FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 21, 2025

“The federal auditor general’s report on the failures of the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care (CWELCC) program are no surprise. Despite throwing $35 billion toward it, the creation of child care spaces remains woefully short of government targets. Those spaces are often out of reach for lower income and vulnerable families. In fact, the report highlights that more families had difficulty finding care in 2023 than they did in 2020, before the CWELCC program was implemented. Meanwhile, the auditor general also notes that government follow-up and evaluation of CWELCC spending effectiveness is stuck years behind schedule.

These findings are in line with Cardus’s 13 previous reports on provincial and territorial implementation of CWELCC. The fact is, most Canadian families with young children do not benefit from the fatally flawed CWELCC program. More money will not fix the problem. The federal government could help many more families afford the diverse forms of child care they use simply by improving the Canada Child Benefit and the Child Care Expenses Deduction, targeting the most help to families with lower incomes.”

• Peter Jon Mitchell, Family Program Director at Cardus

MEDIA INQUIRIES
Daniel Proussalidis
Cardus – Director of Media & Public Relations
dproussalidis@cardus.ca
613-241-4500 x508