Child-care deserts in Canada affecting nearly 50 per cent of younger children: report

Despite federal plans to lower the cost of day-care services, one report finds it doesn’t address the lack of child-care spaces across Canada, as nearly half of younger children do not have access to services.

A new report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) is highlighting a lack of child-care spaces in Canada and how it's affecting families with children of various societal backgrounds.

The report, released on Tuesday, found that of the 1.97 million children in Canada under the age of eligibility to enter kindergarten, 946,000 of them are living in child-care deserts.

The CCPA estimates there are 759,000 full-time licensed child-spaces in the country, however for each postal code there are at least three children competing for a single spot; roughly 48 per cent have access challenges.

Among the most impacted provinces, 92 per cent of Saskatchewan's younger children are living in child-care deserts, followed by 79 per cent in Newfoundland and 76 per cent in British Columbia.

Prince Edward Island only had one child-care desert in the whole province—the least in Canada—with four per cent of younger children living in one postal code struggling to access care. Eleven per cent of Quebec’s younger children are living in child-care deserts, while New Brunswick totalled 29 per cent, according to the report.

While the report doesn't explain why certain regions have more child-care deserts than others, it did find it's most often rural areas that are more likely to have child-care deserts in comparison to urban areas with a population of over 100,000 people.

Finding infant care is especially difficult, the report found, as it estimates only eight out of 50 major Canadian cities meet the standard 33 per cent coverage rate of full-time licensed services for each child. These cities are all in Quebec including Montreal, Laval and Quebec City. Most of the other Canadian cities have at least five infants competing for a single licensed spot, however the worst ranked cities reported less than one licensed spot for every 10 infants; these cities included Saskatoon, Sask., St. John's. N.L., and Brampton, Ont.