The Canadian Child Care Experiment
By 
Rachel Cohen on an experiment up north that we should pay a lot of attention to:
A massive social policy experiment is unfolding in Canada to provide families throughout the country with child care for an average of $10 a day. The plan, which was introduced in 2021 amid the turmoil of the pandemic, aims to spend up to 30 billion Canadian dollars by 2026 to bring down child-care costs for parents and to create 250,000 new slots.
The federally backed effort brings Canada’s safety net closer to that of other Western democracies that have stepped up on child care, including Finland, Sweden, France, Germany, and Australia — and it could prove an inspiration to other countries whose systems still lag, like the United States.
Almost three years in, Canadian families are already seeing a significant drop in price, paying hundreds of dollars less for care each month than they were prior to 2021. Canada is making “solid progress in offering more affordable child care,” concluded a think tank report issued in October. Five of Canada’s 13 provinces and territories have already reached the $10-a-day child-care goal ahead of schedule, while others have reduced their fees by over 50 percent. ($10 in Canadian currency is roughly $7.50 in US dollars.)
In addition to reducing costs for parents, the plan has created about 52,000 new child-care spots, and in some provinces, like Nova Scotia, federal funding has helped boost the wages of early-childhood educators.
“This is social infrastructure that will drive jobs and growth,” Canada’s deputy prime minister, Chrystia Freeland, said of the policy in a 2021 budget speech. “This is feminist economic policy. This is smart economic policy.”
Canada is a less populous country than the United States (about 40 million people to the US’s 340 million), and while it has never previously had a national child-care policy, it has long embraced a more sturdy safety net than the US, providing its citizens with universal health care and annual family allowances to parents. Moreover, Canada provides parents who want to stay home with their infants partial paid leave for up to 18 months.
These things are obviously impossible here in the Greatest Nation in Human History, said by people who have never been to another country. There’s a lot to chew on this in this article, from how it was grassroots pressure that created that program to how Canada’s greater tolerance for immigrants helps it along too. But hey, at least we have uncontrolled access to AR-15s!