University of Toronto’s Scarborough campus, notes, jobs outside of the child-care sector now offer much higher wages and better working conditions than they did a few decades ago. This has led to a decline in the number of women choosing to stay home and care for their own children – or those of neighbors.

The result is a perfect storm: home child-care providers are struggling to make ends meet, while parents continue to prefer centre-based care for its perceived stability and resources. Centres can operate even when staff leave; home providers, on the other hand, often rely on just one person.

This has significant implications for families that depend on these small-scale caregivers. If dayhomes shut their doors en masse – and it seems increasingly likely that they will – parents will be left scrambling to find alternative care options. Those with means may opt for private centres or nannies; others will be forced onto waiting lists or into precarious, unlicensed arrangements.

The government’s child-care program may have started with good intentions, but it needs to rethink its approach before it’s too late. By prioritizing centre-based care and pushing home providers out of business, we risk losing a vital lifeline for families who can’t afford – or don’t want – the shiny new centres that are so appealing to policy-makers.

The question now is: what happens next? Will the government continue down this path, sacrificing home child-care on the altar of centre-based care? Or will it take a step back and recognize the value of these small-scale caregivers, who provide personalized attention and a sense of community that larger centres can’t match?

For Linda Herbert Gilmet, the answer lies in her own financial struggles. “These are also the years that I’m madly saving for my retirement,” she says. “How can you do that?” The human cost of this policy experiment gone wrong is stark indeed.