Cost of child care up by 20% in some cities since 2014, report finds
Median cost for infant care in Toronto is $1,758 a month

CBC.ca and GlobalNews.ca
Dec 12, 2017

The cost of child care is rising quickly in Canada, in some cities increasing by as much as 20 per cent from three years ago and more than 10 per cent in most of Canada.

That's one of the main takeaways from the fourth annual report on the topic from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, which has studied the issue every year since 2014.

To crunch the numbers, researchers from the CCPA included information from regulated full-day licensed child-care centres and licensed child-care homes in 28 markets across Canada, based on fees that were in place between June and October of this year.

The results were eye opening.

Fees rise faster than inflation
Fees have risen faster than inflation in 71 per cent of markets compared to last year, and, as in each of the group's previous reports, the gap in price is widening between cities where child care is cheap and cities where it is expensive.

"Child-care fees in most of Canada are still outpacing inflation, and for many they were too expensive to begin with," CCPA senior economist David Macdonald said.

Three provinces — Quebec, Manitoba and PEI — regulate maximum prices for child care, and prices in cities in all three of those markets tend to be lower. Quebec's fees are the same regardless of how old the child is, while the other two charge more for infants and toddlers — as is the case elsewhere.

In report defines an infant as a child up to the age of two. Parents in Toronto pay more than anyone else in the country, on average, to look after their infants, with the average cost coming in at $1,758 a month. That's $21,096 a year.

 

"A young middle-income family living in Toronto with an infant and a three-year-old would be faced with a monthly bill of almost $3,000 (or $36,000 a year) for regulated child care," the paper said, and that's "if they were able to find a space."

Fees for other age groups also rose, but aren't quite as high. Toddlers, who are between about 18 months and three years old, generally cost less in terms of care. But there again, Toronto led the way with a median price of $1,354 for full-day care.

Vancouver came next at $1,292, followed by its suburbs Richmond and Burnaby, and then Toronto-area markets Mississauga, Vaughan and Brampton, where monthly costs all top $1,100 a month.

That compares with Montreal, where monthly child care can be had via a government-regulated program for just $168 a month.

Since 2014, the CCPA report calculates that preschool child-care costs have increased by 21 per cent in Toronto, by 19 per cent in Edmonton, by nine per cent in Vancouver and by six per cent in Ottawa.

In virtually every city, the median price for preschool increased last year, or stayed the same. Only in three places — St John's, Burnaby, B.C., and Calgary — did the cost decrease.

Aside from costs, finding a spot is no easy feat, as wait lists are "almost universal " in big cities, and prevalent in almost three-quarters of all markets included in the report.

No wait-list fees in Ontario

Wait-list fees, however — where a child-minding service will charge money just to put you on the wait list — are on the decline. The government of Ontario outlawed such fees last year, but they are still prevalent in many cities in British Columbia and Alberta.

Almost one in five child care programs in Vancouver charge a wait-list fee, and almost three out of 10 in Calgary do, the CCPA found.

The research was done as increases in minimum wage by provinces, including B.C., Ontario and Alberta, are set to have a direct impact on child-care fees.